Vichy France (21 page)

⁹
The issue of German contracts with French industry in the occupied zone may be followed in
DFCAA
, I, 118–20, 155–56, 206–24.

¹⁰
DFCAA
, I, 194, 206–24.

¹¹
DFCAA
, I, 207.

¹²
T-120/365/206284;
DFCAA
, II, 380–89. Marshal Pétain’s protest note of 19 November 1940 and its German rejection are published in
DGFP
, XI, nos. 331 and 354, pp. 570, 610. André Lavagne, in
Frocès Pétain
, 310, claimed that ninety-nine protests on Alsace-Lorraine were eventually issued. German intelligence reports on opinion among the refugees are in OKW. Abteilung für Wehrmacht-Propaganda. “Geheime-Akten über fremde Staaten: Frankreich” (T-77/OKW-1605). The best brief treatment of German policy toward Brittany is Eberhard Jäckel,
La France dans l’Europe de Hitler
(Paris, 1968), 74–78. For the Flemish movement, see E. Dejonghe, “Un mouvement séparatiste dans le Nord et le Pas-de-Calais sous l’occupation, 1940–44,”
Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine
XVII:1 (January–March 1970).

¹³
DFCAA
, I, 170.

¹⁴
John Cairns, “Great Britain and the Fall of France. A Study in Allied Disunity,”
Journal of Modern History
XXVII:4 (December 1955).

¹⁵
P. M. H. Bell, “Prologue à Mers-el-Kebir,”
Revue d’histoire de la deuxième querre mondiale
, no. 33 (January 1959). French fury was increased by Admiral Gensoul’s failure to send the full text of the British ultimatum, which included the option of sending the French fleet to French bases in the Caribbean. It was another Ems telegram. Contemporary sources for the planned attack on Alexandria are published in
DFCAA
, V, 440–44; orders for the attack on Sierra Leone are found in
Ministère public c/Weygand
, 25, and
Ministère public c/Rivière.
I. S. O. Playfair,
The War in the Mediterranean
(London, 1954), I, 142–43, describes the Gibraltar air raid, which a reader of Baudouin,
Neuf mois
, would assume had been put off indefinitely.

¹⁶
La République
, 17 October 1938;
L’Oeuvre
, 15 December 1938. Pierre Dominique subsequently directed the Vichy press service, the Office français d’information (OFI), from 1941 to 1943. Advocates of the
repli impérial
seem to have been strongest in the right wing of the Radical party and among far-right journalists. See also P.-A. Cousteau in
Je Suis Partout
, 11 November 1938, and Paul Marion in Doriot’s
La Liberté
, 10 November 1938. Prime Minister Daladier’s son Jean organized a “Youth for the French Empire” group in this period. I am indebted to Dr. Benton Stark for these references.

¹⁷
Deutsche Waffenstillstandskommission, Wiesbaden/Chefgruppe Ia, Nr. 21/40 g.Kdos. to OKW/Abt. L., 17 July 1940 (T-77/OKW-1347/5, 573, 576–80) forwards a German translation to Berlin.

¹⁸
General Weygand,
Mémoires
, III,
Rappelé au service
(Paris, 1950), 317 ff. repeats the arguments Weygand used at his trial. Guy Raïssac,
Combat sans merci
(Paris, 1966), and Philip Bankwitz,
Maxime Weygand and Civil-Military Relations in Modern France
(Cambridge, Mass., 1967), essentially accept this perspective.

¹⁹
The German Armistice Commission reported to Berlin on 10 July 1940 that French policy appeared to be “strict literal interpretation of the armistice” (T-120/365/206231–34). General Halder observed that the French had turned in more guns than the Germans knew they had (Halder, “Diary,” 10 October 1940). The rather legalistic negotiations over application of the terms at Wiesbaden may be followed in
DFCAA
or in T-120, Serials 365, 368, and 378, Büro des Staatssekretärs, “Akten betreffend Friedensverhandlungen mit Frankreich,” 1–111.

²⁰
This capital document is omitted from
DFCAA.
See Délégation française auprès de la Commission allemande de l’armistice pour l’économie, “Comptes rendus,” 7 July 1940, at the Bibliothèque de documentation internationale et contemporaine, Paris.

²¹
Stohrer (Madrid) 2295 to Berlin, 9 July 1940 (T-120/121/119698–99). Gaston Bergery said at his trial that Pétain had asked him in July 1940 to establish contact with Germany. Alfred Mallet,
Pierre Laval
(Paris, 1954), I, 217 n.

²²
DFCAA
, V, 463, 469. The text of Pétain’s reply is also printed in Yves Bouthillier,
Le Drame de Vichy
, vol. I, 289–91. Georges Blond,
Pétain
(Paris, 1966), errs in saying that the appeal for wider negotiations, present in Jacques Guérard’s draft of July 17, was omitted in the final draft.

²³
Pétain et les allemands. Mémorandum d’Abetz sur les rapports franco-allemands
(Paris, 1948), 13. The telegrams published in this book may all be verified in the German archives, but Abetz’ own observations date from 1943.

²⁴
T-120/F1/0366–67; Woermann (1147) to Madrid, 26 July 1940 (T-120/121/119759). See also
DGFP
, X, no. 208, 274–75.

²⁵
DFCAA
, I, 139; Hencke (Wiesbaden) no. 119 to Berlin, 8 August 1940 (T-120/363/206498). A letter of 4 August 1940 from Baudouin to Ribbentrop requesting an “audience” and regular contacts between the two foreign ministers was perhaps not sent, as Baudouin claimed in his trial (
Ministère Public c/Baudouin
, 107), but it is certainly in the spirit of his government’s policy at that time.

²⁶
Geoffrey Warner,
Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France
(London, 1968), 148, 156, shows that Laval exaggerated the credit he enjoyed with Mussolini by spring 1940.

²⁷
Schleier (Paris) 270 to Berlin, 25 July 1940 (T-120/121/119751); Abetz (Paris) 128 to Ribbentrop, 14 July 1940 (T-120/121/119723);
Les Procès de la collaboration: Brinon, Darnand, Luchaire
(Paris, 1948), 87–89, 370–73. Pierre Cathala,
Face aux realités
(Paris, 1948), 113 ff, is diametrically wrong in saying that the Germans sought out Laval. For the Laval-Murphy conversation,
FRUS
, 1940, II, 377–79.

²⁸
DGFP
, XI, no. 531.

²⁹
Abetz (Paris) 356 to Ribbentrop, 10 August 1940 (T-120/121/119795–96);
Les Procès de la collaboration
, 87–89, 370–73; Abetz (Paris) 475 to Ribbentrop of 30 August 1940 (T-120/121/119833), also published in
DGFP
, X, no. 411, p. 580. Laval-Grimm conversation, T-120/2624/D525934–47.

³⁰
T-120/3485H/E019467–68.

³¹
Hemmen memorandum of 2 August 1940 (T-120/3527H/E021556).

³²
Abetz (Paris) 356 to Ribbentrop, 10 August 1940 (T-120/121/119795–96). German archives do not, however, support Baudouin’s contention (
Neuf mois
, 325) that Laval promised General von Brauchitsch on August 28 that France would go to war against England. Abetz (Paris) 475 to Ribbentrop 30 August 1940 (T-120/121/119833).

³³
Paul Baudouin,
Neuf mois au gouvernement
(Paris, 1948), 258, 325; Yves Bouthillier,
Le Drame de l’armistice
(Paris, 1951), I, 171, 196.

³⁴
Abetz memorandum, “Aufzeichnung über politische Besprechungen in der Zeit vom. 6. bis 15. September 1940” (T-120/364/206021–30).

³⁵
For German designs on French Equatorial Africa, see
DGFP
, XI, no. 298, p. 483. France was not intended to belong to the “Greater European Economic Sphere,” according to the plans for a “weakened” France outlined in a Foreign Office dossier on the
Grosswirtschaftsraum
(T-120, Serial 830). German intentions toward France are discussed most fully in Eberhard Jäckel,
La France dans l’Europe de Hitler
(Paris, 1968).

³⁶
Robert O. Paxton,
Parades and Politics at Vichy
(Princeton, New Jersey, 1966), 75, describes the German concessions after Mers-el-Kebir.

³⁷
T-120/365/206229.

³⁸
U.S. Dept. of State Serial File 851.00/2068, 2069, 2073. See also Baudouin,
Neuf mois
, 363; Bouthillier letter to General Doyen, 23 October 1940,
Ministère public c/Bouthillier
, 52.

³⁹
DGFP
, Series D, XI, no. 246, pp. 411 ff.

⁴⁰
DFCAA
, I, 389–90. See also “Mitteilungen über die Arbeiten der WaKo,” no. 76, 23 September 1940 (T-120/368/207014–16), for similar language on September 21.

⁴¹
Memorandum Pol. IM 1358g of 1 October 1940 (T-120/121/120017–23). Baudouin,
Neuf mois
, 362, implies that mainly internal matters were discussed.

⁴²
Abetz (Paris) 684 to Berlin, 25 September 1940 (T-120/121/119917).

⁴³
DGFP
, XI, no. 98, p. 174;
DFCAA
, I, 413.

⁴⁴
Reports of Scapini’s various talks may be found in T-120/121/119929–37 and T-120/587/243341, 243347–48. Scapini’s postwar memoirs,
Mission sans gloire
(Paris, 1966), treat his role as a purely technical matter of overseeing the condition of French prisoners of war in Germany. He says nothing of these September–October 1940 missions.

⁴⁵
Le Temps
, 12 October 1940. According to Baudouin,
Neuf mois
, 366 ff, preparation of this statement of social and foreign policy went back to October 1.

⁴⁶
Weizsäcker memoranda nos. St. S. 726, 727, 728, all of September 24, 1940 (T-120/368/207021–42), trace the change of mind. Also see Greiner war diary, Section L, 25 September 1940, quoted in Walter Warlimont,
Inside Hitler’s Headquarters
(London, 1964), 122.

⁴⁷
Jäckel, 158. Halder mentions Hitler’s desire to meet Pétain on 11 October and says on 16 October that the date has been set.

⁴⁸
“Aufzeichnung zur aktiven Einschaltung Frankreichs in die Kriegsführung gegen England.” D.W.St.K. 8/40 g.Kdo Chefsache, 4 October 1940 (T-77/OKW/1347). The Germans began to use the loan-word
Kollaboration
at about this time in discussing Franco-German relations.

⁴⁹
DGFP
, Series D, XI, no. 149, pp. 245–59.

⁵⁰
Abetz reported all these démarches to Berlin. See T-120/364/206021–30; T-120/121/119936–37, 120059–60; and T-120/3681H/E035166–74.

⁵¹
Jäckel (pp. 162–67) shows that the “protocols” published in
DGFP
, X, nos. 207–8, were not actually brought up at the meetings.