France Under Nazi Occupation: Collaboration & Resistance in WWII

Catalog description

In the summer of 1940, as Nazi tanks rolled into France, the government fled Paris and decided to sign an Armistice. France’s collapse led to the formation of the far-right Vichy regime, which openly collaborated with the Nazi occupiers by providing labor, industrial goods, and natural resources. Students in this course will examine historical debates surrounding this controversial period, from France’s military collapse in 1940 to evolving definitions of “collaboration” and “occupation,” while examining the complex moral and ethical decisions made by French people living under Nazi rule. Did good French citizens owe loyalty to the Vichy regime or did maintaining one’s commitment to the French Republic require engagement in resistance activity? Did people have a moral obligation to aid populations persecuted by the Vichy regime or the Germans? Moving from mainland France to London, the Channel Islands, North and West Africa, and Eastern Europe, this class will consider how the Nazi Occupation of France resonated around the globe, as well as its impact on the everyday lives of women, children, ethnic minorities (Jews/Roma), refugees, disabled people, LGBTQ people, and colonial subjects. Students will evaluate the moral, ethical, and political considerations that motivated people to join Resistance organizations, from communist sympathizers to Charles de Gaulle’s Free French, as well as their role in the Liberation of France and postwar reconstruction. The class will consider how the war affected France’s geopolitical status as well as its relationship with other European countries, North and West Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Finally, the class will interrogate how the memory of wartime collaboration (and particularly France’s role in the Holocaust) remained divisive into the post-WWII period, shaping debates about decolonization, immigration, and…