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One subject that we have not yet been able to properly assess is the extent to which Vichy France economically supported the NAZI war effort. We know that Vichy supported the German war-effort. We do not know just how effective that support was. Pétain on October 24, 1940 met with Hitler at Montoire. At that meeting Pétain and Laval discussed Franco-German cooperation. They were unable, however, to get any commitment from Hitler on key issues such as the post-War border of France and the return of the French POWs. Hitler had not yet made up his mind on these issues. The fact was that Hitler had little respect for France or the potential benefits of a French ally. He had convinced himself that the War was already won. The ally he really wanted was Britain. Vichy did make an important economic contribution to the German war effort, but it seems limited in terms of the potential economic potential of France. Of course the issue of economic collaboration merges into the subject of NAZI exploitation.
One subject that we have not yet been able to properly assess is the extent to which Vichy France economically supported the NAZI war effort. We know that Vichy supported the German war-effort. We do not know how effective that support was.
Pétain on October 24, 1940 met with Hitler at Montoire. At that meeting Pétain and Laval discussed Franco-German cooperation. They were unable, however, to get any commitment from Hitler on key issues such as the post-War border of France and the return of the French POWs. Hitler had not yet made up his mind on these issues. Vichy did make an important economic contribution to the German war effort, but it seems limited in terms of the potential economic potential of France.
The fact was that Hitler had little respect for France or the potential benefits of a French ally. He had convinced himself that the War was already won. The ally Hitler really wanted was Britain. The NAZI use of the French economy for the wr effort was affected by the fact that the Germans in June 1940 thought they had essentially won the War. Even German industry was not fully mobilized for the War-effort. German policy was in part influenced by a desire to ensure that France would never again threaten Germany militarily rather than a desire to expand French armaments production.
France was a major European industrial power. On the Continent, only Germany and the Soviet Union had a larger industrial capacity. The French coal and steel industry, aircraft and motor vehicle manufacture all had important potential for the German war-effort. The Germans made use of the French economy and industry, but it seems to us that they did not use it very effectively to support the war effort. This is just an initial impression. We need to persue this assessment in more detail. One factor here may be that ynlike the Czech lands which were to be repopulated with Germans, there wee no such plans in Frane. Apparently the NAZIs were more interested in reducing France's arms industry than in using it.
French industrial firms confronted grim alternatives after the armistice. Many faced bankruptsy or seizure by the German authorities. Others faced the prospect of competing wih favored German companies. French industrials for the most part saw little alterntive to cooperating with the Germans. Many persued cooperation with the Germans reluctantly, but saw no real alternative. Others had no quams to dealing with the Germans, attracted by the potential profits.
Many French concerns benfitted from German contracts during the first 2 years of the German occupation. Many firms reported increased output and profits as a result of contracts with the Germans. [Hirschfeld, p.9.] The important French photographic company Photomaton in 1941 contacted German authorities with an offer to produced identity photographs for Jews in concentration camps.
One author estimates that about 8-9 million French workers in France were employed directly by the Germans on roads, military defences, aircraft, armaments and food production. [Pryce-Jones] (THis does not include the Frebch workers conscripted for war work in the Reich.) Most of the construction of the Alantic Wall was done by French workers. With the POWs held in the Reich, and conscription both for war work in France and and in the Reich, there was a shortage of labor in France. Some plants were operated with the help of the women and older men.
We know that Czech industry such as the Skoda arms plant played a major role in German arms production. We are less sure about the role of French heavy industry. For example, France manufactured artillery and tanks. Some of the French tanks were effective, but not well used by the French military. We do not know how the Germany integrated this manufacturing capability into their war effort. We have not read about the Germans manufacturing arms or planes in France, but our information is very limited. We know that old Belgian and French artillery was used in the Atlantic wall. Surely the Atlantic Wall could hve been stregthened by mamufacturing artillery in Frnce. If the Germans did not manufacture weapons in France, it means that they were not fully utiling the French economy in the war effort. We are not sure why the Germands did not do this. Perhaps it was a desire to demilitarize France to make sure it would never again threaten Germany. I believe that munitions wee manufactured in France. A French reader tells us, "Our war industries durng the occupation were dismanteled and shipped to Germany." We have no details on this, either the extent to which it was done or how effectively the Germans used the equipment to build new plants. We do know that some French industries like the automobile industry was used to construct trucks for the German military. Some of these plants were targetted by Allied air strikes.
French made consumer goods including food and clothing were shipped to Germany. Part of this was to fufill war reprations demanded by the Germans as part of the armistice. In effect France had to pay for the goods shipped to Germany, We have little actual information on these shipments at this time. The French public was aware of these shipments and they contributed to domestic shortages. A French joke at the time was a definition of collaboration: You give the Germans your watch and they give you the time. These clothing shipments may have had an impact on German fashions. We note, for excample German boys wearing French-styled rompers in the early 1940s. French reader writes, "Food, clothes, cloth, and shoes became very difficult to obtasin during the German occupation. A friend tells me that she couldn't go to school every day because there was only one decent pair of shoes for both her and her brother. So one day her brother went to the school and other day
she went. All old clothes, especially wool garments, were used to make new clothes. Despite the work of social organisations, one found more and more
poor families with children ho found it increasingly difficult. Food was more of a problem in the cities than the country. Clothes were especially difficult to obtain in the country."
Germany's horific racial policies squamdered the potential resources of labor in the occupied east. The Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Large numbers of Poles and Russians died because of mistreatment. The MAZIS in 1940-41, expecting quick victory, saw no need for these largely Slavic people. The Germans by 1942 were running out of workers as abled bodied Germans were drafted into the military. The failure of the Wehrmacht to defeat Russia in 1941 meant that German arms production would have to be increased. This was especially true because Hitler after Pearl Harbor also declared war on the world industrial giant, the United States (December 1941). Dedicted NAZI Fritz Sauckel was responsible for obtaining needed labor for Germany.
This was in part necessary because Hitler refused to authorize th mobilization of German women, other than unmarried young women. There was not Rosey the Reviters in Germay. The British mobilized women even more than America. The Germans, however turned to slave labor from occupied countries.
Sauckel in 1942 became to drawn on workers in Western European counties occupied by Germany. France in May 1942 was ordered to supply 250,000 French workers for work in Germany by July. Vichy authorities, willing to cooperate in other areas were not anxious to transport French workers to Germany. Both Pétain and Laval realised the inevitable impact that conscripting labor for transport to Germany would have on the popularity of the regime. Pétain's popularity was based on the fact that Vichy had taken France out of the war and thus limited the impact of the war on France. Laval devised a scheme called la relève. This provided for the repatriation of one French POW for every three workers who volunteered for war work in Germany. Vichy authorities, however, were unable to voluntarily recruit the number of workers demanded by the Germans. Vichy authorities thus had to introduce conscription, le Service du travail obligatoire (STO) (February 1943). This more than any other single matter, began to change the attitide of the French people toward Pétain and his Vichy regime. In adition the War news now suggested that the NAZIs were not going to win the War.
There was a substantial increase in the numbers of réfractaires. These were men that refused to report for conscription. Some simply hid. Others joined the Resistance. Some sought jobs in occupations exempted from the STO such as mining.
France made an important contribution to the German work force. In all about 650,000 Frenchmen and 44,000 Frenchwomen were deported to Germany for forced labor. France was the second most important contributor of unskilled labor to the German war effirt. Only Poland provided larger numbers of workers. France was the leading supplier of skilled labor. [Atkin, p.174.]
NAZI looting played an important part in financing the German war effort. One estimate suggests that 40 percent of the wealth Germany acquired from the occupied territories came from France. Vichy in 1940 authorized the transfer of the Beligian gold reserves which were held in France to the Germans. Vichy in 1940 also authorized the transfer to theGermans of the French shares to the Bohr copper mine in Yugoslavia. Art works and antiques looted from Jews were sent to Germany.
Atkin, N. Pétain (London & New York: Longman, 1998).
Hirschfeld, G. "Collaboration in Nazi-occupied France: Some Introductory Remarks' in G. Hirschfeld & P. Marsh (eds), Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture during the Nazi Occupation 1940-1944 (Oxford: Berg, 1989), pp. 1-14.
Pryce-Jones, David. "Paris during the German Occupation" in G. Hirschfeld & P. Marsh (eds), Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture during the Nazi Occupation 1940-1944 (Oxford: Berg, 1989), pp. 15-31.
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