Figure 1.--Vichy coolaborated militarily with the NAZIs, but Marshall Pétain refused to turn over the French fleet. The NAZIs insisted tht DeGaulle and the Free French would bring death and destruction on France. Here the NAZIs use a phrase from La marseillaise, the French national anthem, to make their point.

Vichy collaborated militarily with the NAZIs, but Marshall Pétain refused to turn over the French fleet. And he refused to to war as a NAZI ally, remarking that losing one war is enough. The NAZIs insisted tht DeGaulle and the Free French would bring death and destruction on France. Here in this poster they use a phrase from La marseillaise, the French national anthem to make their point.

Source

We are not sure just who created this poster. A reader tells us that it was a poster appearing in Paris, although we are not sure about just when. We would guess in 1942 or 43. The fact that it was put up in Paris suggesrs that it was a NAZI propaganda poster and not a Vichy poster. The two colaborated, but were not the same.

Target

The target of the poster is General De Gaulle personally. More indirectly it appears to be an attack on Allied bombing. The Allies did attack targets in France. The RAF in particular targeted U-boat facilities and rail links supplying those facilities. This mean that civilian were affected. On rge ryn up to D-Day the Allied bombing campaign sgifted from Germany to targets in France, orimarily the transportation infrastructure. I do not believe that the Allies heavily targeted French industry as was the case in Germany. (Here my information is still incomplete and would be interested in reader comment.) Vichy did support the German war effort. Large quantities of sodt goods (clothes, uniforms, shoes), food, and raw material were shipped to the Reich, mostly in the form of war repriations as provided for by the Armistace. As best we can determine, however, the NAZIs did not fully use French indud=stry to produce planes, tanks, and other armaments.

Text

The text of the poster here will be instantly recognizeable to every French reader. It is a phrse from La marseillaise -- the French national anthem. La marseillaise ws created during the French Revolution and is a little on the blody side. The NAZI propagnanda poster has changed "Ils viennent" to "il vient".

The real French text is: " Ils viennent jusqu'à dans nos bras égorger nos fils et nos compagnes ". That means in English: "They come ( meaning foreign enemies, in recent history the Germans) untill in our arms to cut the throat our sons and our companions.

The NAZIs changed the plural to thesingular: " Il vient jusqu'à dans nos bras égorger nos fils et nos compagnes ". That means "He comes ( Général de Gaulle ) untill in our arms to cut the throat of our sons and our companions."

Created: 5:34 PM 2/1/2005
Last updated: 5:34 PM 2/1/2005