Living under German occupation or under Vichy

[Harry Ree]

Absolute first class documentary on the German occupation around Clermond Ferrand.It was made about 1966 and it also interviewed former Wehrmacht occupiers who appeared to be doing rather well in the post war Western Germany and were still at an age where the interviewer could tease out some interesting points out of them which I remember only convinced me that they thought themselves as being in the right.

The peasant farmers told the harrowing story of the occupation and the constant fear of being denounced.There is also the interview with the taxi driver who as "Colonel" tried to take on the German forces in a fixed battle on the Margeride which resulted in the loss of many civilians from the savage retaliation of the German occupiers.

The National Resistance Memorial on Mont Mouchet is set in the battle area and records this uprising.There was a large number of German casualties from this engagement such that many properties in nearby St Flour were requisitioned to deal with them.

However the account of the Battle of Mont Mouchet should be read external to this documentary.Some might say it was the wrong way to conduct partisian engagements although it is fair to say that the Germans could act only in one way and that was the way they reacted after the engagements on the Margaride.

[Harry Ree]

Originally Posted by seamonkey

Last month I stayed just east of paris with 3 old aunties of my late french husband, they told me how the Germans came and put them out of their farmhouse. Dad was fighting in the war mum was home with 8 children one of them a baby. They went to live in the nearby forest digging a deep trench and living in the trench for 2 months. The officer in charge told the mum that after the war he would be back and required the house for his family to have holidays in. I slept in the room that the officer had claimed for himself. These aunties allowed me to video them telling the story, soon as I have edited it I will subtitle it and put it on the internet for anyone who wants to to watch.

I think this is an example of the arrogance that abounded some individuals when they thought they were on top.These stories are too common at a time when the Germans thought they were staying in the territory they had overrun and consequently left permanent cemeteries for their dead.After the war their dead was relocated in concentrated cemeteries or as those from the Channel Islands and the Western French Departments in the ossuary at Huisnes sur Mer in Eastern Brittany.

It has to be said that these individuals had the truth to be faced after February 1943 when the rational minded military realised the war was lost.Some were the real believers who were optimistic until the end and thought of final victory as late as the new year of 1945.

It would be interesting to know if the individual survived the war.