French Resistance Fighter

INTRODUCTIONOn 10 May 1940 the Nazi Blitzkrieg was unleashed on Western Europe. By the end of the month, Holland and Belgium were overrun and a shattered British Army could do nothing but extricate itself from the beaches of Dunkirk. Two weeks into June and the Germans were in Paris. With millions of refugees on the road, 90,000 French soldiers dead and 1.8 million more in captivity, on 17 June France's Great War hero, Marshal Pétain, asked for an armistice.
Hitler humiliated France. Mirroring the fate of the German Army in 1918, the French 'Armistice Army' was limited to 100,000 men. France was partitioned. The disputed region of Alsace–Lorraine was placed under German civil administration, while the départements of Pas–de–Calais and Nord came under the authority of occupied Belgium. The remainder of France was split into two zones. The northern zone, which included the entire Channel and Atlantic coastline, was occupied by the Germans. The southern zone was self-governed by the French, albeit with heavy strings attached.
Unoccupied France was governed from the town of Vichy. Initially almost everyone rallied round the 84–year–old Pétain, who became head of state. The old marshal was identified with the heroic defence of Verdun in 1916 and people believed he would again see them through difficult times. They hoped Pétain was playing the Germans at a double game and was secretly planning the liberation of France. A very effective propaganda campaign blamed defeat on British self–interest. This idea was strongly reinforced when Britain attacked the French Navy at Mers–el–Kébir to prevent it falling into German hands – almost 1,300 French sailors were killed by the British. Few heard the BBC broadcast made by General Charles de Gaulle on 18 June 1940. Self–proclaimed chief of the 'Free French' in London, de Gaulle urged Frenchmen not to lose hope. His broadcast closed defiantly: 'whatever happens, the flame of French Resistance must not and will not be extinguished.' Many thought him a traitor. Pétain sentenced de Gaulle and his followers to death in their absence.
Vichy France became a repressive, anti–democratic society. Individuals were victimized because of left–wing beliefs and Freemasonry was prohibited. France played its part in the Holocaust too. Between March 1942 and July 1944, almost 76,000 Jews were deported from France to the death camps. In May 1942 the Nazis demanded 250,000 French workers for service in Germany. Known as la relève (the relief), this voluntary scheme failed and was replaced in February 1943 by the Service du Travail Obligatoire (Compulsory Work Service; STO) — the forced conscription of workers. More than 600,000 French civilians were deported to work in Nazi industry. If things were not bad enough, in response to Allied successes in the Mediterranean, the Nazis crossed the line of demarcation and occupied the southern zone in November 1942, sweeping away the last pretences of French sovereignty. The Vichy army was disarmed and replaced by a 30,000–strong secret police force known as the Milice (Militia). An ugly stain on French history, the Milice was led by Joseph Darnand, who took a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler and received the rank of Sturmbannführer in Himmler's SS.
Against this miserable backdrop, of which the above is merely a snapshot, acts of resistance began to emerge. Starved of news, clandestine newspapers and journals began to appear, reporting the stories that Nazi propagandists suppressed. From clandestine press to direct action, the urge to take up arms followed. As young men and women fled into the hills to avoid compulsory service in Germany, the ranks of the maquis swelled by the spring of 1944. Living as outlaws, poorly armed, mostly without uniforms and always terminally short of cigarettes, the men and women of the Resistance nevertheless played an effective part in their own liberation.