The Brits and the Franco-German Armistice Negotiations at Compiégne

Soldiers of Leibstandarte SS in occupied Paris after the victory in France
SS Volunteers enjoy their leave at Berlin's Strandbad Wannsee
Waffen-SS in Occupied Paris
On July 19 1940, Adolf Hitler tried once more for conciliatory negotiations with the British opponents. But Churchill remained resolute. The war moved into the next round. The Blitz, i.e. the air raids on London, began only after Britain had continuously bombarded German cities for three month. Pointless restraint was at an end. On July 21 1940, Hitler and his high command, waited to receive the French Peace Delegation in Compiégne. The negotiations took place and were sealed in the same railway salon-wagon as had been used on November 8 1918 for the Surrender Treaty of the German Empire. However, it was certainly no repeat performance of humiliation as had happened on that autumn day. Then, the German envoys were treated with abuse, and already as prisoners of war, by the French Marshal Ferdinand Foch. However, in July 1940, Germany's opponents were treated with military honor, the negotiations were handled correctly. For the Parisians, the occupation was a series of frustrations and shortages.  A curfew was in effect from nine in the evening until five in the morning; at night, the city went dark. Rationing of food, tobacco, coal and clothing was imposed from September 1940. Most French citizens fell firmly in neither of the two camps, collaborator or resistor, and instead sought simply to navigate through a changing society, and outlast the occupation in peace. Top image: men of SS-Regiment Leibstandarte SS at an outdoor café in occupied Paris in July 1940. The many relationships between German soldiers and French women produced tens of thousands of children born during the occupation. Photo taken by the war correspondent SS-Kriegsberichter Johannes Bergmann. Fair use. Middle image: two Waffen-SS volunteers enjoy their leave from France at Berlin's most popular beach on the Wannsee in late June 1940. Photo from the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Fair use. Bottom image: Waffen-SS men photographed in July 1940 at Palais de Chaillot in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Süddeutsche Zeitung. FU.
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6 comments:

  1. http://www.coeurssansfrontieres.com21/3/19

    The German military tolerated fraternization in the West and North Europe, but not in Eastern Europe. The different regulations were based on Nazi racial ideology as to which populations they considered racially pure enough as to be desirable for children born to their men. The number of war children born to French women in France by German soldier fathers is estimated to be 75,000 to 200,000.

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    1. Anonymous17/3/22

      In practice the Germans fraternised on the Eastern Front too. I have read an SS infantrist biography where he makes a number of positive comments regarding the Slavs, particularly in the Ukraine, saying something like: "Our propaganda is saying these people are sub-humans, but in my eyes some of these people are more pure-hearted and Aryan than us". He also mentions that "Ukrainian women are much more conservative and prudish/well mannered than any girl in Germany who is often much more liberal". And this is a SS from Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, supposedly the most Nazi of Nazi, saying this.

      So the reality on the ground is pretty clear that most Germans found German propaganda to be preposterous and understood it just served a purpose as with any army in any war dehumanising the enemy. Even among the SS, the race ideology was laughed at and mocked.

      The only real examples of Nazis who were true believers in their nonsense were the higher ups, like for example Erich Koch who was responsible for the Eastern occupied territories and apparently hated Slavs. But the rank & file Nazi, Army soldier, or SS soldier, didn't give a S.

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  2. http://www.coeurssansfrontieres.com21/3/19

    Hitler was a rabid Anglophile, and did not want war with Britain (or France) at all.

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  3. mike14/2/20

    Hitler said in a speech in Munich on 8 November 1942 "When the English started to drop their bombs, I waited three and a half months and did nothing. At that time there were many who said: Why don't we answer them? We were already strong enough to do it. I waited, thinking simply that perhaps they would still come to their senses. During the winter of 1939-1940 a certain Mr. Churchill stated: The submarine danger is eliminated. Hitler is finished. He has destroyed two, three, five submarines daily. At that time, he destroyed more than we even had then. He was exhausted." Hitler can be criticized for many things but he always kept his formality :)

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  4. Archie Redman14/5/21

    Churchill refused to even consider peace negotiations with Adolf Hitler. The Western democracies would have been left dominating Europe. The lives of millions of Western civilians and soldiers would have been spared.

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  5. Anonymous13/10/22

    May deemed it fit to remind that the British bombed Berlin before the Blitz. As said above, the Blitz was the German response to the air raids on Berlin and other towns and cities by the RAF.

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