Dramatic shifts from initial resistance to occupation, collaboration, and eventual liberation marked France's involvement in World War II. At the war's outset in September 1939, France and Britain declared war on Germany. However, the German Blitzkrieg in May 1940 rapidly overwhelmed French forces, leading to the fall of Paris and the establishment of the Vichy government, a German puppet regime, in June 1940.
Under the Vichy regime, led by Marshal Philippe Pétain, France experienced significant collaboration with Nazi Germany, including the enforcement of anti-Semitic laws and economic cooperation. Meanwhile, General Charles de Gaulle fled to Britain, establishing the Free French Forces and rallying resistance against German occupation and Vichy collaboration. De Gaulle's broadcasts and leadership inspired the French Resistance, a diverse underground movement that engaged in sabotage, espionage, and guerilla warfare against the occupiers.
The French Resistance played a crucial role in gathering intelligence and assisting Allied forces leading up to the D-Day invasion in June 1944. Following the successful Normandy landings, Allied forces and Free French troops liberated Paris in August 1944. France's liberation restored national pride and positioned the country as a critical player in post-war reconstruction and the founding of the United Nations.
France's wartime experience was one of resilience and complexity, navigating occupation, internal division, and a determined struggle for liberation.
Agents for escape inside the French Resistance, 1939-1945
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Inside the French Resistance, 1939-1945
"Rougeyron, an auto engineer living in Normandy, risked his life throughout the war rescuing downed Allied airmen, supplying them with clothes and identity papers and launching them down the underground escape pipeline." Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The Algeria Hotel : France, memory, and the Second World War
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Adam Nossiter spent part of his youth in France. During those years, in the mid-1960s, President de Gaulle forged the myth that France bravely resisted the German occupiers of World War II and that the nation was innocent in the crimes of the Holocaust. Collaboration with Germany and the deportations of Jews were subjects not dwelt on -- not until many years later. THE ALGERIA HOTEL is Nossiter's intensely personal confrontation with the effects of this awakening to the underside of the French record in the war. For three years he lived and traveled in France, listening to people talk about the war -- mapping their stories, silences, evasions, and even lies. In Bordeaux, Nossiter follows the trial of Maurice Papon, the retired French official accused a half century later of orchestrating the deportation of Jews. He settles in Vichy, the seat of France's wartime government; shadowed by the Algeria Hotel, which housed the agency for Jewish affairs, Nossiter journeys into the dark heart of France's compromises with the Nazis. In Tulle, he listens for the echoes of a single afternoon when the Nazis carried out a terrible massacre of the town's residents. An artful weave of vivid portraits, clear-eyed reporting, and meticulous historical research, The Algeria Hotel is an absorbing and resonant portrait of a nation and its people. Illuminating the many ways painful memories of the past leave their mark on the present, Nossiter reveals deep truths about how we remember and why we forget. The result is a searching and beautifully written narrative of how the French today live their lives haunted by the war and its crimes.
Collaboration and resistance : images of life in Vichy France, 1940-44
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Through hundreds of documents and photographs, this book offers a view of life in France during the German occupation of World War II. Material includes posters, newspapers and leaflets from the Vichy administration, as well as commentary from noted French Historians.
The collaborator : the trial & execution of Robert Brasillach
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On February 6, 1945, Robert Brasillach was executed for treason by a French firing squad. He was a writer of some distinction--a prolific novelist and a keen literary critic. He was also a dedicated anti-Semite, an acerbic opponent of French democracy, and editor in chief of the fascist weekly Je Suis Partout, in whose pages he regularly printed wartime denunciations of Jews and resistance activists. Was Brasillach in fact guilty of treason? Was he condemned for his denunciations of the resistance, or singled out as a suspected homosexual? Was it right that he was executed when others, who were directly responsible for the murder of thousands, were set free? Kaplan's meticulous reconstruction of Brasillach's life and trial skirts none of these ethical subtleties: a detective story, a cautionary tale, and a meditation on the disturbing workings of justice and memory, The Collaborator will stand as the definitive account of Brasillach's crime and punishment. A National Book Award Finalist A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist "A well-researched and vivid account."--John Weightman, New York Review of Books "A gripping reconstruction of [Brasillach's] trial."--The New Yorker "Readers of this disturbing book will want to find moral touchstones of their own. They're going to need them. This is one of the few works on Nazism that forces us to experience how complex the situation really was, and answers won't come easily."--Daniel Blue, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review "The Collaborator is one of the best-written, most absorbing pieces of literary history in years."--David A. Bell, New York Times Book Review "Alice Kaplan's clear-headed study of the case of Robert Brasillach in France has a good deal of current-day relevance. . . . Kaplan's fine book . . . shows that the passage of time illuminates different understandings, and she leaves it to us to reflect on which understanding is better."--Richard Bernstein, The New York Times
D-Day Through French Eyes
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A gripping account of what it was like to be in the midst of the Norman Invasion on D-Day and immediately afterward. Silent parachutes dotting the night sky--that's how one woman in Normandy in June 1944 learned that the D-Day invasion was underway. Though they yearned for liberation, the people of Normandy steeled themselves for further warfare, knowing that their homes, land, and fellow citizens would have to bear the brunt of the attack. In D-Day through French Eyes, Mary Louise Roberts resets our view of the usual stories of that momentous operation, taking readers across the Channel to view the invasion anew. Roberts builds her history from an impressive range of gripping first-person accounts from French citizens, reinvigorating a story we thought we knew. The result is a fresh perspective on the heroism, sacrifice, and achievement of D-Day.
The forgotten soldier : the classic WWII autobiography
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Recounts the Russian campaign of World War II as seen through the eyes of a young German soldier.
France during the German occupation, 1940-1944; : a collection of 292 statements on the government of Maréchal Pétain and Pierre Laval.
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Summaries and Important Selections from Statements on the Government of Maréchal Pétain and Pierre Laval
The French resistance, 1940 to 1944 / by Frida Knight.
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World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France
France -- History -- German occupation, 1940-1945
Historical dictionary of World War II France : the Occupation, Vichy, and the Resistance, 1938-1946
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The most comprehensive reference work in its field, this book covers a broad range of topics--military, political, economic, social, painting, literature, music, cinema, dance, theater, sports, and daily life--related to France and her empire during World War II. Starting with the 1938 Munich Crisis and continuing through the 1940 defeat, Occupation, Vichy, Resistance, Liberation, and the establishment of the post-Liberation Provisional Government, the work also addresses such legacies of the wartime experience as the role of former President Fran^D,cois Mitterrand and the trial of former Vichy official Maurice Papon. Designed to be the reference of first recourse for those interested in World War II France, the book's focus on Occupation, Vichy, and the French Resistance will familiarize the reader with the most recent historical interpretations of French life during a troubled and dramatic period. The work will also introduce the reader to many of the controversies concerning collaboration and resistance, which have stirred postwar French public discourse to the present day. The book is also a bibliographic guide for those who would like to know more about the period.
Outwitting the Gestapo
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Lucie Aubrac (1912-2007), of Catholic and peasant background, was teaching history in a Lyon girls' school and newly married to Raymond, a Jewish engineer, when World War II broke out and divided France. The couple, living in the Vichy zone, soon joined the Resistance movement in opposition to the Nazis and their collaborators. Outwitting the Gestapo is Lucie's harrowing account of her participation in the Resistance: of the months when, though pregnant, she planned and took part in raids to free comrades--including her husband, under Nazi death sentence--from the prisons of Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyon. Her book is also the basis for the 1997 French movie, Lucie Aubrac, which was released in the United States in 1999. Purchase the audio edition.
Prison Journal, 1940-1945
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Even after fifty years, and in spite of the reams of documents now available,it remains difficult-especially in France-to form an objective view of what things were like in the period between the wars and in 1940.The greater, the swifter, the more unexpected the disaster, the less people are willing to deal with it squarely. Once a certain threshold of suffering,shame, and humiliation is reached, actual facts become unimportant,analyses become bothersome. History falls prey to myth and rumor.People refuse to hear any more, but they still need someone to blame. In France, the strangest of bedfellows have come to speak about it in one voice, and the good people have remained mute.
A rescuer's story : Pastor Pierre-Charles Toureille in Vichy France
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This is the story of a Holocaust rescuer, Pierre Toureille, a French Protestant pastor whose efforts resulted in the rescue of hundreds of refugees, most of them Jewish. Inspired by his Huguenot heritage, Pastor Toureille participated in international Protestant church efforts to combat Nazism during the 1930s and headed a major refugee aid organization in Vichy France during World War II. After the war, Pastor Toureille was honored by the Jewish organization Yad Vashem as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations." In telling Toureille's story, Tela Zasloff also depicts the wide-ranging network of Protestant pastors and lay people in southern French villages who participated in an aggressive rescue effort. She delves into their motivations, including their heritage as members of a religious minority. Toureille's rescue work under the Vichy regime, partly official and then increasingly clandestine as the war progrressed. was a crucial part of the French non-violent "spiritual resistance" against Nazism.
The Resistance 1940: An Anthology of Writings from the French Underground
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The Resistance, 1940 illuminates the early phase of the French Resistance through first-hand accounts, describing how movements organized themselves in opposition to both German occupation and the collaborationist Vichy government. Translated and annotated by Charles Potter, these writings, composed by French men and women, reveal how the Resistance fighters experienced defeat and resurrection in the pivotal year of 1940.
The Resistance versus Vichy; the purge of collaborators in liberated France.
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World War, 1939-1945 -- Collaborationists -- France
Criminal justice, Administration of -- France
Scarred Landscapes War and Nature in Vichy France
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Based on detailed archival research and site visits, Scarred Landscapes is the first environmental history of Vichy France. From mountains and marshlands to foresters and resisters, it examines the intricate and often surprising connections between war, history, and the 'natural' environment during these turbulent years.
Strange defeat : a statement of evidence written in 1940
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A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940
Translation of L'étrange défaite.
Bloch was later captured and killed by the Nazis for his participation in the French resistance.
The War: A Memoir
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Translation of: La douleur
Duras was a member of the French resistance during WWII.
Wartime Writings: 1943-1949
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Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale
Duras was a member of the French resistance during WWII.
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