FRENCH PRISONERS OF WAR IN 1940

In the summer of 1940, millions of French people began writing — to their mayors, sub-prefects and prefects, but also to international organisations and even to the Pope — to find out what had become of their father, their husband, their children. In barely six weeks, between 13 May and 22 June 1940, military defeat turned into a rout, and captivity now affected nearly two million soldiers held by the Germans on French territory. A transitory captivity, the first stage of a long and sometimes painful imprisonment in the Reich, yet also a foundational captivity and a forgotten memory of the Second World War.

North of the Loire as along the Atlantic, France became covered with prisoner-of-war camps, the Frontstalags. A genuine logistical, social and political challenge, captivity became a central issue — for the families waiting at home, for the Vichy regime seeking to assert its sovereignty, for the German authorities imposing their victor's order, and for international bodies ranging from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United States Embassy to the Vatican.

To show, to make felt, to bring understanding of what French captivity in France in 1940 was like: such is the objective of this collective work, which varies scales and perspectives to offer a history at the crossroads of defeat, Occupation and Collaboration — an essay that, drawing on French and foreign archives as well as numerous iconographic documents, weaves together international relations and everyday life at a human level.