Talk:German military administration in occupied France during World War II

Weeping Frenchman question

This note is to justify a change in a photo caption. I have added a well-known historic photo to this page, of a Parisian weeping as German troops occupy his city. Little is known of the origins of this photo, certainly not the identity of the man or why he cries. It has been widely assumed that he is sorrowful, since he is witnessing foreign troops enter his home, the surrender of his armed forces, and the capitulation of his government. I had always understood that this was the general sentiment throughout France, and certainly in occupied (non-Vichy) France.

The original caption stated simply that the man weeps. This was the caption provided by the photo source (www.archives.gov) and the same caption that appears elsewhere in Wikipedia. The new caption adds "in joy or sorrow". The addition adds unnecessary ambiguity, and makes a strong implication away from the general consensus on this photo.

I am open to other opinions about this photo, if they can be sourced. The caption was changed without comment. I am reverting. Please discuss if you disagree.

I know for a fact that the picture in question was taken int he city of Marseille, and that the man is Italian. I'll try and look for hard evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.67.46 (talk) 02:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Altering Caption

The caption says "A Frenchman weeps as German soldiers march into the French capital, Paris, on June 14, 1940, after the Allied armies had been driven back across France", however: 1) It doesn't make sense as it's extremely doubtful there was a civilian crowd to greet German soldiers in Paris. 2) The same picture on Commons tells a different and more believable story, supported by a movie [1] (very end) showing the same scene in context.

French people staring and waving at the French Army remaining troops leaving metropolitan France at Toulon harbour, 1940, to reach the French colonies in Africa where will be organized as Free French Forces fighting on the Allied side, while France is taken over by the Nazis and the Petain regime collaborating with them. Screenhot taken from the 1943 United States Army propaganda film Divide and Conquer (Why We Fight #3) directed by Frank Capra and partially based on, news archives, animations, restaged scenes and captured propaganda material from both sides. As a propaganda film from "unknown" source, it is unsure if the scene was really shot on location or if it was later restaged in studios.

In light of this, I'm editing the text of the picture accordingly and captions where used.82.231.41.7 (talk) 13:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Jews

I disagree with the caption to the picture of the yellow Star of David. Only in the Occupied Zone were Jews over the age of 6 required to wear the star. It was never imposed by Vichy and I do not believe that French Jews in the so-called "Free Zone" were ever made to wear it. Dick Kimball (talk) 20:19, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Dates

I would like to change the start date from May to 22 June 1940, ie from the start to end of the Battle of France also the end of the French Third Republic. Opinions? Rsloch (talk) 12:47, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

German military administration in occupied France during World War I

14 May 2012‎ PBS revert move by User:DIREKTOR. Take it to RM for further discussion as there are other military occupations eg "German military administration in occupied France during World War I". -- PBS (talk) 16:08, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I see. Would you object to "Military Administration in France (World War II)"? I really don't want to get into a whole RM thing right now as I've got a lot going on, and the current title seems unnecessarily long. -- Director (talk) 16:30, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

You made a move at 06:08, 15 May 2012‎, less than 24 hours after you placed a reply on this talk page. That is not long enough for a consensus to emerge one way or another. The new name is not acceptable because the Allies also had a military administration in "Liberated" France. It was at the time a highly political issue between the Free French and the other Allies.

See for example the articles on US occupation franc and UNRRA "The organization was subject to the authority of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) in Europe and was directed by three Americans during the four years of its existence".

So I am going to revert the move and I strongly suggest that if you want to move this page you follow the advise at WP:RM#Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves and use RM to request the move so that that if the page is going to be moved there is discussion and a clear consensus for it. -- PBS (talk) 09:08, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The article used to be under the name German occupation of France during World War II (It was there for many years until moved at 07:49, 21 June 2011‎ by user:Mvaldemar. I think that name is better than the current one (it is shorter and it allows the scope of the article to include subjects that were not specifically about the German administration). I would support moving it back to that name. -- PBS (talk) 09:35, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

This article can be on the German occupation of France, which would be a period in French history, or it can another German occupation territory article. The scope and purpose of the article is rather vague as it is now. As always, I support the method of relaying the historical narrative, not through period articles, but through articles on the successive political entities. A political entity article does not only carry information about the administration of the entity, but on the history as well. -- Director (talk) 11:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Talk:France during World War II

It's important to sort out the mess that are the WWII articles.

All input welcome. Thank you. ^walk victor falk ^talk 20:11, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to change section title: Obligatory Work Service

The term is just a literal translation from the French label. The work I have seen in English tends to use the term "forced labor"; this accurately describes the process where people were forced to leave home and country to work for the Germans. In English, obligation tends to have a more passive sense. Joel Mc (talk) 06:36, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Jenks24 (talk) 10:01, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

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German military administration in occupied France during World War II → German occupation of France during World War II – To allow a more general article to be written and the descriptive name is in line with other similar articles such as German occupation of Belgium during World War II and German occupation of Norway (Norway was only occupied one by the Germans so no need for extension World War II). --Relisted. ^walk victor falk ^talk 18:15, 10 June 2014 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 14:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC) PBS (talk) 12:08, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

• Comment The article used to be under the name "German occupation of France during World War II" (It was there for many years until moved at 07:49, on 21 June 2011‎ by user:Mvaldemar). -- PBS (talk) 12:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Survey

• WP:CONCISE is policy, so support Neutral Red Slash 16:11, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Red Slash, leaving aside the discussion about the proper scope of this article and the inferority of alternative titles that this article has wandered across back and forth as per the message I left on BDD's talk page, let's examine just how concise the title can be.
"Military Administration in France" is a given, as it is the plain and straightforward translation. "during World War WII" must be added, to dab from other occupations of France in history. Already we have quite a mouthful in "Military Administration in France during World War WII". Then "German" must be added, to disambiguate from the Italian military administrations, and that it was not some administration of the French military. So only "occupied" could hypothetically be removed, yielding German military administration in France during World War II.
This is now a classic and traditional WP:CONCISE vs WP:PRECISE contest, in deciding whether to leave out "occupied" or not. On the pro side, having it clarifies that it related to the occupied zones, the occupied zone and later the north zone and the south zone, and is not related to annexed Alsace-Lorraine or the "free zone", which can said to be part of the history of the occupation of France when speaking loosely (and often is in less stringent historical accounts). As the marginal loss of conciseness is very small for adding just one word to an already rather long title, I think this is a case of better safe than sorry. ^walk victor falk ^talk 18:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, is there a reason why we have to translate the title? I now recognize the distinction and why it's necessary, so I'll drop out and say "neutral". Thanks for the excellent lesson! Red Slash 01:05, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

What, you mean leaving it as Militärverwaltung in Frankreich? ^walk victor falk ^talk 01:59, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment This article was first moved recently from Military Administration in France (Nazi Germany) to Military Administration in France by user:BDD. I then left User_talk:BDD#Military_Administration_in_France#the following message on their talk page:

Military Administration in France

Please refer to Talk:Territory_of_the_Military_Commander_in_Serbia/Archive_index as why "Military Administration in France" is troublesome (not recognisable, not precise).

I'm all for removing parenthetical disambiguators, but "German military administration in France" could refer to occupations in 1871-73, 1914-1918, or 1940-44.

And on its own without context, it refers to the organisation taking care of administrative affairs of the French military.

"Zone occupée" is not an alternative, as it is its own article.

I'm not fond at all of the title before you changed it, but I'm not really seeing anything better.

Except "Nazi German Military Administration in France", at least it gets rid of us of those ugly parenthesis and that's a marginal improvement.

No wait, I remember that's because it's a direct translation of "Militärverwaltung in Frankreich", and since the German name wasn't "Nationalsozialistischen deutschen Militärverwaltung in Frankreich" that doesn't go. Simply leaving it at Militärverwaltung in Frankreich is judged to be not English enough.

So, what are we left with? ^walk victor falk ^talk 18:47, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not at all attached to the current title; Foo (bar) simply shouldn't redirect to Foo; it's unnecessary disambiguation. If you want to propose an alternative, I (probably) won't object. --BDD (talk) 18:49, 29 April 2014 (UTC)}

It was then moved shortly afterwards, by user:Mvaldemar I presume.

I'm not sure of what is the best translation of Militärverwaltung in Frankreich is. However I'm sure of the following: it is not the place the write a general article about the occupation in France. It would be like making Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia about the occupation in general in Yugoslavia. The situation for France is just as complex, with Vichy France etc. Recently, I've started to edit this article so that it covers the military/German aspects of the occupation (which I've bee working on recently ), while zone occupée should deal about the civilian/French parts. The best place to provide an overview of the occupation would be to develop military occupation of France into a WP:DABCONCEPT and/or WP:SUMMARY STYLE style article to orient the reader across the large topic that is occupied France in WWII, and have different articles handle distinct aspects of it, instead of shoehorning everything into a single monstrosity that would probably become an as unwieldy, cumbersome and too large yet lacking as Military history of France in World War II. See Talk:France_during_World_War_II#Article_or_not.3F for the general situation of WWII France article, which mirrors that of the occupation. ^walk victor falk ^talk 16:31, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

victor falk your complicated signature appears to break {{quotation}} so I have replaced {{quotation}} with with something else. -- PBS (talk) 17:37, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

victor falk, I think you are confused over your time line of page moves. The article used to be under the name German occupation of France during World War II (It was there for many years until moved at 07:49, on 21 June 2011‎ by Mvaldemar). That is 2011 not 2014 -- PBS (talk) 17:37, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

When the article becomes "unwieldy, cumbersome and too large" then it can become a summary style article but it is a long way from that at the moment. -- PBS (talk) 17:40, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

The article's title doesn't match its content very well. An article about the military administration itself should focus on the administration as an organization (mention of Oberfeldkommandanturen, Feldkommandanturen, and Ortskommandanturen and how they functioned as part of the overall occupation). An article about the occupation of France should have a much broader outlook (economic and political impact, postwar aftermath, etc.), which this article currently lacks. As it is, the article mentions a couple of aspects about the military administration and mixes in Gestapo and SS Police actions along with a brief discussion of German military units present in France for rebuilding and defense against invasion by the Allies. W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:33, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

The problemappears to be that we have some confusion about what the arrengements were in France during WWII, and as a result, the scope of the relevant articles are unclear. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 06:50, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

@W. B. Wilson: once the article is moved the section which already contains a link can be expanded by merging in the text in Zone occupée and redirecting that page, which a majority of editors who have commented on talk:Zone occupée#Title seem to be in favour of doing (as they are not happy with the title Zone occupée -- and the term German occupation of France during World War II) is I believe a suitable title). -- PBS (talk) 19:09, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

@PBS: That would be a start. It leaves an open issue, as the Zone occupée, if I understand the term correctly, was the area of France initially occupied by Germany after the campaign of 1940. But the Zone Libre was eventually occupied as well, and all of that factors into the German occupation of France, not to mention the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. My point only being that the German occupation of France encompassed more than the Zone occupée. W. B. Wilson (talk) 06:42, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd say merge all the articles and removed all un-sourced or poorly sourced information, and reformulated long sentences to make it readable and as short as possible. Jonas Vinther (talk) 22:17, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps even more radical than Jonas Vinther's suggestion would be to merge all articles into a WWII France article. Do it again, do it right. This would result in the central article that editors have found (understandably) too daunting too create, preferring to work from the bottom up to yield the myriad articles on the topic we have today, a few rather good, a greater quantity considerably less so. A less ambitious program than starting from tabula rasa, but still large project would be:

• Create a France during World War II (now a dabbish list of WWII France articles) as a narrative general article.
• Create an Axis occupation of France
• Rewrite (and split off?), as has been suggested on its talk page Military history of France during World War II.

Writing these three in a coordinated manner could yield high quality articles having a broad and encyclopedic coverage of the topic. I don't know what would be better, creating Axis occupation of France from scratch, or as merge from the diverse existing articles. Regardless, it would by necessity spawn its own sub-articles because of size, such as French Resistance and Collaboration with Nazi Germany in France during World War II (a topic now covered mainly in Vichy France, but not all collaborateurs and collaborationists were Vichy French, and the Vichy French were in no way exclusively collaborateurs or collaborationists; also cursively in Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II# France and Collaborationism#France). However, no matter how Axis occupation of France is created, if it is created, Militärverwaltung in Frankreich should not be merged into it, for the same reasons as Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France and Reichskommissariat Norwegen should not be merged into German occupation of Belgium during World War II and German occupation of Norway, despite those being comprehensive and high-quality articles, in Norway's case even the main WWII article, as shown by Norway in WWII redirecting there, but because it is a separate topic, namely the one covered in the series of articles in template:German administrative territories (while an article about occupied France would be included in template:Nazi Germany occupations, where it is currently represented by "Vichy" and "zone occupée"; see also template:Occupation of France for an overview of occupied French territories and colonies; btw an article about occupied France should not focus exclusively on the metropole and neglect the history of the colonies during the occupation, as W. B. Wilson notes about Alsace-Lorraine and the Italian occupation, the topic covers much more than the administration of German troops in the Hexagon.) ^walk victor falk ^talk 17:50, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

It sounds much like what I said, Victor Falk. Maybe I formulated it poorly. Anyways, I'm in favor of having one article named something like France during World War II, as you also said. Jonas Vinther (talk) 20:06, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

One article which contains the following sections: Prelude to Battle, The Battle of France, German occupation of France, Liberation of France, and a last one about France in the final months of the war. Jonas Vinther (talk) 18:12, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Whether or not there needs to be an overview article that covers the period up until the end of the battle of France the occupation and liberation is debatable but not really pertinent to this proposed move as I think that if this article is moved back to its original name of German occupation of France during World War II will still be needed to cover the German occupation. I do not see the problem with having an article on the German occupation, with a separate one to cover Vichy France and the Italian occupation (The issue of " French territories and colonies" can be put to one side at the moment). The articles should be written from an English language perspective and have names that general English language histories would usually use. Zone occupée is not the common name for German occupied France and Zone Libre is just confusing as English language histories refer to de Gaulle's lot as the Free French and the Zone Libre as Vichy France. As to the eventual German occupation of the rest of France that follows naturally from a presentation of an article on German occupation with a chronological section on what was occupied when and helps to explain why the Americans and the 1st French Army had to force the Germans to leave all of southern France and why the Germans were not just occupying the northern and western coastal areas. -- PBS (talk) 20:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose and close I don't think this discussion is nowhere near close to coming to a consensus in a normal RM way. As PBS notes, it's not only about the title of this particular article, and as been discussed elsewhere, it's not the only one that is troublesome. I think a WP:CENTRALized discussion should be started to discuss the systemic problems of WWII France articles with a wider community input. ^walk victor falk ^talk 16:18, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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^walk victor falk ^talk 17:48, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

[...]

You might find this interesting Talk:German_military_administration_in_occupied_France_during_World_War_II#Survey, as a discussion of a WWII article involving the word "occupied" in the title, and scope disagreements. ^walk victor falk ^talk 02:18, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I see now that you were the one that made the remark about unclear arrangements during WWII. Quite right, and the Nazi predilection for byzantine bureaucracy is compounded by the fact that on wikipedia the "Vichy France" article, the proper scope of which is the free zone in 1940-42, covers many things that belong more in what people commonly call "German-occupied France". But that doesn't necessarily mean that things in the occupied zones or after 1942 should be verboten from mentioning there, as it remained officially in existence as France's government. These are the kind of nuances and overlapping that makes straightforwardly titling articles "Occupation of Yugoslavia" or "Occupation of France" problematic, if ones wants to give an accurate and non-bowdlerized account of events. ^walk victor falk ^talk 08:31, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree, and I find the dismissive approach of some, who want "out-of-the-box" consistent titling quite irritating. I know a fair bit about the occupation regime in Yugoslavia in WWII, and have written one FA on the Hungarian occupation (which was straightforward in comparison to others). Editors who don't contribute to writing the articles but vehemently criticise those that do piss me right off. Rant over. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Award of Legion of Honor

The French government will award France′s highest decoration, the Legion of Honor (Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur) to any surviving veteran who actively participated in France′s liberation from Nazi occupation. References: News From France newsletter of the French Embassy to the United States, v14.02, March 2009 and Purple Heart magazine of the Military Order of the Purple Heart (but I′ve gone through my old copies back to 2009 without locating the article). I recomment this information for DYK on the Main Page, preferably on the anniversary of D-Day on June 6^th, Operation Dragoon on August 2^nd, or the Liberation of Paris on August 25^th if those events are mentioned in OTD or the day′s featured article.
☺ Dick Kimball (talk) 16:46, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Identity crisis?

This article is suffering a bit at the moment from a crisis of identity. As it seems to me, articles on the German military administration in France (the polity) and the German occupation of France are both valid subjects for articles in their own right, but this article seems to be just a confused mix between the two. In fact, it reads more like an umbrella article covering all occupations in France which is frankly confusing when coupled with the Military Administration-Paris infobox and the bizarre title.

I know this has been debated before, but please, please can we rename this so that it actually does what it says on the tin? I suggest that we have a "Military Administration in France" article (covering the administration itself) and a "German occupation of France during World War II" article (a summary article, covering life in occupied france, the resistance, collaboration and an explanation of all the zones). I suggest this article is moved back to its proper place as the first of the two with some judicious trimming to return it to the scope. —Brigade Piron (talk) 15:57, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Overcomplicated title

Just move to Military Administration in France (Nazi Germany)?

The title seems so unnecessarily complicated, and it doesn't make much sense.. this is the occupation authority? So its occupying "occupied France"? Did someone else also occupy France and this is the occupation occupying the occupied country? :) -- Director (talk) 06:59, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Why "Nazi Germany" and not just "Germany"? When the Allies placed parts of France under military occupation was it "US military occupation" or "Democratic US military occupation"? Also Germany has in the past occupied parts of France in other wars so World War II is useful. -- PBS (talk) 21:31, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I suggest moving it back to its old title German occupation of France during World War II -- PBS (talk) 21:34, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

'occupied' is definitely superfluous, probably 'military' too. Gob Lofa (talk) 21:41, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

@PBS; Personally, I agree, I think "(Germany)" would suffice, but there was a German military administration in France during WWI as well. Some might object along those lines... but if its fine, I'm ok with either brackets.

While your suggestion would obviously be an improvement: note the infobox. This is effectively an entity article, about a German military administrative entity, one of several "Military Administrations" (Militärverwaltungs). It would imo make more sense to bring the title in line with the article's setup, than vice versa. And its not a bad setup: its a good way to sort out the relevant information in one place. -- Director (talk) 12:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

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Photo of German army band in Bordeaux, 1942.

The photo at the bottom labelled "German army band in Bordeaux, 1942" does not seem to depict any "place" in Bordeaux. Can anyone verify where in Bordeaux it was taken? The general architecture and layout in fact look much more like Paris, but no hotel or cafe "de Bordeaux" matching the photo currently exists in that city either. 186.78.28.75 (talk) 19:26, 7 June 2023 (UTC)