Chapter 33: Nov 1942 Germany and Italy Invade Vichy France

“Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care ... We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end ... Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.”

― Winston S. Churchill

As 1942 drew to a close and the chaotic bloody battles of 1943 commenced with blessed certainty on the part of the British and the Americans that they would soon be the victors of this terrible World War, the foundations of the thousand year Third Reich began to crumble like a cardboard cutout of some grotesque creature swift to rise and equally as quick to fall into the pits of historical oblivion.

The professional officers of the Wehrmacht knew all was lost after the disaster at Stalingrad and even Hitler sensed the beginning of the end as he contemplated his fast approaching suicide inside an underground bunker in the center of his surrounded headquarters in Berlin.

The war in the Pacific was highlighted by the changing tides of fortune both on land and on the high seas. The Island nation of Japan was being sliced and diced into a tossed salad of carnage and destruction that could only have one result.

That result would eventually be the unconditional surrender of Japan and the shame of failing their supposed descendants of God, the Imperial family.

The Allies partner Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union was spreading the claim that the victories were due to the battlefield skills of the Russian military and that the appearance of the Americans on the European scene was a “Johnny come lately” attempt to steal credit for the Stalinist success in winning the “Great Patriotic War.”

Hitler practically frothed at the mouth with these insinuations because he knew better than most that his defeat was primarily due to the American “total war” production activity that pushed the United States into the number one slot with regard to global military capabilities. It was World War Two that catapulted the New World nation into a position of the foremost world leader and a responsibility to insure it did not happen again.

The entire landscape of the Fatherland was being redesigned by the constant day and night-time bombing by the British and the United States. This strategy utterly destroyed the will to resist on the part of the German people with the exception of some younger elements that were still eager to fight and die for the Fuhrer. That was the result of early indoctrination under the auspices of the “Hitler Jugand” philosophy that glorified Hitler into a God-like entity with roots in Teutonic legend.

The pragmatists in the inner circle had all been purged by the Gestapo by the war’s end unless they were lucky enough to escape to some other neutral country.

The title of this chapter is “Germany and Italy Invade Vichy France”. That is a bit of a mischaracterization due to the fact that Italy at this point was more driven by the “Spoils of War” motivation than any idealistic call to action in support of the Third Reich.

The incursion of Italy inside the borders of Vichy France was almost laughable because the French held them in such distaste after their terrible military performances in Greece and in North Africa. The Vichy French were suspicious of the Italian motives and were reasonably certain that Italy would soon desert the Axis Cause possibly switching over to the Allied side or at least becoming neutral with regard to the war in Europe.

The “trigger” with regard to the Wehrmacht crossing the demarcation line from Occupied France into Vichy France was the reality of the American explosion of military power in Northern Africa, Greece and the likelihood that the United States forces would soon be invading the islands of Sicily, Corsica and beginning the long, hard slog up the “Boot” of Italy.

Hitler, of course, became increasingly paranoid about the soft underbelly of Europe with the undependable Italians and the two-faced Vichy Government and wanted to bolster his buffer territory with actual Wehrmacht ground forces to make any advances by the Americans pay a price in blood for their assault. In fact, he had long considered the whole “Vichy” business just a temporary solution to freeing up the huge manpower he had needed for the initiation of “Operation Barbarossa”. The Fuhrer was incensed at the lack of progress in the assault on the Kremlin and he knew that any further delay in concluding the Russian adventure would leave him in a weakened condition both on his southern flank and the prospect of a Channel crossing was uppermost on his mind as he contemplated defending the Fatherland.

His ultimate betrayal of the Vichy Government was part of his typical agenda in using every tool at his command to confound his enemies.

The “Vichy” authority was already under firm control of the Gestapo with a network of informers and henchmen to organize the local French police and home militia to carry out the program of removing all Jews to the concentration camps. The inhabitants of Vichy France were equally split between the Nazi supporters and the anti-Nazi residents. Ever since the first days of the French defeat, the authorities were sending both male and female workers to Germany to help in the war effort. Part of this program was an exchange process to repatriate French Prisoners of War back to their homes and families. In that way, the move to Germany was made to seem patriotic on the part of the workers and more supportive of the French Government rather than service to the Third Reich. In reality, there was not much difference between Occupied France and Vichy France except for the visible fact that there were minimal uniformed German soldiers in Vichy France.

That difference quickly changed with the order to assume full control of Vichy France.

The Italian incursion was more of an expeditionary force to steal as much of the French tools of production and farm produce as possible before the Germans stopped them from overstepping their bounds.