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Paris mobilized for war in September, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, but the war seemed far away until May 10, 1940, when the Germans attacked France and quickly defeated the French army. The French government departed Paris on June 10, and the Germans occupied the city on June 14. During the Occupation, the French Government moved to Vichy, and Paris was governed by the German military and by French officials approved by the Germans. For the Parisians, the occupation was a series of frustrations, shortages and humiliations. A curfew was in effect from nine in the evening until five in the morning; at night, the city went dark. Rationing of food, tobacco, coal and clothing was imposed from September 1940. Every year the supplies grew more scarce and the prices higher. A million Parisians left the city for the provinces, where there was more food and fewer Germans. The French press and radio contained only German propaganda. Parisian Jews were forced to wear the yellow star of David badge, and were barred from certain professions and public places. On 16–17 July 1942, 12,884 Jews, including 4,051 children and 5.082 women, were rounded up by the French police, on orders of the Germans, and were sent the Auschwitz concentration camp. The first demonstration against the occupation, by Paris students, took place on 11 November 1940. As the war continued, clandestine groups and networks were created, some loyal to the Communist Party, others to General Charles De Gaulle in London. They wrote slogans on walls, organized an underground press, and sometimes attacked German officers. Reprisals by the Germans were swift and harsh. Following the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the French Resistance in Paris launched an uprising on August 19, 1944, seizing the police headquarters and other government buildings. The city was liberated by French and American troops on August 25, and General Charles DeGaulle led a triumphant parade down the Champs-Élysées on June 26, and organized a new government. In the following months, ten thousand Parisians who had collaborated with the Germans were arrested and a tried, eight thousand convicted, and 116 executed. The first free elections were held, in which French women voted for the first time. ==War== File:French troops barricades2 paris 1940.png|In 1940, the French army built barricades of sandbags on some Paris streets, but they were never used File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-L05487, Paris, Avenue Foch, Siegesparade.jpg|German soldiers march on Avenue Foch on June 14, 1940 (Bundesarchiv) File:Adolf Hitler, Eiffel Tower, Paris 23 June 1940.jpg|Adolph Hitler on the terrace of the Palais de Chaillot on June 23, 1940. To his left is the sculptor Arno Breker, to the right his architect Albert Speer (Bundesarchiv) In the spring of 1939, war with Germany already seemed inevitable. In Paris, the first defense exercise took place on February 2, and city workers began digging of twenty kilometers of trenches in city squares and parks to be used for bomb shelters. On March 10, the city began to distribute gas masks to civilians, and on March 19, signs were posted guiding Parisians to the nearest shelters. On August 23, Parisians were surprised to read that the German foreign minister, Ribbentrop, and Russian minister Molotov had signed the Hitler-Stalin Pact of non-aggression. ''L'Humanité'', the daily newspaper of the French Communist Party, welcomed the pact, writing: "At the moment when the Soviet Union makes a new and appreciable contribution to safeguard the peace, constantly threatened by the fascist instigators of war, the French Communist Party addresses its warmest greetings to the country of socialism, to its party and to its great leader Stalin". In Paris, the copies of the newspaper and of the other Communist newspaper, ''Ce Soir'' were seized by the police and the papers suspended. On August 31, anticipating bombardment,the French government began to evacuate thirty thousand Parisian children out of the city to the French provinces. That night, the street lights were turned off as a measure against German air raids. On September 1, news reached Paris that Germany had invaded Poland, and France, as expected, promptly declared war on Germany. On August 27, in anticipation of air raids, workmen had begun taking down the stained glass windows of Sainte-Chapelle. The same day, curators at the Louvre, summoned back from summer vacation, and aided by packers from the nearby Samaritaine and BHV department stores, began cataloging and packing the major works of art. They were put into crates labeled only with numbers to disguise their contents. The Winged Victory of Samothrace statue was carefully wheeled down the long stairway on a wooden ramp to be put on a truck for its departure. Trucks used to moved scenery for the ''Comedie Française'' were used to move the larger paintings, including Gericault's ''Raft of the Medusa''. The art works were carried in slow convoys of trucks, convoys, with headlights off to observe the blackout, to the chateaux of the Loire Valley and other designated locations. The architectural landmarks of the city were protected by sandbags. The French Army waited in the fortifications of the Maginot Line, while in Paris ration cards for gasoline were issued, restrictions were put on the sale of meat, and in February ration cards for food were issued, but the cafes and theatres remained open.〔Combeau, Yvan, ''Histoire de Paris'', p. 99-100.〕 The French defense plan was purely passive. waiting for the Germans to attack. After months of relative calm on the western front, The Germans struck France on May 10, 1940, bypassing the Maginot Line and slipping through the Ardennes. By May 15 German panzer divisions were only 35 kilometers from Laon, in the rear of the French and British armies, racing toward the English channel. On May 28, the British decided the battle was lost and began withdrawing their soldiers from the beaches of Dunkerque. Paris was soon flooded with refugees from the battle zone. On June 3 the Germans bombed Paris and its suburbs for the first time, targeting in particular the Citroen automobile factory. 254 persons were killed, including 195 civilians. French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud dismissed his supreme military commander, Maurice Gamelin, and replaced him with the 73- year old Maxime Weygand, and named the 84-year-old Philippe Petain, a hero of the First World War, as deputy prime minister. Neither Weygand nor Petain felt the Germans could be defeated, and they began looking for a way out of the war. On June 8, the sound of distant artillery fire could be heard in the capital. Trains departed the Gare d'Austerlitz with no announced destination, filled with refugees. On 10 June, the French government fled Paris, first to Tours and then to Bordeaux. Thousands of Parisians followed their example, filling the roads out of the city with automobiles, tourist buses, trucks, wagons, carts, bicycles, and on foot. The slow-moving river of refugees took ten hours to cover thirty kilometers. Within a few days the wealthier arrondissements of the city were nearly deserted, and the population of the working-class 14th arrondissement dropped from 178,000 persons to 49,000. The British general staff urged the French to defend Paris street-by-street, but Petain dismissed the idea: "To make Paris into a city of ruins will not effect the issue." On June 12 the French government, in Tours, declared Paris to be an open city, that there would be no resistance. At 5:30 in the morning of June 14, the first German advance guard entered the city at the Porte de La Villette and took the rue de Flandres toward the center. They were followed by several German columns, which, following an established plan, moved to the principal intersections. German military vehicles with loudspeakers circulated, instructing Parisians not to leave their buildings. At eight in the morning delegations of German officers arrived at the Invalides, where the military governor of Paris, Dentz was located, and at the Prefecture of Police, where the Prefect of police, Roger Langeron, was waiting. The Germans politely invited the French officials to put themselves at the disposition of the German occupiers. By the end of the afternoon, the Germans had hung a swastika flag from the Arc de Triomphe and organized a military parade with a marching band on the Champs Élysées, primarily for the benefit of the German army photographers and newsreel cameramen.〔Chastenet, Jacques, ''Cent Ans de la République'' (1970), J. Tallandier, volume VII, pages 260-265〕 On the evening of June 16, Prime Minister Reynaud resigned. On the morning of June 17, General DeGaulle departed Bordeaux by plane for London. At midday, Parisians gathered around radios heard Petain, the new head of the French government, announce: "It is with a heavy heart that I tell you today that we must cease hostilities. The fighting must stop." Though no armistice had yet been signed, the French army stopped fighting. The city's conqueror, Adolf Hitler, arrived on June 24 for a rapid tour by car. He was accompanied by the German sculptor Arno Breker and his chief architect, Albert Speer, both of whom had lived in Paris and guided his tour. he saw the Opera House and viewed the Eiffel Tower from the terrace of the Palace of Chaillot, paid homage at Napoleon's tomb, and visited the artist's quarter of Montmartre during his first and only visit to Paris.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Paris in World War II」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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