The census for 1 April 1941 show 25,071,255 inhabitants in the occupied zone (with 14.2m in the unoccupied zone). This does not include the 1,600,000 prisoners of war, nor the 60,000 French workers in Germany or the departments of Alsace-Lorraine.
Daily life The life of the French during the German occupation was marked, from the beginning, by endemic shortages. They are explained by several factors: • One of the conditions of the armistice was to pay the costs of the 300,000-strong occupying German army, which amounted to 20 million
Reichsmark per day. The artificial exchange rate of the German currency against the
French franc was consequently established as 1 RM to 20 FF. This allowed German requisitions and purchases to be made into a form of organised
plunder and resulted in endemic food shortages and
malnutrition, particularly amongst children, the elderly, and the more vulnerable sections of French society such as the working urban class of the cities. • The disorganisation of transport, except for the railway system which relied on French domestic coal supplies. • The cutting off of international trade and the Allied
blockade, restricting imports into the country. • The extreme shortage of petrol and diesel fuel. France had no indigenous oil production and all imports had stopped. • Labour shortages, particularly in the countryside, due to the large number of
French prisoners of war held in Germany, and the
Service du travail obligatoire.
Ersatz, or makeshift substitutes, took the place of many products that were in short supply;
wood gas generators on trucks and automobiles burned charcoal or wood pellets as a substitute to gasoline, and wooden soles for shoes were used instead of leather. Soap was rare and made in some households from fats and
caustic soda. Coffee was replaced by toasted
barley mixed with
chicory, and sugar with
saccharin. The Germans seized about 80 percent of the
French food production, which caused severe disruption to the household economy of the
French people. French farm production fell in half because of lack of fuel, fertilizer and workers; even so the Germans seized half the meat, 20 percent of the produce, and 80 percent of the
Champagne. Supply problems quickly affected French stores which lacked most items. Faced with these difficulties in everyday life, the government answered by
rationing, and creating food charts and tickets which were to be exchanged for bread, meat, butter and cooking oil. The rationing system was stringent but badly managed, leading to malnourishment,
black markets, and hostility to state management of the food supply. The official ration provided starvation level diets of 1,300 or fewer
calories a day, supplemented by home gardens and, especially, black market purchases. Hunger prevailed, especially affecting youth in urban areas. The queues lengthened in front of shops. In the absence of meat and other foods including potatoes, people ate unusual vegetables, such as
Swedish turnip and
Jerusalem artichoke. Food shortages were most acute in the large cities. In the more remote country villages, however, clandestine slaughtering, vegetable gardens and the availability of
milk products permitted better survival. Some people benefited from the
black market, where food was sold without tickets at very high prices. Farmers diverted especially meat to the black market, which meant that much less for the open market. Counterfeit food tickets were also in circulation. Direct buying from farmers in the countryside and
barter against
cigarettes were also frequent practices during this period. These activities were strictly forbidden, however, and thus carried out at the risk of confiscation and fines. During the day, numerous regulations, censorship and propaganda made the occupation increasingly unbearable. At night, inhabitants had to abide a
curfew and it was forbidden to go out during the night without an
Ausweis. They had to close their shutters or windows and turn off any light, to prevent Allied aircraft using city lights for navigation. The experience of the Occupation was a deeply psychologically disorienting one for the French as what was once familiar and safe suddenly become strange and threatening. Many Parisians could not get over the shock experienced when they first saw the huge swastika flags draped over the Hôtel de Ville and flying on top of the Eiffel Tower. The British historian
Ian Ousby wrote: Even today, when people who are not French or did not live through the Occupation look at photos of German soldiers marching down the Champs Élysées or of Gothic-lettered German signposts outside the great landmarks of Paris, they can still feel a slight shock of disbelief. The scenes look not just unreal, but almost deliberately surreal, as if the unexpected conjunction of German and French, French and German, was the result of a Dada prank and not the sober record of history. This shock is merely a distant echo of what the French underwent in 1940: seeing a familiar landscape transformed by the addition of the unfamiliar, living among everyday sights suddenly made bizarre, no longer feeling at home in places they had known all their lives. Ousby wrote that by the end of summer of 1940: "And so the alien presence, increasingly hated and feared in private, could seem so permanent that, in the public places where daily life went on, it was taken for granted". At the same time France was also marked by disappearances as buildings were renamed, books banned, art was stolen to be taken to Germany and as time went on, people started to vanish. With nearly inhabitants killed and tons of bombs dropped, France was, after Germany, the second most severely bomb-devastated country on the
Western Front of World War II. Allied bombings were particularly intense before and during
Operation Overlord in 1944. The Allies'
Transportation Plan aiming at the systematic destruction of French railway
marshalling yards and railway bridges, in 1944, also took a heavy toll on civilian lives. For example, the 26 May 1944 bombing hit railway targets in and around five cities in south-eastern France, causing over 2,500 civilian deaths. Crossing the
ligne de démarcation between the north zone and the south zone also required an
Ausweis, which was difficult to acquire. Further guides, such as the
Guide aryien, counted e.g. the
Moulin Rouge among the must-see locations in Paris. Famous clubs such as the
Folies-Belleville or
Bobino were also among the sought-after venues. A wide array of German units were rotated to France to rest and refit; the Germans used the motto
"Jeder einmal in Paris" ("everyone once in Paris") and provided to the city for their troops. Various famous artists, such as
Yves Montand or later
Les Compagnons de la chanson, started their careers during the occupation.
Edith Piaf lived above
L'Étoile de Kléber, a famous bordello on the Rue Lauriston, which was near the
Carlingue headquarters and was often frequented by German troops. The
curfew in Paris was not enforced as strictly as in other cities. The
Django Reinhardt song "
Nuages", performed by Reinhardt and the
Quintet of the Hot Club of France in the
Salle Pleyel, gained notoriety among both French and German fans.
Jean Reinhardt was even invited to play for the . The use and abuse of Paris in the visitations of German forces during the Second World War led to a backlash; the intensive prostitution during the occupation made way for the
Loi de Marthe Richard in 1946, which closed the bordellos and reduced raunchy stage shows to mere dancing events.
Oppression During the German occupation, a forced labour policy, called
Service du Travail Obligatoire ("Obligatory work service, STO"), consisted of the requisition and transfer of hundreds of thousands of French workers to Germany against their will, for the German war effort. In addition to work camps for factories, agriculture, and railroads,
forced labour was used for
V-1 launch sites and other military facilities targeted by the Allies in
Operation Crossbow. Beginning in 1942, many refused to be drafted to factories and farms in Germany by the STO, going underground to avoid imprisonment and subsequent deportation to Germany. For the most part, those "work dodgers" (
réfractaires) became
maquisards. There were German reprisals against civilians in occupied countries; in France, the Nazis built an execution chamber in the cellars of the former Ministry of Aviation building in Paris. Overall, according to a detailed count drawn under
Serge Klarsfeld, slightly below 77,500 of the Jews residing in France died during the war, overwhelmingly after being deported to
death camps. Out of a Jewish population in France in 1940 of 350,000, this means that somewhat less than a quarter died. While horrific, the mortality rate was lower than in other occupied countries (e.g. 75 percent in the Netherlands) and, because the majority of the Jews were recent immigrants to France (mostly exiles from Germany), more Jews lived in France at the end of the occupation than did approximately 10 years earlier when Hitler formally came to power. File:Juif.JPG|The
yellow Star of David made mandatory by the
Vichy regime in France. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S59096, Plakat im Fenster eines französischen Restaurants.jpg|"
Jews not admitted here". Sign outside a restaurant in Paris, rue de Choiseul. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B21356, Paris, Französinen mit Judenstern.jpg|French Jewish women wearing the
yellow badge. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-1019-07, Frankreich, Brest, Soldatenbordell.jpg|German soldiers entering a
synagogue in
Brest that has been converted into a
Soldatenbordell (military
brothel →
German brothels in occupied France). File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H28708, Paris, Eifelturm, Besuch Adolf Hitler.jpg|
Adolf Hitler strolling in front of the
Eiffel Tower in Paris, 23 June 1940. File:Execution chamber in the cellars of the former Ministry of Aviation building in Paris.jpg|Execution chamber inspected by a Parisian policeman and members of the
FFI after the liberation. File:Musee-de-lArmee-IMG 1058.jpg|German road signs in
occupied Paris. The
Feldgendarmerie was responsible for military traffic. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J27289, Frankreich, Festnahme von Franzosen.jpg|German soldiers and captured
communists, July 1944. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-074-2852-36A, Bordeaux, Platzkonzert der Wehrmacht.jpg|German
army band in
Bordeaux, 1942. ==Aftermath==