Occupation: The Ordeal Of France 1940-1944

Product Description

Defeat in 1940 left the French so chastened & demoralized that they readily supported the Vichy regime, committed not just to pragmatic collaberation but to finding scapegoats for the nation's disgrace. Jews, Communists, pre-war politicians from the Third Republic, school teachers & Freemasons all fell victim to a witch-hunt which left plenty of scope for private grudges as well. Resistance came late: de Gaulle's appeal in 1940 for France to continue to fight went largely unheard, & the Occupation was fourteen months old before the first German soldier was killed by resistants. The public mood changed only as the Reicht's original correctness gave way to brutality & as events outside France prefigured possible German defeat. Even as Liberation approached, resistance was still local, small-scale & divided, never the mass army of later myth. Different visions of who should inherit France complicated the persuit of collaberators & foreshadowed the chaos of post-war politics.