Description

Basing his extensive research into hitherto unexploited archival documentation on both sides of the Rhine, Allan Mitchell has uncovered the inner workings of the German military regime from the Wehrmacht's triumphal entry into Paris in June 1940 to its ignominious withdrawal in August 1944. Although mindful of the French experience and the fundamental issue of collaboration, the author concentrates on the complex problems of occupying a foreign territory after a surprisingly swift conquest. By exploring in detail such topics as the regulation of public comportment, economic policy, forced labor, culture and propaganda, police activity, persecution and deportation of Jews, assassinations, executions, and torture, this study supersedes earlier attempts to investigate the German domination and exploitation of wartime France. In doing so, these findings provide an invaluable complement to the work of scholars who have viewed those dark years exclusively or mainly from the French perspective.

Allan Mitchell received his PhD from Harvard in 1961 and then taught at Smith College (1961-1972) and the University of California (1973-1993). He has recently published three books: a paperback edition of The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-German Rivalry, 1815-1914 (Berghahn Books, 2006); Rêves Parisiens. L'échec de projets de transport public en France aux XIXe siècle (Ponts et Chaussées, Paris, 2005); and A Stranger in Paris: Germany's Role in Republican France, 1870-1940 (Berghahn Books, 2006).