Chapter 10
1. The Germans had lowered the exchange rate, devaluing the franc against the Reichsmark by almost 25 per cent. As their soldiers’ pay was calculated in Reichsmarks but given to them in francs, they had plenty of money.
2. As well as leading the Popular Front government in 1935–7, Blum was Prime Minister for two months, March and April, in 1938.
3. This required the French state to hand over to the German authorities any German national on French soil (the ‘Surrender on Demand’ clause) who could then face deportation and internment in a concentration camp. There were verbal assurances that this would apply mainly to those refugees who had ‘fermented [sic] the war’, a euphemism for Jews, and especially German Jews, who until then had enjoyed asylum in France.
4. Hydrogen cyanide, a colourless poison smelling faintly of bitter almonds.
5. The average man needs about 2,500 and the average woman about 2,000 a day to maintain normal body weight.
6. A fixed-wing seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water and float. Flying boats were some of the largest aircraft of the first half of the twentieth century, and by using water instead of expensive land-based runways they became the staple form of transport for international airlines in between the wars.