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Vichy in Baden-Baden – The Personnel of the French Occupation in Germany after 1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2018

Julia Wambach
Julia Wambach*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for the History of Emotions, Lentzeallee 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany
*
*wambach@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
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Abstract

This article examines the contested presence of Vichy administrators in high positions of the French administration of occupied Germany after the Second World War. In occupied Germany, where many of Pétain’s officials pursued their careers, resisters and collaborators negotiated their new positions in the wake of the German occupation of France. Key to understanding this settlement are the notions of expertise and merit as well as the role of the inherited French social order untouched by the collaboration.

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Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 319 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

For their precious feedback, I would like to thank the members of Berkeley’s German working group Der Kreis and Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (Berkeley), Olivier Wieviorka (Paris) and the working group National Socialism of Centre Marc Bloch (Berlin), as well as Sheer Ganor (Berkeley), Trevor Jackson (Berkeley), Hanne Leßau (Nuremberg), Melissa Turoff (New York City), Florian Wagner (Erfurt) and my two anonymous reviewers. For their help finding relevant archival collections, I am very grateful to Cyril Daydé of the archives of Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (La Courneuve) and Stéphane Launey of Service Historique de la Défense (Vincennes).

References

1 Jacques-Francis Rolland, ‘La faillite de Baden-Baden. L’administration française en Allemagne est peuplée de rescapés de Vichy’, Ce Soir, 16 Nov. 1945.

2 A collection of those newspaper articles is stored at Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères La Courneuve (MAE), AC 852/10 Allemagne, guerre. 1944–6. F. Roy Willis, whose 1962 study The French in Germany 1945–1949 remains to this day the only comprehensive work on the French occupation of Germany after the Second World War, mentioned these newspaper articles and their criticism of the presence of Vichy administrators. See Willis, F. Roy, The French in Germany 1945–1949 (Stanford University Press, 1962), 77–86Google Scholar.

3 Roger Stéphane, ‘A Baden, Les Français divisent l’Allemagne et ignorent les Allemands’, Combat, 19 Nov. 1947.

4 See Jacques-Francis Rolland, ‘La faillite de Baden-Baden. L’administration française en Allemagne est peuplée de rescapés de Vichy’, Ce Soir, 16 Nov. 1945; Paul Bodin ‘7.000 fonctionnaires auxquels on a donné uniformes et galons n’ont su ni épurer notre zone d’occupation ni y faire respecter la France’, Combat, 13 Nov. 1945; Albert Palle, ‘Loin de Baden-Baden’, Combat, 5 Jan. 1946; Alexandre Astruc, ‘L’Allemagne vue de la zone d’occupation française: Une façade qui s’ouvre sur le néant’, Combat, 27 Jun. 1946.

5 A newspaper published by the communist resistance group Front national de lutte pour la libération et l’indépendance de la France, not to be confused with the right-wing party founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen.

6 ‘Pourquoi nous perdons la bataille de l’occupation. Le “Tout-Vichy” à Baden-Baden où un protégé de Darnand applique la justice’, Front National, 15 Nov. 1945.

7 Jacques-Francis Rolland, ‘La faillite de Baden-Baden. L’administration française en Allemagne est peuplée de rescapés de Vichy’, Ce Soir, 16 Nov. 1945.

8 The official term for the Vichy supporters is vichystes while the inhabitants of the city of Vichy are called vichyssois. The newspaper articles, however, used the term Vichyssois to designate the former members of the Vichy administration, which is why I decided to keep the term.

9 ‘La vie à Baden-Baden’, Le Monde, 13 Nov. 1945.

10 Henry Rousso used the notion of ‘civil war’ when he described the coming to terms with collaboration and resistance in the aftermath of the Second World War in France in The Vichy Syndrome. History and Memory in France since 1944 (Harvard University Press, 1994)Google Scholar. Olivier Wieviorka, however, contested the notion of a civil war between resisters and collaborators in France in his article ‘Guerre civile à la française ? Le cas des années sombres (1940-1945)’, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’Histoire, 85, 1 (2005), 5–19Google Scholar. Wieviorka argues that the French on both sides – resisters and collaborators – successfully tried to avoid a civil war in France. I decided to keep the term ‘civil war’ because I want to underline the conflict around the coming to terms with resistance and collaboration and the spectre of violence and civil war during the shift of power in 1944–5, which is why the Vichyssois found themselves in Germany after the Second World War. At the same time, I acknowledge Wieviorka’s point and put ‘civil war’ in inverted commas. One could also speak of a ‘cold civil war’.

11 See Libera, Martial, Un rêve de puissance: la France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949) (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2012), 312CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 The literature on occupied France is overwhelming. For a short overview see Lemmes, Fabian, ‘Collaboration in Wartime France, 1940–1944’, European Review of History – Revue européenne d’histoire, 15, 2 (2008), 157–177CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more detailed overview see: Jackson, Julian, France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burrin, Philippe, La France à l’heure allemande (1940–1944) (Paris: Seuil, 2015)Google Scholar and Gildea, Robert, Marianne in Chains (London: Pan Macmillan, 2011)Google Scholar. For an overview of the prefectural staff during Vichy, see Marc Olivier Baruch’s article ‘Qui sont les préfets de Vichy?’ on the Institut d’histoire du temps présent’s website: http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/prefets/de/content/qui-sont-les-pr%C3%A9fets-de-vichy (last visited 10 July 2018).

13 Minister of Finance under Vichy and supporter of Pétain’s conservative revolution.

14 Interestingly, many journalists misspelled the names of the Vichyssois, which is a sign for the orally transmitted information they picked up in Germany.

15 Jacques-Francis Rolland, ‘La faillite de Baden-Baden. L’administration française en Allemagne est peuplée de rescapés de Vichy’, Ce Soir, 16 Nov. 1945.

16 For the purges in France, see the classic Novick, Peter, The Resistance versus Vichy: The Purge of Collaborators in Liberated France (London: Chatto & Windus, 1968)Google Scholar and a more recent work: Cointet, Jean-Paul, Expier Vichy: l’épuration en France (1943–1958) (Paris: Perrin, 2008)Google Scholar as well as a study focused on the purges of the French administration: Rouquet, François, Une épuration ordinaire (1944–1949): Petits et grands collaborateurs de l’administration française (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2011)Google Scholar. The context of those legal purges constituted the ‘wild purges’: Virgili, Fabrice, Shorn Women: Gender and Punishment in Liberation France (London: Berg Publishers, 2002)Google Scholar and Bourdrel, Philippe, L’épuration sauvage (1944–1945) (Paris: Perrin, 1991)Google Scholar. The research on the purges in France does often not focus on the period between the purges and the reappearance and reintegration of the purged into the society. For the literature on the Vichy government’s last refuge in Sigmaringen, see: Rousso, Henry, Un château en Allemagne: Sigmaringen, 1944–1945 (Paris: Pluriel, 2012)Google Scholar (first published as Un château en Allemagne: La France de Pétain en exil, Sigmaringen 1944–1945 (Paris: Ramsay, 1980)Google Scholar); Cointet, Jean-Paul, Sigmaringen. Une France en Allemagne (Septembre 1944–Avril 1945) (Paris: Perrin, 2003)Google Scholar. Also, see for a literary account of the Vichy government in Sigmaringen, Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s famous Castle to Castle (New York City: Delacorte, 1968)Google Scholar (Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, D’un château l’autre (Paris: Gallimard, 1958)Google Scholar.

17 Archives Nationales Pierrefitte sur Seine (AN) F1bI 932 Commission d’épuration du Ministère de l’Intérieur Documentation. Letter from the president of the purge commission to the Minister of the Interior about the history of the purge commission, 15 Feb. 1946. Also, see Olivier Baruch, Marc, ‘L’épuration du corps préfectoral’, in Marc Olivier Baruch, ed., Une poignée de misérables. L’épuration de la société française après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Paris: Fayard, 2003), 139–171Google Scholar.

18 Service Historique de la Défense (SHD), Archives orales, 3 K 49, Bolotte. Entretien 2, plage 12. Bolotte did this interview in 1999 after Maurice Papon, Sabatier’s immediate subordinate, was tried for his complicity in crimes against humanity.

19 MAE 1 PL 2459 A 2460 Lacombe, Jean. Intelligence note on Jean Lacombe, no date.

20 There were only 275 prefects in Vichy France. See Cointet, Jean-Paul, Expier Vichy: l’épuration en France (1943–1958) (Paris: Perrin, 2008), 336Google Scholar. Because they were considered the long arm of the government, the new governments in France in 1848 and 1871 had removed all prefects of the previous regimes, see Paxton, Robert, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–1944 (Columbia University Press, 2001), 341–342Google Scholar.

21 AN F1bI 1127 Cabouat, Jean. André Blumel to Minister of the Interior, Affaire Cabouat, 4 Nov. 1944.

22 ‘Pourquoi nous perdons la bataille de l’occupation. Le “Tout-Vichy” à Baden-Baden où un protégé de Darnand applique la justice’, Front National, 15 Nov. 1945. See also Jacques-Francis Rolland, ‘La faillite de Baden-Baden. L’administration française en Allemagne est peuplée de rescapés de Vichy’, Ce Soir, 16 Nov. 1945.

23 See Libera, Martial, Un rêve de puissance: la France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949) (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2012), 299–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hüser, Dietmar, Frankreichs ‘doppelte Deutschlandpolitik’: Dynamik aus der Defensive – Planen, Entscheiden, Umsetzen in Gesellschaftlichen und Wirtschaftlichen, Innen- und Aussenpolitischen Krisenzeiten: 1944–1950 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1996), 117Google Scholar.

24 J.-P. Penez, ‘Le “Tout-Vichy” à Baden-Baden où un protégé de Darnand applique la justice’, Front National, 15 Nov. 1945.

25 Jacques-Francis Rolland, ‘La faillite de Baden-Baden. L’administration française en Allemagne est peuplée de rescapés de Vichy’, Ce Soir, 16 Nov. 1945.

26 Jacques-Francis Rolland, ‘La faillite de Baden-Baden. L’administration française en Allemagne est peuplée de rescapés de Vichy’, Ce Soir, 16 Nov. 1945.

27 Hüser, Dietmar, Frankreichs ‘doppelte Deutschlandpolitik’: Dynamik aus der Defensive – Planen, Entscheiden, Umsetzen in Gesellschaftlichen und Wirtschaftlichen, Innen- und Aussenpolitischen Krisenzeiten: 1944–1950 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1996), 117Google Scholar.

28 Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Grimaud. GRI 4. Dossier 1. Occupation en Allemagne 1945-1947. 2ème dossier: Problèmes et polémiques. Documents administratifs 1945–1947. Rapport de l’Administrateur Général Adjoint pour le Gouvernement Militaire de la Zone Française d’Occupation to Monsieur le Général de Corps d’Armée Commandant en Chef Français en Allemagne, Baden-Baden, 17 Sept. 1945, 2. See for France’s focus on the reconstruction of France and domestic policies in the aftermath of the war: Hüser, Dietmar, Frankreichs‚ doppelte Deutschlandpolitik‘: Dynamik aus der Defensive – Planen, Entscheiden, Umsetzen in Gesellschaftlichen und Wirtschaftlichen, Innen- und Aussenpolitischen Krisenzeiten: 1944–1950 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1996)Google Scholar.

29 There were, for instance, secretaries who could not do shorthand, Laffon complained, or drivers unable to drive. While this article focuses on the high government officials that had been employed in the Vichy regime and in occupied Germany and could stay in Germany because of their expertise in matters of administration, it is important to note that this was just the tip of the iceberg of tainted French employees in occupied Germany. Laffon stated that in the fall of 1945 he had already sent back to France around forty officers who were ‘incompetent or whose performance had been considered inadmissible’. See Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Grimaud. GRI 4. Dossier 1. Occupation en Allemagne 1945–1947. 2ème dossier: Problèmes et polémiques. Documents administratifs 1945–1947. Rapport de l’Administrateur Général Adjoint pour le Gouvernement Militaire de la Zone Française d’Occupation to Monsieur le Général de Corps d’Armée Commandant en Chef Français en Allemagne, Baden-Baden, 17 Sept. 1945, 2–3.

30 Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Grimaud. GRI 4. Dossier 1. Occupation en Allemagne 1945–1947. 2ème dossier: Problèmes et polémiques. Documents administratifs 1945–1947. Rapport de l’Administrateur Général Adjoint pour le Gouvernement Militaire de la Zone Française d’Occupation to Monsieur le Général de Corps d’Armée Commandant en Chef Français en Allemagne, Baden-Baden, 17 Sept. 1945, 2.

31 Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Grimaud. GRI 4. Dossier 1. Occupation en Allemagne 1945–1947. 2ème dossier: Problèmes et polémiques. Documents administratifs 1945–1947. Rapport de l’Administrateur Général Adjoint pour le Gouvernement Militaire de la Zone Française d’Occupation to Monsieur le Général de Corps d’Armée Commandant en Chef Français en Allemagne, Baden-Baden, 17 Sept. 1945, 2.

32 The historiography on the French occupation in Germany has underlined that the veritable patchwork of the French administration had also positive effects. See Lattard, Alain, ‘Zielkonflikte französischer Besatzungspolitik in Deutschland. Der Streit Laffon-Koenig 1945–1947’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1991), 4Google Scholar. The administrative patchwork left room for initiatives with regard to the French social policies, the culture or the creation of unions. See, for instance, Hudemann, Rainer, Sozialpolitik im Deutschen Südwesten zwischen Tradition und Neuordnung, 1945–1953: Sozialversicherung und Kriegsopferversorgung im Rahmen französischer Besatzungspolitik (Mainz: v. Hase & Koehler, 1988)Google Scholar; Defrance, Corine, La politique culturelle de la France sur la rive gauche du Rhin, 1945–1955 (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 1994)Google Scholar; Lattard, Alain, Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeber in Rheinland-Pfalz unter französischer Besatzung 1945–1949, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission des Landtages für die Geschichte des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz 11 (Mainz: v. Hase u. Koehler, 1988)Google Scholar and Hüser, Dietmar, Frankreichs ‘doppelte Deutschlandpolitik’: Dynamik aus der Defensive – Planen, Entscheiden, Umsetzen in Gesellschaftlichen und Wirtschaftlichen, Innen- und Aussenpolitischen Krisenzeiten: 1944–1950 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1996)Google Scholar.

33 For the notorious conflict between General Koenig and Emile Laffon, see, for instance, Lattard, Alain, ‘Zielkonflikte französischer Besatzungspolitik in Deutschland. Der Streit Laffon-Koenig 1945–1947’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1991), 1–35Google Scholar. The literature suggests that Koenig was more conservative in his views of Germany, while Laffon was portrayed almost as a socialist, who had progressive but realistic ideas and opted for a more radical change of Germany.

34 See footnote 22.

35 Laffon had been responsible for the recruitment of the French prefects after the Liberation together with Michel Debré. See Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Grimaud I, dossier 3, éléments biographiques, essai de C.V., no date, 19.

36 The younger administrators were, for instance, Maurice Grimaud or Pierre Bolotte, see section Experience, Merit and Inherited Hierarchies. Laffon, however, insisted in a letter to General Koenig that the decision to hire Cabouat as head of security was a choice under constraint: Laffon had foreseen another position for Cabouat, but he had no other options available and considered Cabouat would fill in this position only temporarily. See Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Grimaud. GRI 4. Dossier 2 Occupation en Allemagne 1945–47. 1er Dossier: Les personnes. Correspondance Laffon. L’Administrateur Général Laffon Adjoint pour le Gouvernement Militaire de la Zone Française d’Occupation to Monsieur le Général de Corps d’Armée Commandant en Chef Français en Allemagne, Baden-Baden, 25 Jun. 1946, 1.

37 MAE 1PL 2956 Marchais, Emile. Intelligence note on Emile Marchais, no date. Marchais finally became secretary general in Württemberg working for Governor Guillaume Widmer.

38 AN C//15893 Commission d’enquête et d’information sur les zones d’occupation française d’Allemagne et d’Autriche, Rapport Général, 9 Apr. 1946, 11.

39 Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Bolotte, Letter to H. Richard, 14 Sept. 1945.

40 ‘Civile Ou Militaire’, Combat, 8 Nov. 1945.

41 French journalist at Radio Londres from 1940–4 and war correspondent accompanying the French army into Germany.

42 France, Journal Officiel de la République française, Débats de l’Assemblée Constituante, 16, 21 Dec. 1945, 291.

43 France, Journal Officiel de la République française, Débats de l’Assemblée Constituante, 16, 21 Dec. 1945, 291.

44 France, Journal Officiel de la République française, Débats de l’Assemblée Constituante, 16, 21 Dec. 1945, 291.

45 Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Bolotte, Dossier 1, Allemagne 1945–1946, Divers documents. Note for Laffon or Bolotte, Baden-Baden, 18 Mar. 1946.

46 SHD Archives orales, 3 K 49, Bolotte. Entretien 2, plage. Born in German Alsace in 1884, Grumbach was a member of the German Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands; SPD) before the First World War and became French citizen only in 1918 when he entered the French equivalent of the SPD (La Section Française de l’Internationale; SFIO). Grumbach joined the French maquis during the German wartime occupation and became head of the commission of foreign affairs within the constituent assembly, a commission he had already been a member of in the interwar period.

47 AN C//15893 Assemblée Nationale, Zone d’Occupation Française d’Allemagne et d’Autriche, Rapports. Note 4, Salomon Grumbach, 3 Apr. 1946.

48 AN C//15893 Assemblée Nationale, Zone d’Occupation Française d’Allemagne et d’Autriche, Rapports, 10. Note 1 concernant la composition du personnel de l’Administration civile (‘Gouvernement militaire’).

49 AN C//15893 Assemblée Nationale, Zone d’Occupation Française d’Allemagne et d’Autriche, Rapports, 10. Note 1 concernant la composition du personnel de l’Administration civile (“Gouvernement militaire”), Liste de fonctionnaires dont le maintien à leurs postes paraît inopportun à la Commission parlementaire d’enquête. Among those thirteen administrators were the above-mentioned Maurice Sabatier (General Director of Administrative Affairs), Jean Filippi (General Director of Economy and Finance), Guy Périer de Féral (Deputy General of Administrative Affairs), Jean Cabouat (Director of Security), Jean Lacombe (Director of Personnel), Emile Marchais (Secretary General of Württemberg) and Francis Thiallet (Secretary General of the Palatinate). The remaining five undesirables were Raymond Viguié (Deputy Director of Security), Philippe Coste (Director of Industrial Production), Edouard Kuntz (Assistant to the Governor of the Saar), Marcel Chapron (Deputy Director of Personnel), Pierre Ordonneau (Deputy Director to General Koenig) and Pierre Landron (Secretary General of the Rhineland).

50 France, Journal Officiel de la République française, Débats de l’Assemblée Constituante, 55, 24 Apr. 1946, 2208–9.

51 SHD Archives orales, 3 K 49, Bolotte. Entretien 2, plage 12.

52 SHD Archives orales, 3 K 49, Bolotte. Entretien 2, plage 12.

53 SHD Archives orales, 3 K 49, Bolotte. Entretien 2, plage 12.

54 AN F1bI 1105 Périer de Féral, Guy. Pièces diverses.

55 A. Biscarlait, ‘En zone d’occupation française ce sont toujours les Vichyssois qui commandent’, L’Humanité, 26 Sept. 1946.

56 AN C//15893 Assemblée Nationale, Zone d’Occupation Française d’Allemagne et d’Autriche, Rapports. Audiences, M. Laffon, Administrateur Général de la Zone, 9 Jul. 1947, 5.

57 AN C//15893 Assemblée Nationale, Zone d’Occupation Française d’Allemagne et d’Autriche, Rapports. Audiences, M. Laffon, Administrateur Général de la Zone, 9 Jul. 1947, 5.

58 This was the case of Edouard Kuntz, see MAE 1PL 2434 Kuntz, Edouard.

59 See AN F1bI 1127 Cabouat, Jean.

60 See MAE 1PL 2956 Marchais, Emile.

61 On Filippi’s career path see MAE 1 PL 1610 Filippi, Jean and Libera, Martial, Un rêve de puissance : la France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949) (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2012), 313Google Scholar.

62 MAE 1PL 1610 Filippi, Jean. Dossier de préparation à la Légion d’Honneur. Laffon on Filippi, no date.

63 Those goals were similar to the French policies towards Germany in the aftermath of the First World War, see: Lauter, Anna, Sicherheit und Reparationen. Die französische Öffentlichkeit, der Rhein und die Ruhr 1918–1923 (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2006)Google Scholar. Some French politicians dreamed of a quasi-imperial takeover of the German economy to forge into the lead as continental European economic power in the aftermath of the Second World War, which Libera has called ‘a dream of power’. See the title of Libera, Martial, Un rêve de puissance : la France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949) (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 See Libera, Martial, Un rêve de puissance : la France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949) (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2012), 230, 592CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 This is yet another example of how the conflict between Koenig and the Laffon influenced French policies in the zone.

66 See Libera, Martial, Un rêve de puissance : la France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949) (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2012), 195CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In a review of Martial Libera’s book the economic historian Marcel Boldorf noticed that Libera did not address the Vichy administrators’ role and influence on the French policies in Germany. See Marcel Boldorf, review of Un rêve de puissance : la France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949), by Martial Libera, Francia-Recensio, 2013–4, 19./20. Jahrhundert – Histoire contemporaine, https://www.recensio.net/rezensionen/zeitschriften/francia-recensio/2013-4/19-20-jahrhundert-histoire-contemporaine/un-reve-de-puissance (last visited 10 July 2018).

67 Libera, Martial, Un rêve de puissance : la France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949) (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2012), 595CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 MAE AOR 14 Grimaud, Maurice.

69 MAE AOR 13 Bolotte, Pierre.

70 MAE AOR 1 Humbert, Roger.

71 See Möhler, Rainer, ‘Politische Säuberung im Südwesten unter französischer Besatzung, in Kurt Düwell and Michael Matheus, eds., Kriegsende und Neubeginn: Westdeutschland und Luxemburg zwischen 1944 und 1947 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997), 175–192Google Scholar; Wolfrum, Edgar, ‘Das Bild der “düsteren Franzosenzeit“. Alltagsnot, Meinungsklima und Demokratisierungspolitik in der französischen Besatzungszone nach 1945’, in Stefan Martens, ed., Vom ‘Erbfeind’ zum ‘Erneuerer’. Aspekte und Motive der französischen Deutschlandpolitik nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1993), 87–113Google Scholar and Hudemann, Rainer, ‘L’occupant français et la population allemande après deux guerres mondiales’, Relations Internationales 80 (1994), 471–489Google Scholar. Of those three publications only Möhler mentions the presence of Vichyssois as one reason for the German scepticism towards the French occupiers but does not provide any evidence for this claim.

72 See MAE AP 150, Sanctions contre la presse 1946–1948 and MAE AP 150/4 Régime de censure (1945–1948).

73 ‘Interdit en Allemagne à cause des révélations de notre envoyé spécial Jacques Morel. France d’Abord continuera de démasquer ceux qui complotent contre la République’, France d’Abord, 12 Jun. 1947.

74 My sources do not mention the way former Nazis perceived the French Vichyssois; more research needs to be done on that issue. The parallels between the French sidelining of Vichyssois and the temporary going underground of former Nazi officials, however, are striking, see for instance Rigoll, Dominik, ‘From Denazification to Renazification? West German Government Officials after 1945’, in Camilo Erlichman and Christopher Knowels, eds., Transforming Occupation: Power Politics, Everyday Life, and Social Interactions in the Western Zones of Occupied Germany, 1945–1955 (London: Bloomsbury 2018, 252–269Google Scholar. In fact, many European nations struggled coming to terms with their experiences in the Second World War. See, for example, von Lingen, Kerstin, ed., Kriegserfahrung und nationale Identität in Europa nach 1945. Erinnerung, Säuberungsprozesse und nationales Gedächtnis (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2009)Google Scholar.

75 The historiography on denazification in the French zone underlines the influence of the purges the French themselves had experienced in France at the end of the war on the French purges of the Nazis but without going into further detail and without making the connection between the negligence practiced in France and the way the French carried out the purges in Germany. See, for example, Henke, Klaus-Dietmar, Politische Säuberung unter französischer Besatzung: die Entnazifizierung in Württemberg-Hohenzollern (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1981), 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Möhler, Rainer, ‘Politische Säuberung im Südwesten unter Französischer Besatzung’, in Kurt Düwell and Michael Matheus, eds., Kriegsende und Neubeginn. Westdeutschland und Luxemburg zwischen 1944 und 1947 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997), 175–192;Google Scholar as well as Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 59Google Scholar. See also Majer, Dietmut, Review of Entnazifizierung in Rheinland-Pfalz und im Saarland unter französischer Besatzung von 1945 bis 1952 by Rainer Möhler, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 37, 1 (March 1996), 161–162Google Scholar.

76 Grohnert, Reinhard, ‘Die “auto-épuration”– Der französische Sonderweg in der Entnazifizierung’, in Edgar Wolfrum, Peter Fässler and Reinhard Grohnert, eds., Krisenjahre und Aufbruchszeit: Alltag und Politik im französisch besetzten Baden, 1945–1949 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1996), 167Google Scholar.

77 Henke, Klaus-Dietmar, Politische Säuberung unter französischer Besatzung: die Entnazifizierung in Württemberg-Hohenzollern (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1981), 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 On the self purges see Grohnert, Reinhard, ‘Die “auto-épuration”– Der französische Sonderweg in der Entnazifizierung’, in Edgar Wolfrum, Peter Fässler and Reinhard Grohnert, eds., Krisenjahre und Aufbruchszeit: Alltag und Politik im französisch besetzten Baden, 1945–1949 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1996), 165–185Google Scholar, as well as the chapters on auto-épuration in Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 67–181Google Scholar.

79 Archives Sciences Po Paris. Bolotte, Pierre. Dossier 1, Allemagne 1945–1946. Divers documents. Observations faites au cours d’un voyage en Bade et Württemberg par le Capitaine R. de Naurois entre le 1e février et le 12 février 1946, no date.

80 The Americans took over the French two-chamber system. See Henke, Klaus-Dietmar, Politische Säuberung unter französischer Besatzung: die Entnazifizierung in Württemberg-Hohenzollern (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1981), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’ am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 63Google Scholar.

81 Grohnert, Reinhard, ‘Die “auto-épuration”– Der französische Sonderweg in der Entnazifizierung’, in Edgar Wolfrum, Peter Fässler and Reinhard Grohnert, eds., Krisenjahre und Aufbruchszeit: Alltag und Politik im französisch besetzten Baden, 1945–1949 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1996), 172Google Scholar.

82 See, in the case of forestry, Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 95–99Google Scholar.

83 Grohnert, Reinhard, ‘Die “auto-épuration”–Der französische Sonderweg in der Entnazifizierung’, in Edgar Wolfrum, Peter Fässler and Reinhard Grohnert, eds., Krisenjahre und Aufbruchszeit: Alltag und Politik im französisch besetzten Baden, 1945–1949 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1996), 173Google Scholar.

84 When asked about his involvement in denazification, Bolotte replied: ‘Not at all, not at all. Never. No. Moreover, this [the denazification] was not on the agenda in the first six months [of the occupation], you understand? It was not on the agenda.’ SHD Archives orales, 3 K 49, Bolotte. Entretien 2, plage 17.

85 See Borgstedt, Angela, ‘Dénazification – épuration dans l’Allemagne d’après-guerre’, Revue d’Allemagne et des Pays de langue allemande, 40, 2 (2008), 243Google Scholar. Paris did not even send the minimal number of judicial employees required for the denazification to Germany; see Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945-1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’ am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 164Google Scholar.

86 AN C//15893 Assemblée Nationale, Zone d’Occupation Française d’Allemagne et d’Autriche, Rapports. Rapport présenté par M. Henri Wallon au nom de la Ière Section de la Commission parlementaire d’enquête chargée des questions administratives, 5.

87 See, for the symbolic meaning of the purges in France, Rouquet, François, L’épuration dans l’administration française : agents de l’Etat et collaboration ordinaire (Paris: CNRS éditions, 1993), 233Google Scholar.

88 The shift to a mere nominal denazification took place at the latest at the turn of the year 1946–7, when the French zone took over of the rather static American denazification procedures, the Spruchkammerverfahren, see Grohnert, Reinhard, ‘Die “auto-épuration”– Der französische Sonderweg in der Entnazifizierung’, in Edgar Wolfrum, Peter Fässler and Reinhard Grohnert, eds., Krisenjahre und Aufbruchszeit: Alltag und Politik im französisch besetzten Baden, 1945–1949 (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 1996), 182Google Scholar.

89 Angela Borgstedt noted that in comparison to the American zone, the purges in the French zone were accomplished much faster. Borgstedt, Angela, ‘Dénazification – épuration dans l’Allemagne d’après-guerre’, Revue d’Allemagne et des Pays de langue allemande, 40, 2 (2008), 247Google Scholar.

90 Morin, Edgar, Allemagne notre souci (Paris: Hier et aujourd’hui, 1947), 65Google Scholar.

91 See SHD 3 U 251. Commandement en Chef des Forces Françaises en Allemagne, Cmt de la Zone d’Occupation Nord. Notes de la Délégation supérieur de Hesse-Palatinat. Note cd. la Dénazification des administrations 1945. Gouvernement Militaire de la Zone Française d’Occupation, Délégation Supérieur pour le Hesse-Palatinat, Affaires Administratives Intérieur. Confidentiel. Le Général Bouley, Délégué Supérieur pour le Gouvernement de Hesse-Palatinat to Messieurs les Délégués du Gouvernment Militaire. Dénazification des administrations, Neustadt, 14 Oct. 1945. See also Gouvernement Militaire de la Zone Française d’Occupation, Délégation Supérieur pour le Hesse-Palatinat, Affaires Administratives Intérieur. Confidentiel. Le Général Bouley, Délégué Supérieur pour le Gouvernement de Hesse-Palatinat to Monsieur l’Oberregierungspräsident à Neustadt. Dénazification des administrations, Neustadt, 10 Oct. 1945.

92 Jacques-Francis Rolland, ‘La faillite de Baden-Baden. Sous l’égide de M. Kuntz les Nazis sarrois sont en place’, Ce Soir, 20 Nov. 1945. Kuntz was one of the few Vichyssois who had to leave the zone, see footnote 58.

93 Foundation for Foreign Affairs, Washington D.C., Field Report on the French Zone in Germany, 1946, 19.

94 Morin, Edgar, L’an zéro de l’Allemagne (Paris: Cité Universelle, 1946), 212Google Scholar.

95 See ‘French use Nazis from U.S. District: American officer declares that men ousted by us have regained positions 27 office holders cited French shrug off protests’, New York Times, 21 Oct. 1945. See also Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’ am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 74Google Scholar.

96 Reinhard Grohnert suspected that the American press campaign against the French denazification measures merely distracted from their own denazification scandals and noted that the Americans employed at least three officials that had been formerly purged in the French zone. See Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 75Google Scholar.

97 Morin, Edgar, L’an zéro de l’Allemagne (Paris: Cité Universelle, 1946), 213Google Scholar.

98 Klaus-Dietmar Henke’s study is representative of the ‘Eldorado der Duldsamkeit’–interpretation of the French denazification policy. The newer studies tried to put forward the various circumstances that led to the failure of the French denazification instead of condemning too easily the French policy as such. Those fatal circumstances were the Parisian interest in a functioning administration and economy to extract reparations, the lack of organization and guidelines, the German criticism of punishing the small fishes instead the big ones, and the time pressure the purge commissions were in. See Dotterweich, Volker, review of Die Entnazifizierung in Baden 1945–1949. Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’ am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone by Reinhard Grohnert, Historische Zeitschrift, 260, 1 (Feb. 1995), 283–284Google Scholar. The newer studies include Möhler and Grohnert, see footnote 75. There is no study on the denazification of the French zone as a whole, there are only regional studies on the Saarland, Württemberg-Baden and the Palatinate. For a still quite accurate overview of the literature on denazification, see Rauh-Kühne, Cornelia, ‘Die Entnazifizierung und die deutsche Gesellschaft’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 35 (1995), 35–70Google Scholar. See also Jarausch, Konrad, After Hitler. Recivilizing Germans 1945–1995 (Oxford University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Very recently the research has turned again to the study of denazification in Germany as a whole and the French zone in particular. See for instance the conference organized by the German Historical Institute in Paris in March 2018 titled ‘La France et la dénazification de l’Allemagne après 1945’ as well as the book projects by Mikkel Dack and Rebecca Boehling.

99 ‘Le Général de Gaulle refute les allégations mensongères sur l’administration de notre zone d’occupation’, Nouvelles De France, 16 Nov. 1945. See also: MAE, AC 852/10 Allemagne, guerre. 1944–6.

100 See for example the classic study on denazification in the American zone, Niethammer, Lutz, Die Mitläuferfabrik: Die Entnazifizierung am Beispiel Bayerns (Berlin: Dietz, 1982)Google Scholar.

101 ‘The French Zone of Germany. Drawbacks of a Profitable Policy’, The Manchester Guardian, 22 Dec. 1947.

102 ‘In the French Zone’, Times London, 30 Nov. 1945.

103 See Droit, Emmanuel, ‘Le RPF dans les Zones Françaises d’Occupation en Allemagne (1947–1958)’, in François Audigier and Frédéric Schwindt, eds., Gaullisme et Gaullistes dans la France de l’Est sous la IV République (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009), 187–201Google Scholar.

104 Henke, Klaus-Dietmar, Politische Säuberung unter französischer Besatzung: die Entnazifizierung in Württemberg-Hohenzollern (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1981), 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105 Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Grimaud, GRI 1, Dossier 3, éléments biographique, Essai de C.V., 15 Aug. 1996, 21.

106 MAE AOR 14 Grimaud, Maurice. This supports F. Roy Willis thesis who doubted that the former Vichy administrators had any major influence on the policy of the French zone while he also suggested that those who had served the Vichy state had a desire for revenge, which the occupiers coming from the resistance lacked. See Willis, Frank Roy, The French in Germany, 1945–49 (Stanford University Press, 1962), 149Google Scholar.

107 Archives Sciences Po Paris. Fonds Grimaud, GRI 4. Alain Cances, Dans quelles conditions décidez-vous de partir pour l’Allemagne en août 1945?, no date, 6b. Bolotte, for instance, left Germany in spring 1946, having found employment at the secretary of state in Paris.

108 Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’ am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 69–70Google Scholar.

109 Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’ am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 73Google Scholar.

110 Grohnert, Reinhard, Die Entnazifizierung in Baden, 1945–1949: Konzeptionen und Praxis der ‘Epuration’ am Beispiel eines Landes der französischen Besatzungszone (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 75Google Scholar.

111 On the importance of experts for Vichy France’s administration and the continuous reliance on experts in the post-war administration within metropolitan France, see Paxton, Robert, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order 1940–1944 (Columbia University Press, 2001), 259–268Google Scholar and 334–43.

112 de Gaulle, Charles, Discours et messages. Pendant la guerre, juin 1940–janvier 1946 (Paris: Plon, 1970), 432Google Scholar. On de Gaulle’s avoidance of an open civil war, see Wieviorka, Olivier, ‘Guerre civile à la française ? Le cas des années sombres (1940–1945)’, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’Histoire, 85, 1 (2005), 13–16Google Scholar.

113 See, for example, Cointet, Jean-Paul, Expier Vichy: L’épuration en France (1943–1958) (Paris: Perrin, 2008)Google Scholar or the classic Novick, Peter, The Resistance versus Vichy: The Purge of Collaborators in Liberated France (London: Chatto & Windus, 1968)Google Scholar. This is equally true for Virgili, Fabrice, Shorn Women: Gender and Punishment in Liberation France (Oxford; New York: Berg, 2002)Google Scholar.

114 See van Dongen, Luc, Un purgatoire très discret : La transition helvétique d’anciens nazis, fascistes et collaborateurs après 1945 (Paris, Genève: Perrin; Société d’histoire de la Suisse romande, 2008)Google Scholar and Bergère, Marc, Vichy au Canada: l’exil québécois de collaborateurs français (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Those two examples mainly focus on cases of collaborators who escaped the purges in France at the end of the war. The Vichyssois in this article had been purged and had mostly been reintegrated into their ministries of origin in France and were only afterwards sent to Germany.

115 See the title of van Dongen, Luc, Un purgatoire très discret : La transition helvétique d’anciens nazis, fascistes et collaborateurs après 1945 (Paris, Genève: Perrin; Société d’histoire de la Suisse romande, 2008)Google Scholar.

116 ‘Civile ou militaire’, Combat, 8 Nov. 1945.

117 See Libera, Martial, Un rêve de puissance : La France et le contrôle de l’économie allemande (1942–1949) (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2012), 315CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

118 See Morin, Edgar, Allemagne notre souci (Paris: Hier et aujourd’hui, 1947), 35Google Scholar.

119 SHD 4 Q 22, ‘En Allemagne occupée… Baden-Baden le dernier salon où l’on danse…’, L’Alsace, 21 Sept. 1945.

120 Rousso, Henry, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944 (Harvard University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

121 See Joseph Golsan, Richard, The Papon Affair: Memory and Justice on Trial (London: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar. For the generational change in the memory of the German occupation and the Holocaust see for example: Deák, István, ‘Introduction’, in István Deák, Jan T. Gross and Tony Judt, eds., The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and its Aftermath (Princeton University Press, 2009), 12Google Scholar and Wieviorka, Annette, The Era of the Witness (Cornell University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

122 Quoted from Eric Conan, ‘Le Grand Absent’, L’Express, 20 Nov. 1997. http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/le-grand-absent_494911.html (Last visited 11 Jul. 2018).

123 Conan, Eric and Rousso, Henry, Vichy: An Ever-Present Past (Hanover: University Press of New England 1998)Google Scholar.

124 Quoted from Eric Conan, ‘Le grand absent’, L’Express, 20 Nov. 1997. http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/le-grand-absent_494911.html (Last visited 11 Jul. 2018).