Gun Control in Nazi Occupied-France Read online

  The “occupied” were careful to keep such personal weapons as they had; a revolver, a sporting rifle or some trophy of the 1914–18 war was easy to conceal in a barn or granary. When the occupying power issued orders to hand them in, the acquiescent or fearful minority obeyed but many more refused to comply.47

  In the Haut-Marnais, a department in the Champagne-Ardenne region of northeastern France, there were plenty of hunting guns—about ten thousand hunting licenses were issued annually before 1939—as well as a number of war souvenirs in good condition. How many were surrendered is unknown, but a great deal of weapons were secreted. A Maxim machine gun was found in a stream in the early 1980s.48

  Hiding guns from the Germans could be a cat-and-mouse game, and rust would prove to be a formidable enemy. Resistance member Jacques Demange wrote to me about his experiences in the village of Mont-sur-Meurthe, located in northeastern France.49

  The first priority for the Germans was to collect all the arms scattered in the homes as soon as possible. Of course, it was difficult to escape it. As far as I am concerned, my father was a hunter, and owned two shotguns, one of which was old. Of course, it is the latter that I registered at the City Hall. We had a very short time to act.

  The way the Germans operated was simple, and as follows: They went to the city hall and demanded the names of the residents of the village who were hunters, and then threats followed. However, a great number of arms were hidden. For my part, I greased and oiled my father’s shotgun, as well as a collection of Arab daggers and a G-35 revolver. I carefully wrapped everything before placing them in a wooden box, which I buried in the cow pasture.

  Capitulation

  The reasons why the French forces were defeated are numerous. Germany’s superior infantry and panzers could simply go around the bunkers of the Maginot Line, and France’s air force was no match for the Luftwaffe. French intelligence failed dramatically to anticipate how Germany would wage this blitzkrieg.50 Among countless other reasons, one soldier exclaimed, “We had the guns but the wrong ammunition! … They expected men with rifles to hold up tanks.”51

  The situation was looking bleak when the French war cabinet met on May 24, 1940. Prime Minister Paul Reynaud asked General Louis-Antoine Colson whether more young men should be called up. “The General replied that there would be neither arms, clothes, nor blankets for these young recruits.” About existing troops that were being reorganized, he added, “Not even enough rifles were available; at the outside there were five thousand, and they were of an old pattern.”52 While Reynaud wanted to fight on, already General Maxime Weygand, commander of the French armies, and Marshal Philippe Pétain began to demand an armistice.53

  The Luftwaffe bombed Paris on June 3, the government fled to Tours on the 10th. The Wehrmacht entered the city on the 14th, and its victory march under the Arc de Triomphe was filmed and widely shown. Three out of five million inhabitants had fled in panic, and there was no resistance.54 Because of the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact, the French Communist Party had opposed the war and encouraged friendship with the Germans when they occupied Paris.55 While patriots of both left and right would later create resistance movements, the majority adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

  Meanwhile the government had moved on to Bordeaux. On June 11, Churchill flew in to meet with the war cabinet, urging that they “wage a kind of guerilla warfare in various parts of France, if co-ordinated war became impossible.” Pétain replied that the result would be “the destruction of the country.” Reynaud resigned, and on the 16th Pétain was appointed in his place. Pierre Laval reemerged to join the new government and to assist with negotiating an armistice.56

  On June 17, Pétain broadcast to France: “With a heavy heart, I am telling you today that it is necessary to bring fighting to an end.”57 As the newspaper Le Matin put it: “Marshal Pétain, the new Prime Minister of the Council of the French Republic, announces in a radio broadcast to the French people that France must give up her arms.”58 Jean Guéhenno, a Parisian man of letters who kept a copious diary, wrote, “There, it’s over. At half past noon an old man who doesn’t even have the voice of a man anymore, but talks like an old woman, informed us that last night he had asked for peace.”59

  A few hours after the broadcast, General Alphonse Joseph Georges complained that Pétain had “broken the last resistance of the French army.” Colonel Passy (codename for André Dewavrin) noted that near Brest “the ditches along the roads [are] strewn with arms lamentably abandoned by men shouting: ‘The war is over! Pétain has just said so. Why get killed when the war is over?’” The general commanding the eighteenth military district at Bordeaux issued this order: “Disarm everyone…. Consign officers and men to quarters. Remain where you are, without firing. Officers who do not execute these orders will be hauled before a court-martial!” A soldier who said, “I had never fired a rifle before,” shot an officer who wanted to fight.60

  “Order and Security”

  In Munich that same day, Hitler told Mussolini that the French would more readily obey the occupier’s orders if executed indirectly by their own countrymen.61 The strategy for collaboration was set.

  It was still June 17 when General Johannes Blaskowitz was appointed as the military commander in France (Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich, or MBF), which headquartered itself in the luxurious Hotel Majestic in Paris. That was on the Avenue Kléber, a five-minute stroll from the Arc de Triomphe at the head of the Champs-Élysées. He would be replaced by General Alfred Streccius on June 30.62 Regional commanders (Bezirkchefs) in Saint-Germain, Dijon, Angers, Bordeaux, and most significantly greater Paris (Groß-Paris) served under the MBF. Under each of these were field commanders (Feldkommandanten), who exercised administrative supervision over the prefect of the department, which in turn formed the backbone of the French administration. At the local level were town commanders (Ortskommandanten).63

  SS-Brigadeführer Werner Best was appointed chief of the departmental administration (Abteilung Verwaltung) of the administrative staff (Verwaltungsstabs) under the MBF, where he would serve through mid-1942. He supervised fifteen bureaus, such as General Administration, Propaganda, Police, and Justice, these last two being key to the repressive apparatus.64 Best had gained notoriety in Germany in 1931 before Hitler came to power as author of plans for the seizure of power by the storm troopers (Sturmabteilung or SA) in which anyone failing to surrender firearms within twenty-four hours would be shot on the spot.65 As chief legal adviser to the Gestapo in 1935, he forbade police from issuing firearm licenses to Jews.66

  Best would write a description of the German military administration in France in which “order and security” was foremost. The list of decrees under that category began with the ban on possession of weapons of May 10, 1940, followed by the imposition of German criminal law, surrender of radio transmitters, ban on public assemblies, measures against Jews, restrictions on hunting, and other repressive measures.67 After helping oversee the policy in occupied France to execute people who neglected to hand in their firearms, in 1942 Best would be appointed German Reich plenipotentiary in Denmark, where he again implemented a decree threatening execution for anyone not turning in their guns in twenty-four hours.68

  Charles de Gaulle began broadcasting from London on June 18, 1940.69 Seeming like wishful thinking, his appeal on the BBC proclaimed that “France has lost a battle, but she has not lost the war, for this is a world war.”70 Jean Guéhenno wrote, “Last night the voice of General de Gaulle on London radio. In the midst of this vile disaster, what a joy to hear a voice with some pride in it at last: ‘I, General de Gaulle, I am asking … The flame of French resistance cannot go out….’”71

  The Armistice

  For many, the flame was extinguished. On June 19, the French commanding general at La Rochelle issued this order: “Disarm everyone. Collect all arms and ammunition in one place. Consign officers and troops to quarters. Wait where you are without firing or offering resistance of any kind.”72

&
nbsp; Pétain appointed General Charles Huntziger to head the delegation to negotiate the armistice. The Franco-German Armistice Agreement was signed on June 22 at Compiègne, in the same railway car where the Germans signed the armistice ending the Great War.73 As shown in German newsreels, Hitler made a jubilant appearance, then left to view the Eiffel Tower and other Paris landmarks.

  France was largely divided into the occupied zone administered by the German military commander, including northern and western France, and the unoccupied zone, which would be ruled by Pétain from Vichy.74 The German military commander in Belgium administered two French departments at the northwest border, Italy controlled a small zone in southeastern France, and Alsace and Lorraine were returned to Germany after the armistice. The agreement required French collaboration with the occupation force:

  In the occupied parts of France the German Reich exercises all rights of an occupying power; the French Government obligates itself to support with every means the regulations resulting from the exercise of these rights and to carry them out with the aid of French administration.

  All French authorities and officials of the occupied territory, therefore, are to be promptly informed by the French Government to comply with the regulations of the German military commanders and to cooperate with them in a correct manner.75

  Collaboration, in which the French police and bureaucracy would enforce German commands, would make for an easier occupation. Direct German military rule, such as existed in conquered Poland, was infinitely harsher, involving the physical elimination of entire classes of people.76 But collaboration would entail its own costs, moral and human, and would enlist the collaborators in the Nazi cause.77

  The armistice further provided that French armed forces “are to be demobilized and disarmed,” excepting “only those units which are necessary for maintenance of domestic order,” which Germany and Italy would decide.78 “Weapons, munitions, and war apparatus of every kind remaining in the unoccupied portion of France are to be stored and/or secured under German and/or Italian control—so far as not released for the arming allowed to French units.”79 In addition to forbidding the French government to allow any of its armed forces to fight against Germany, the armistice provided that “[t]he French Government will forbid French citizens to fight against Germany in the service of States with which the German Reich is still at war. French citizens who violate this provision are to be treated by German troops as insurgents.”80

  That last provision meant that French who resisted with arms would do so “unlawfully,” and would not need to be taken as prisoners of war, but could be executed on the spot. No right to defense of the community against tyranny would be recognized.81 As events would turn out, some members of both the right and the left would join the Resistance, and they well understood the risks if caught or captured. Others of both political spectrums would choose the paths either of passivity or of collaboration.

  More Death Threats

  Neither the armistice nor the Hague Convention explicitly authorized the death penalty for civilians in mere possession of firearms, although both gave great latitude to the authority of the occupying power. Disarming a conquered population for the security of the occupier might be justified under the traditional laws of war, but executing gun owners not acting as francs-tireurs (combatants without uniforms) would be hard to justify.

  Just five days after the armistice was signed, Le Matin published the decree threatening execution of anyone who failed to surrender all firearms within twenty-four hours, some six weeks after its original issuance, under the headline: “Anyone in possession of unregistered arms shall receive the death penalty.”82 This itself was misleading, in that firearms registered under French law were not exempt. The decree stated:

  Decree concerning the possession of arms in occupied territory, dated May 10, 1940

  1. Any firearms and ammunition, hand grenades, explosives or other material shall be surrendered.

  This surrender shall be done within 24 hours at the next place or camp of command, unless other prescriptions or local orders have been given. The mayors (officials in charge of town districts) shall be held fully responsible to carry out this decree as it is prescribed. Commanders of troops are authorized to give exemptions.

  2. Anyone in possession of firearms, ammunition, hand grenades, explosives or other war matériel, counter to the said decree, shall receive the death penalty or hard labor, or, in less serious cases, jail.

  3. Anyone committing any acts of violence against the German army or any of its members shall be put to death.

  The Army High Command

  A footnote to the above requirement that firearms be turned in within twenty-four hours stated: “That is to say from the publication or announcement of this decree.” However, no certain way existed to know what time or even the date the decree was published or announced, meaning that a person who sought to surrender a firearm days, hours, or even minutes late was subject to the death penalty.

  The New York Times reported from Paris on the same day that “German Army Decrees Death for Those Retaining Arms and Radio Senders.”83 The article stated:

  Two severe orders were issued this morning by the military authorities; one, signed by General Walther von Brauchitsch, commander in chief of the German armies, demands that all radio sending apparatus, even that made by amateurs, be turned over to the nearest German military post….

  The other order, signed by the Army High Command, concerns firearms. All firearms, hand grenades, explosives and other war material must be turned over to the military authorities. Any one not obeying the order is liable to death, hard labor or a prison term.

  Such orders were widely disseminated in public places. But as Agnès Humbert, a member of the Resistance, noted, “[A]s fast as German posters are put up in Paris they are slashed and torn down again. The people of Paris are rebelling already.”84 But that was wishful thinking. Slashing some posters in a few parts of town expressed defiance, but hardly constituted rebellion in a manner that would threaten the occupation. “Resistance” is a word that would have many meanings, and it would be a long road ahead to liberate France.

  About “those gray men I begin to pass in the streets,” Guéhenno wrote, “[a]n invasion of rats.”85 The New York Times observed:

  The best way to sum up the disciplinary laws imposed upon France by the German conqueror is to say that the Nazi decrees reduce the French people to as low a condition as that occupied by the German people. Military orders now forbid the French to do things which the German people have not been allowed to do since Hitler came to power. To own radio senders or to listen to foreign broadcasts, to organize public meetings and distribute pamphlets, to disseminate anti-German news in any form, to retain possession of firearms—all these things are prohibited for the subjugated people of France, as they have been verboten these half dozen years to the people of Germany.86

  Ambiguities of International Law?

  Even with the glorious victory over France, the German people were not fully behind the Führer, as the negative answer to the following rhetorical question made clear: “[W]ill Hitler now abolish the Gestapo and set up a free press?”87

  To be sure, Hitler was at the height of his popularity for undoing the results of the Great War and getting revenge for the Versailles Treaty. But the propaganda films of cheering crowds could not hide the years of repression and dictatorship.

  Nazi aggression violated numerous tenets of international law. Did the seizure of civilian firearms under threat of the death penalty violate international law?

  The Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1907 was signed by Germany and most powers. It includes several provisions pertinent to possession of arms. Article 1 of the convention provides that the laws and rights of war apply not only to armies, but also to militia and volunteer corps under a command. Members needed to have “a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance” and to “carry arms openly.�
�88 Under Article 2, inhabitants of a territory “who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading troops without having had time to organize themselves in accordance with Article 1” are regarded as belligerents if they carry arms openly.89

  If a territory is occupied, the occupier does not have unlimited power, and in particular must respect “the lives of persons” and cannot confiscate private property.90 Article 53 of the convention provides:

  An army of occupation can only take possession of cash, funds, and realizable securities which are strictly the property of the State, depôts of arms, means of transport, stores and supplies, and, generally, all movable property belonging to the State which may be used for military operations.

  All appliances, whether on land, at sea, or in the air, adapted for the transmission of news, or for the transport of persons or things, exclusive of cases governed by naval laws, depôts of arms, and, generally, all kinds of ammunition of war, may be seized, even if they belong to private individuals, but must be restored and compensation fixed when peace is made.91

  Under the first paragraph above, the occupying force may seize government property, including “depôts of arms.” Under the second, “depôts of arms” and “all kinds of ammunition of war” may be seized from private individuals. It is unclear that these terms would include single or small numbers of arms, especially hunting and target arms, and ammunition that is not of a military type. Moreover, the power to “seize” depôts of arms in no manner suggests a duty of the civilian voluntarily to surrender arms or a power under the convention to execute the owner thereof after the seizure. Indeed, soldiers engaged in hostilities who are captured and disarmed cannot be executed because of their prior possession of arms. What would justify execution of a nonbelligerent civilian for mere possession of an arm?