NAZI GERMANY INITIATED the invasion of France on May 10, 1940. Six weeks later, on June 22, 1940, France shocked the world by surrendering. The Battle of France was over quickly, even though France’s army was larger than Germany’s. France had also built a powerful defense fortress called the Maginot Line on its German border after World War I, which French leaders believed would successfully prevent another German invasion.
However, the German blitzkrieg was a powerful and superior way of warfare, never before seen, even by the larger but less prepared French army. And although German forces attacked the Maginot Line in several operations, most of the German army moved around it by invading Belgium and the Netherlands before attacking France along its undefended border. Too many French soldiers were stuck manning the now-useless Maginot Line.
But the main reason for the quick surrender was that the French government and its people did not have the heart for another long war like World War I, which had cost over one million French lives. Marshal Petain, a greatly respected general who had become a national hero during World War I, was a central voice calling for the French army to lay down its arms.
The formal surrender of France to Germany occurred, at Hitler’s insistence, in the same train car that had been used for the surrender of Germany during World War I. Afterward, Petain quickly established a collaborationist government with the Germans; that is, he openly cooperated with them and did not treat them as the enemy. The Germans officially occupied northern and western France, and Petain had more or less control of the south, which came to be known as Vichy France because the central headquarters were located in the southern town of Vichy. Petain’s Vichy government was very anti-Semitic, enacting and enforcing anti-Jewish laws even before the Germans ordered them to. Some French people had no problem with the Vichy government. Others speculated that Petain must be secretly working against the Nazis even as he pretended to collaborate with them.
But many French people were outraged at Petain’s attitude. They looked for leadership elsewhere, to French general Charles de Gaulle, one of the few officers who had led his troops to victory several times during the Battle of France. De Gaulle’s vocal protests against surrender caused him to fall out of favor with the French military leadership, and he fled to London where he established the Forces Françaises Libres (Free French Forces), or FFL. The FFL trained in Great Britain and fought the Germans in North Africa throughout the war. They were also part of the Allied invasion on D-day. French women who were able to escape to Great Britain joined the women’s section of the FFL and generally were assigned supportive roles such as secretarial work or nursing.
De Gaulle broadcast stirring radio messages of Resistance from London directed to any French people who might be listening on their now-illegal radios. At first, the French Resistance was a handful of disconnected people in the northern, occupied section of France doing whatever they could think of: transcribing and distributing de Gaulle’s radio speeches, wearing the colors of the French flag, attaching stickers with anti-German slogans in public places, or demonstrating against food shortages caused by the enforced rationing.
But as corruption of the Vichy government became more and more apparent, Resistance activities sprang up all over France and became more organized. A large part of this organization was due to the persuasive efforts of a man named Jean Moulin, a notable hero of the French Resistance. He and his sister, Laure, would often stay up all night decoding secret messages sent to Jean from Resistance groups all over France. Jean was eventually betrayed and died under torture while refusing to give out any information about the many Resistance groups he knew so well.
One type of Resistance group Jean Moulin had worked hard to unite was known as the maquis. The maquis were bands of French resisters who had avoided the forced conscription (draft) into German munitions factories by hiding in rural areas. They were ready and willing to fight the Germans but often lacked supplies. The British and American organizations, the SOE and the OSS, often supported maquis groups by providing them with funds, organization, and ammunition (see chapters on Nancy Wake, page 177; Pearl Witherington, page 184, and Virginia Hall, page 197). Local French women often served as couriers for the maquis and occasionally were allowed to fight alongside them. And many French farming families took great risks (and many were killed) by giving aid, shelter, and food to maquis and SOE and OSS agents.
Another major Resistance activity was espionage (spying). French espionage organizations obtained information regarding German activities and secreted it to Allied leaders. Others shared their information with the many illegal underground presses that sprang up all over France to educate and inspire Resistance workers. Although few French women had been leaders in France’s publishing industry before the war, many of them became heavily involved with the underground French press, not only in distribution but also in the writing and editing of many papers.
Despite rampant French anti-Semitism, there were many Jewish rescue operations in France. During the war, relief organizations such as the Quaker-run American Friends Service Committee were run almost entirely by women. At first, these women worked to relieve the suffering of Jews in Vichy-run concentration camps. Later, they organized rescue operations from those camps. Alice Resch Synnestvedt, one such volunteer, personally escorted at least 300 Jewish children to safety during the war.
Before the war began, French women could not vote. But partly due to their obvious and significant contributions to the French Resistance, they were finally granted suffrage by the French provisional government in 1944.
On August 25, 1944, Paris was liberated by the Allied troops, which included the Free French Forces. All of France was free by September 20, 1944. General Eisenhower, the U.S. leader of the Allied invasion, publicly acknowledged the contributions of the French Resistance when he said, “Throughout France the Resistance had been of inestimable value in the campaign. Without their great assistance the liberation of France would have consumed a much longer time and meant greater losses to ourselves.”