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History
The Prisoner of War Question and the Beginnings of Collaboration: The

Franco-German Agreement of 16 November 1940
Raffael Scheck
Journal of Contemporary History 2010 45: 364
DOI: 10.1177/0022009409356911
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Journal of Contemporary History Copyright © 2010 The Author. Vol 45(2), 364–388. ISSN 0022–0094.
DOI: 10.1177/0022009409356911
Raffael Scheck
The Prisoner of War Question and the
Beginnings of Collaboration: The Franco-
German Agreement of 16 November 1940
Abstract
This article discusses the connections between collaboration and the prisoner
of war question in the early Vichy period by tracing the evolution of the
Franco-German agreement of 16 November 1940 and its repercussions on
French POWs. Based on the Scapini Papers and French and German archival
materials, the article argues that the agreement happened in the context of a
voluntary policy of collaboration initiated by the Vichy authorities, who hoped
that collaboration would trigger German concessions on the POW question,
but did not push collaboration to ease the fate of the POWs. Hitler likely
offered the agreement as a concession that would allow Vichy to demonstrate
to the French public an apparent success of collaboration, detracting from
some hostile German measures that occurred at the same time. Vichy took the
bait because it hoped to win over the French POWs in Germany to Pétainist
ideology and because it was eager to bolster its own legitimacy. But humani-
tarian considerations also played a role in the French consent to this agree-
ment, which to some extent can be seen as preventive collaboration. Plausibly,
the agreement and the framework it established, despite undeniable dangers,
represented a lesser evil for the French POWs.
Keywords: collaboration, France, French prisoners of war, Germany, Georges

Scapini, second world war
On 16 November 1940, German and French representatives signed an agree-

ment that redefined the legal framework for the French prisoners of war in
German captivity until the end of the war. The agreement regulated the substi-
tution of France for the United States as the protective power for the French
prisoners (according to Article 86 of the Geneva Convention of 1929), prom-
ised the release of certain categories of prisoners, and provided arrangements
for the supply and the postal connections of the POW camps. The signatories
were Ambassador Georges Scapini, who was charged by Marshal Philippe
The Social Sciences Division at Colby College generously funded the research necessary for this
article in 2005–9. I am grateful also for the helpful and knowledgeable staff of the archives I have
visited, and for the tireless service of Colby College’s interlibrary loan department.

Scheck: The Prisoner of War Question and the Beginnings of Collaboration 365
Pétain with negotiations regarding the POWs, and officials from the Supreme
Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) and the German Foreign Office. Hitler
had personally reviewed and approved the text. The agreement followed in the
wake of the meeting between Hitler and Pétain at Montoire on 24 October
1940, and Vichy celebrated it as a positive result of collaboration.
Existing research about French POWs in German hands tends to take a
critical stance on the agreement of 16 November, on Scapini, and on the effec-
tiveness of Vichy’s efforts for the POWs in general. As a collaborator, Scapini
was put on trial after the war and sentenced in absentia to five years of forced
labor in 1949. Although he was acquitted of all charges in a second trial in
front of a military tribunal in 1952, his historical image remained tarnished by
his acceptance of the illegal deployment of POWs in the war industry and his
encouragement of collaborationist ‘Pétain Circles’ in the POW camps. Yves
Durand, author of the two most comprehensive books on the experience of
French POWs, admits that Scapini and other Vichy officials had some success
in ensuring the release of certain prisoners outside the clauses of the Geneva
Convention (approximately 220,000 prisoners) and in improving the situation
of many others, but he also stresses the dreary and long POW routine, the
shortage of food and clothing, and various German violations of the Geneva
Convention that were more or less openly accepted by Vichy officials. In a
synopsis of his work, Durand concludes that ‘the fate of French POWs in the
“Reich” was influenced more by the consequences of collaboration of the
French Vichy regime with the German authorities than by the behavior of the
Germans themselves’, but he does not spell out whether this was an advantage
or disadvantage for the prisoners. Various other historians have pointed out
that the Vichy regime used the POWs as one of its raisons d’être. Supporting
the prisoners and, hopefully, bringing home as many of them as possible
would bolster its legitimacy and popularity. In his wartime memoirs, Scapini
describes himself as a Schwejkian negotiator playing out German officials for
the greatest possible advantage to the French POWs, but he conceals his com-
mitment to collaboration. For the German side, Rüdiger Overmans points
For the original text, see Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin (PAAA), R
145077.
For materials on Scapini’s trials, see Scapini Papers, Hoover Institution Archives (HIA), boxes
18–20 (first trial) and 22–23 (second trial).
Y. Durand, La captivité: histoire des prisonniers de guerre français, 1939–1945 (Paris 1982),
334–42; Y. Durand, La vie quotidienne des prisonniers de guerre dans les Stalags, les Oflags et les
Kommandos, 1939–1945 (Paris 1987).
Y. Durand, ‘Das Schicksal der französischen Kriegsgefangenen in deutschem Gewahrsam
(1939–1945)’, in G. Bischof and R. Overmans (eds), Kriegsgefangenschaft im Zweiten Weltkrieg:
Eine vergleichende Perspektive (Ternitz-Pottschach 1999), 71–8, at 76.
M. Ferro, Pétain (Paris 1990), 285–7; S. Fishman, ‘Grand Delusions: The Unintended
Consequences of Vichy France’s Prisoner of War Propaganda’, Journal of Contemporary History
26(2) (1991), 229–54; H. Rousso, Pétain et la fin de la collaboration: Sigmaringen 1944–1945
(Brussels 1984), 293–4, 305, 310.
G. Scapini, Mission sans gloire (Paris 1960; new edition Paris 2008). The page numbers in this
article refer to the original edition.

366 Journal of Contemporary History Vol 45 No 2
out that the French prisoners fared comparatively well — not least because
German policies toward them were influenced by the national-conservative
attitudes of many officials who respected France on the basis of its perform
ance in 1914–18. Overmans argues that even Hitler, who took a direct interest
in these matters, sometimes decided on the treatment of POWs on the basis of
his own first world war experience.
By tracing the evolution and repercussions of the agreement of 16 November
1940, this article seeks to shed more light on the connection between the POW
question and the beginnings of collaboration. How did the fact that Germany
held 1.8 million French prisoners — called ‘an important pawn’ or even ‘hos-
tages’ by German and French officials at the time — influence Vichy France’s
quest for collaboration? Why did Vichy agree to become the protective power
of its own soldiers in enemy hands? What was the motivation and mindset
of Scapini? Did he practice ‘voluntary’ or ‘involuntary’ state collaboration
(Stanley Hoffmann)? The article is based on research in the Scapini Papers
from the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University, as well as the
b
etter-known deposits of POW materials in the French and German archives.
The Franco-German armistice agreement of 22 June 1940 stipulated that
the captured French soldiers would remain prisoners of war until the conclu-
sion of a peace treaty (Article XX).10 In the meantime, the prisoners would be
protected according to the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners
of War of 1929.11 The French government, the prisoners themselves, and
the families of the prisoners expected a general peace treaty to follow soon.
However, with Britain remaining in the war, this treaty did not materialize, and
the French government had to consider other ways to ensure the well-being
and, potentially, the liberation of the prisoners. As the loser of the war, how-
ever, the French government had very little bargaining power. According to the
armistice agreement, it had to liberate all German POWs (Article XIX), and it
R. Overmans, ‘Die Kriegsgefangenenpolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1939 bis 1945’, in J.

Echternkamp (ed.), Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 9/2 (Munich 2005),
729–875, at 732.
Hermann Goering called the POWs ‘an important pawn’ in a conversation with Laval: ADAP,
series D, vol. 11, doc. 306. Scapini spoke of ‘hostages’ in 1941: Scapini to Abetz, 21 July 1941,
PAAA, R Paris 2471 Kriegsgefangenenwesen Mai 1942-April 1944. On the hostage aspect of the
POWs, see also R. Gildea, Marianne in Chains: Everyday Life in the French Heartland under the
German Occupation (New York 2003), 73–4.
See the good overview, with excellent examples, in J. Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940–
1944 (Oxford 2001), 167–70. In similar terms: R. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New
Order (New York 1972), 47.
10 ‘Armistice Agreement between the German High Command of the Armed Forces and French
Plenipotentiaries, Compiègne, June 22, 1940’, in Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918–
1945, Series D, IX. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1956, 671–6 (cited after the
Avalon Project at Yale University, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/frgearm.htm, accessed
17 August 2008).
11 ‘Convention relative au traitement des prisonniers de guerre. Genève, 27 juillet 1929’,
International Committee of the Red Cross documents site, http://www.icrc.org/dih.nsf/WebList?R
eadForm&id=305&t=art (accessed 30 January 2009).

had to agree to the occupation of the northern and western sections of France
by the German army (Article II). The United States was the protective power of
France charged with inspecting the POW camps and ensuring compliance with
the Geneva Convention, but it had no mandate to negotiate the liberation of
prisoners, and there were doubts whether the small American consular staff in
Germany could watch over so many prisoners.
In this situation, Marshal Philippe Pétain, having received extraordinary
powers through the vote of a truncated Chamber of Deputies on 10 July 1940,
charged Georges Scapini, a member of the Chamber, to start negotiations with
the German authorities on behalf of the prisoners of war. Until his detention
by the Germans in October 1944, after declaring himself responsible to the
provisional government of de Gaulle, Scapini worked on behalf of the French
prisoners of war.12 It is easy to see why Pétain chose Scapini as his special
ambassador for the prisoners of war. He was a veteran of the first world war
who had received a severe facial wound in September 1915 and lost his eyesight
as a consequence. His war injury was later considered an advantage because it
was believed to appeal to the chivalrous instincts of his German interlocutors,
particularly the first world war veterans among them.13 After learning Braille,
Scapini obtained a law degree and became active in politics. In 1928, he was
elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a deputy of the 17th district in Paris,
and he won re-election in 1932 and 1936. In the Chamber, Scapini joined vari-
ous right-wing parties and worked in particular on behalf of first world war
veterans. He took a strong anti-Communist stance and established contacts
with several personalities who would play important roles in the Vichy govern-
ment. With some of them, Scapini was involved in an abortive conspiracy for a
military coup d’état in 1934.14 Outside the Chamber, Scapini became the leader
of the association for the war blind and in 1935 a founding member of the
Franco-German Committee (Comité France-Allemagne), a group promoting
Franco-German reconciliation. The German equivalent for this group was the
German-French Society (Deutsch-französische Gesellschaft) led by Otto Abetz,
a young drawing teacher from the entourage of Joachim von Ribbentrop,
Hitler’s foreign policy adviser and later Foreign Minister. In his youth, Scapini
had spent some time studying at a school in Germany. He had learned German
fairly well and expressed some admiration for Germany in his first book, a
memoir of his youth and his coping with blindness published in 1929.15
Through his role on the Franco-German Committee, Scapini came to know
Abetz and met Hitler and Ribbentrop.16 In early April 1935, Hitler received
12 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., Appendix 2.
13 J. Benoist-Méchin, A l’épreuve du temps: Souvenirs, vol. 2, 1940–1947 (Paris 1989), 56;
Rousso, Pétain et la fin de la collaboration, op. cit., 304.
14 Ferro, Pétain, op. cit., 119. Ferro points out, however, that Pétain, whom the conspirators
considered as a promising figurehead, did not support the plot.
15 Dictionnaire des parlementaires français. Notices biographiques sur les ministres, députés et
sénateurs français de 1889 à 1940, Tome VIII (Paris 1977), 2973–4; G. Scapini, L’apprentissage
de la nuit (Paris 1929), 26–31.
16 On his first contacts with Abetz and Ribbentrop, see R. Ray, Annäherung an Frankreich im

Scapini for a long audience. He claimed that he felt an affinity to Scapini

because he himself could have shared his fate (Hitler had been temporarily
blinded by British poison gas shortly before the end of the first world war).
According to Abetz, who acted as translator, Hitler was so touched by meet-
ing the blind veteran Scapini that he had tears in his eyes.17 In reality, Hitler
merely used Scapini as a messenger for his alleged desire for peace, which had
just been called into question by his announcement that Germany would rein-
troduce the draft. For example, Hitler told Scapini that he would never want
to annex Austria, not least because integrating it into Germany would be too
expensive, and that a war between Germany and Poland or France would be a
great mistake.18 Scapini met Hitler again in December 1937, and he repeatedly
saw Ribbentrop, who became Foreign Minister in January 1938, most impor-
tantly on the eve of the Munich Conference in September of that year.19 Scapini,
however, never completely believed in the peaceful intentions of the nazi
regime. Already in May 1935, three weeks after his first meeting with Hitler,
he protested in a letter to Hitler that the announcements by air force chief
Hermann Goering about the strength of the German air force contradicted the
peaceful declarations Hitler had made to Scapini.20 When he received an invita-
tion from Abetz to the Olympic Games and to the NSDAP party rally in 1936,
Scapini politely declined. Following the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in
March 1939, he dissolved the Franco-German Committee.21 In the Chamber,
he supported rearmament and criticized deficits in France’s military prepara-
tion.22 After the French defeat, Scapini endorsed the motion that gave extended
powers to Marshal Pétain on 10 July 1940. During an audience a few days
later, Pétain explained to Scapini that the fate of the French POWs in German
hands was his primary concern and that he would perhaps soon need Scapini’s
services. On 31 July 1940, Pétain sent Scapini a letter, charging him with nego-
tiations on behalf of French prisoners (a letter Scapini received three weeks
later).23
Dienste Hitlers? Otto Abetz und die deutsche Frankreichpolitik 1930–1942 (Munich 2000), 135,
145, 188–9; and B. Lambauer, Otto Abetz et les Français où l’envers de la Collaboration ([Paris]
2001), 81.
17 O. Abetz, Das offene Probem. Ein Rückblick auf zwei Jahrzehnte deutscher Frankreichpolitik
(Köln 1951), 56. See also Ray, Annäherung, op. cit., 145; Lambauer, Otto Abetz, op. cit., 82.
18 ‘Unterredung 15.4.1935’, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 4.
19 Lambauer, Otto Abetz, op. cit., 106; Ray, Annäherung, op. cit., 188–9; ‘Note sur la situation
franco-allemande à la date du 4 septembre 1938’, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1.
20 Scapini to Hitler, 7 May 1935, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 4. This letter and the following
evidence contradict Roland Ray’s conclusion that Hitler had ‘irrevocably won over Scapini for
an understanding with the “Third Reich”’ during their 1935 meeting: Ray, Annäherung, op. cit.,
145.
21 Materials on Comité France-Allemagne, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 2; Ray, Annäherung, op.
cit., 252–4.
22 Dictionnaire des parlementaires français, VIII, 2974.
23 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 19–21; G. Baud, L. Devaux and J. Poigny (eds), Mémoire
complémentaire sur quelques aspects du Service Diplomatique des Prisonniers de Guerre: SDPG-
DFB-Mission Scapini, 1940–1945 ([Paris] 1984), 9.

Scapini promptly contacted the two leading German authorities in Paris,

General Alfred Streccius, the Military Commander of France (Militär
befehlshaber), and Abetz, who had become the Foreign Office representative
at the Military Command (he was later promoted to the rank of ambassador)
and who had close contacts with Vice-President of the Council Pierre Laval,
the key figure in Pétain’s cabinet. Scapini’s priority was to liberate as many
prisoners as possible and to improve the situation of all those prisoners the
Germans refused to let go. From reports of the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) and eyewitnesses, Scapini knew that most prisoners suffered
from poor sanitary conditions and low food rations. At first, the majority had
been kept in overcrowded camps in France (Frontstalags). In August 1940,
when Scapini began his work, a little more than half of the prisoners had
already been transferred to Germany, where they were dispersed into thou-
sands of work commandos. More prisoners were sent to Germany every week,
with the exception of the prisoners of color.24
During his first contacts in Paris, Scapini sought to find out what the
Germans planned to do with the French POWs. From Abetz, he learned that
the Wehrmacht intended to use them as a labor force and would, if at all,
agree to liberate some of them only in exchange for unspecified French conces-
sions. Scapini understood that the prisoners would be a bargaining chip, or, as
he would bluntly say in 1941, the victor’s hostages.25 Bereft of actual power,
Scapini presented to his German interlocutors a vision of collaboration and an
appeal to chivalry. The gist of his argument was that the liberation of prison-
ers, which he claimed would be an unprecedented act of chivalry by the victor,
would trigger a positive reaction in France and bolster a genuine rapproche-
ment and collaboration that would benefit nazi Germany in the long run. He
had no illusions about the unpopularity of collaboration among the French
people, but he used it as an argument for German concessions in the prisoner
of war question.26
Realizing that a full-scale liberation would not happen in short order,
Scapini suggested specific categories of prisoners to be liberated, such as first
world war veterans and fathers of five or more children. He also proposed
the liberation of people belonging to certain professions needed to restart the
French transportation system, restore basic services, and revive the economy. A
special case was the fate of 30–38,000 French soldiers who had been interned
in Switzerland after having fled across the border at the end of the campaign.27
24 ‘Lagebericht August 1940’, BA-MA, RW 35/10. For an online version, see the document site
of the Institut d’histoire du temps présent (IHTP): http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/prefets/ (accessed 30
January 2009). See also the reports in Archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross,
folders ‘B, G 3/20 Courrier’ and ‘B, G3/21b Mission en France’, Frédéric Barbey et Marcel Junod,
October–November 1940.
25 Scapini to Laval, 26 August 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Abetz’; Scapini to
Abetz, 21 July 1941, PAAA, R Paris 2471 Kriegsgefangenenwesen Mai 1942–April 1944; Scapini,
Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 21–4.
26 Scapini to Abetz, 9 September 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Abetz’.
27 The documents from the period are inconsistent regarding the number of these soldiers. Some

Scapini requested German permission to let these men return to their homes
rather than forcing them into German captivity. Moreover, Scapini made it
clear that France would be willing to provide the prisoners in German hands
with additional food, clothing, and medical supplies, and he asked for permis-
sion to supply the camps. In the interest of boosting the morale of the prisoners,
Scapini further explored German willingness to allow French support for intel-
lectual and cultural activities of the prisoners, including the broadcasting of
French radio messages to the prisoners, and an increase of correspondence
between the prisoners and their families.28 Abetz, Scapini’s main German con-
tact in the early weeks, listened carefully. He explained that he had on his own
initiative suggested the liberation of first world war veterans to Hitler but that
Hitler had rejected it.29 Still, Abetz agreed that the other proposals merited
discussion, as did Streccius’ successor, General Otto von Stülpnagel. Stülpnagel
suggested that Scapini travel to Berlin to discuss them directly with the man
who was most centrally concerned with POWs, Lieutenant General Hermann
Reinecke of the General Wehrmacht Office (Allgemeines Wehrmachtsamt) at
the OKW in Berlin. Abetz quickly arranged the formalities for this trip, and
Scapini, promoted to ambassador by Pétain on 22 September, arrived on 27
September 1940. In a telegram to the Foreign Office announcing Scapini’s visit,
which was the first trip of a high French official to Berlin after the start of the
war, Abetz echoed Scapini’s line of thought, namely that concessions in the
POW question would be popular in France and boost collaboration: ‘The fact
alone that Scapini received permission to travel to Berlin in spite of the official
state of war [between Germany and France] has already strengthened the posi-
tion of Laval and Scapini in Vichy.’30
In Berlin, Scapini met Reinecke and presented his demands. Reinecke prom-
ised to support most of them in discussions with his superior at the OKW, Field
Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and with Hitler. In his memoirs, Scapini described
Reinecke as the stereotypical brusque Prussian officer but admitted that he
quickly developed much respect for him, a feeling that Reinecke recipro-
cated. Both men were veterans of the first world war, and Scapini detected in
Reinecke a chivalrous esteem for the French army of that time.31 In a letter to
Pétain after his return to France, Scapini reflected on his positive impression:
‘I have to say that General Reinecke gave me an extremely amiable reception
and that he made a constant effort to be generous, understanding, and humane
mention 30,000, others 38,000. The confusion may arise from the fact that a large contingent of
Polish soldiers fighting with the French army had also fled to Switzerland. Overmans (‘Kriegsge-
fangenenpolitik’, op. cit., 751) speaks of 30,000 French and 14,000 Polish soldiers interned in
Switzerland. Most of the Poles remained there throughout the war.
28 Scapini to Laval, 26 August 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Abetz’; and Scapini to
Abetz, 2 September 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Abetz’.
29 Scapini to Laval, 26 August 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Abetz’.
30 Telegram Abetz to Schwarzmann, 24 September 1940, PAAA, R 145 077. (All translations
from French or German are my own.)
31 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 26–7.

regarding the solutions to the problems of the prisoners.’32 During Keitel’s trial
at the International Military Tribunal in Nürnberg in 1946, Scapini praised
Reinecke’s understanding for the concerns of French POWs, and he said the
same thing in a witness statement in favor of Reinecke’s defense during the
latter’s trial in 1948, arguing that Reinecke had generally been supportive but
had often been sabotaged by other nazi agencies and by his superiors, particu-
larly Keitel and Hitler.33 In spite of often unbridgeable differences of opinion,
the two men cultivated polite, even cordial, relations; their collegiality went
so far that they frequently met in Reinecke’s Berlin apartment.34 During one of
many hard negotiations in September 1941, Scapini expressed regret at always
having to come to Reinecke like a beggar with requests and nothing to offer in
return. Reinecke changed the tone and reassured Scapini that he appreciated
him as a French patriot committed to defending the interests of his country.35
Throughout the war, Scapini intervened directly with Reinecke to stop abuses
of French POWs or to mitigate the application of punitive measures ordered by
Hitler or Keitel.36 That Reinecke was receptive to Scapini’s appeal to chivalry
is noteworthy. Reinecke was no anti-nazi or even indifferent to nazism. On the
contrary, he was so loyal to his superior, Keitel (who himself blindly followed
Hitler), that members of the German resistance called him the ‘little Keitel’. In
December 1943, Reinecke instituted a program for the nazi indoctrination of
Wehrmacht officers, and in 1944 he was one of two legal assistants to Roland
Freisler, the fanatical nazi judge who tried the resistance members involved in
the putsch attempt of 20 July 1944.37 Moreover, Reinecke showed no chivalry
in his dealings with Soviet prisoners of war. Less than a year after his first meet-
ing with Scapini, he signed an order for the ruthless use of arms against Soviet
POWs showing the slightest sign of insubordination. For this and subsequent
criminal orders, particularly against Soviet POWs, Reinecke received a life
sentence in 1948.38 His receptiveness to French appeals to chivalry was not
32 Scapini to Pétain, 3 October 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Pétain’. Scapini also
praised Reinecke in a letter to Abetz: see A. Costes (ed.), La délégation française auprès de la com-
mission allemande d’armistice. Receuil de documents publié par le gouvernement français (Paris
1947–59), vol. 2, 328.
33 Statement for Keitel trial, 15 April 1946, and statement in response to Hans Surholt [Reinecke’s
defense lawyer] to Scapini, 20 April 1948, both in HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 6.
34 ‘Sténographie du procès Reinecke’, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 6. Reinecke’s invitations to his
apartment may also have been a ploy to keep out the men from the Foreign Office, who jealously
watched over all OKW contacts with Scapini.
35 ‘Protocole de la réunion du 19 septembre 1941 à l’O.K.W.’, Archives Nationales, Paris (AN),
F 9, 2176.
36 See affidavit Scapini on Reinecke for the OKW trial, April 1948, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box
6.
37 Robert Quinnett, ‘The German Army Confronts the NSFO’, Journal of Contemporary
History 13(1) (1978), 53–64.
38 United Nations War Crimes Commission (ed.), The German High Command Trial (New
York 1994 [repr. of 1949]), 44–5, 95. Christian Streit argues that Reinecke also shared some
responsibility for earlier criminal orders: C. Streit, Keine Kameraden: Die Wehrmacht und die
sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945 (Stuttgart 1978), 92.

unique, however. Many French officials charged with POW questions noted
this attitude among German officials.39
In Berlin, Scapini also met various Foreign Office representatives. The most
active among them was Dr Fritz Bran of the ‘French Section’ of Ribbentrop’s
private office (Dienststelle Ribbentrop). Bran had collaborated with Abetz in
organizing Franco-German student exchanges and in editing a Franco-German
journal before the war. With missionary zeal, Bran would over many years
preach to Scapini and his colleagues the virtues of Franco-German collabora-
tion within a nazi-dominated ‘new Europe’. Bran’s pet idea was to shower all
French POWs with his ‘new Europe’ propaganda, thus producing an army of
loyal collaborators streaming into France as Germany released the prisoners.
In his memoirs, Scapini claims that he soon learned that it was worthwhile to
endure the musings of this passionate nazi because he could use Bran’s interest
in producing a pro-nazi attitude in French POWs to rein in German abuses of
the prisoners and to achieve improvements of their living conditions.40
Scapini went to Berlin not only to talk about POWs but also to offer French
collaboration on behalf of Pétain and Laval.41 He hoped that sincere profes-
sions of support for Germany, coupled with his frequent appeals to German
chivalry, would inspire German generosity, in particular a mild peace treaty
and the subsequent liberation of the POWs. In his meeting with Reinecke,
Scapini suggested as a French goodwill gesture the exchange of unemployed
French workers with qualifications needed by the German economy for French
prisoners of war.42 This proposal prefigured the infamous relève system insti-
tuted in May 1942, which sent three specialized French workers to Germany
in exchange for one freed POW, although it has to be said that Scapini in 1940
did not specify the rate of exchange (in his memoirs, he claims that he envi-
sioned a rate of three liberated prisoners for one specialized worker, but the
protocols of 1940 leave open the numbers).43 Interestingly, Reinecke rejected
this proposal for the time being because he argued that detailed registries of the
French POWs would allow the OKW to deploy the prisoners according to their
qualifications and thereby satisfy the German need for specialized workers.
Scapini made the most ardent plea for collaboration in an audience with Emil
von Rintelen, a leading member of the Foreign Office’s Political Division, who
39 See, for example, the description of German liaison officers by Pierre Arnal, a member of the
Scapini Mission charged with camp visits: Baud, Devaux and Poigny, Mémoire complémentaire,
op. cit., 27–8. One telling example was Major von Mielecki, the officer in charge of POW ques-
tions on the German Armistice Commission in Wiesbaden. Mielecki was considered so generous
toward the French that he was replaced by a supposedly harder officer, Major von Rosenberg,
who, interestingly, was later considered generous and reasonable by Scapini. See Costes, La déléga-
tion française, op. cit., vol. 1, 157; and Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 70.
40 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 25, 143.
41 Robert Paxton stressed this aspect: Paxton, Vichy France, op. cit., 72.
42 ‘Aufzeichnung über Besprechung Scapini’s [sic] mit Generalleutnant Reinicke [sic]’, 27
September 1940, PAAA, R 145 077.
43 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 92–4; ‘Mémoire pour mon procès’, HIA, Scapini Papers,
Box 19; ‘Huitième question (relève)’, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 20, folder ‘Scapini, Georges, Trial,
First, 1949, Investigation, Interrogation of Scapini’.

had been charged by Ribbentrop with sounding out Scapini on the prospects of
Franco-German collaboration. Scapini emphasized the will to collaboration of
Pétain and Laval and pressed for a German commitment to a peace treaty with
France. Although Scapini had explained to Abetz barely three weeks earlier
that collaboration would be credible to the French only if the Germans respect-
ed France’s territorial integrity, he now hinted that his government would be
willing to pay a price for being accepted into a common front with Germany.44
More specifically, he revealed that France would not object to a plebiscite on
the future of Alsace and proposed that if Germany wanted to annex parts of
Lorraine, it should take the industrial regions and leave the agricultural regions
to France. Regarding the French colonies, he suggested the creation of a vast
‘European’ colonial empire, which would be under German leadership while
leaving the existing French colonies under French administration. With respect
to the prisoners of war, Scapini reiterated his request to speak to the prisoners
through radio messages broadcast in the camps and in France, so as to rally the
French population and the liberated POWs behind Pétain and collaboration.
Echoing Laval and Pétain, Scapini condemned the previous French alliance
with Britain and argued that the defeat had presented France with a chance
to risk a new beginning. ‘France can console herself in her misery because she
was defeated through the genius of the Führer, who Germany is lucky enough
to have at its top. Trusting this genius of the Führer, the French government
is thoroughly determined to collaborate with Germany.’45 Scapini transmitted
through Rintelen an invitation to Ribbentrop to meet Laval.
Ribbentrop, as well as Hitler, accepted the invitation. On 22 October, they
met Laval in Montoire for an exchange of views. Two days later, after a quick
trip to the Spanish border for a conference with Spanish dictator Francisco
Franco, Hitler and Ribbentrop returned to Montoire for a meeting with Pétain
and Laval.46 Although the talks ended without specific results, they affirmed
collaboration and left Hitler with a positive impression of Pétain (but not of
Laval).47 Prisoner of war questions were not addressed, except for a comment
by Laval, who claimed that the large number of French soldiers captured
by Germany indicated how unpopular the war had been in France.48 Still,
Montoire raised expectations in France for a return of the prisoners, and it
provided a diplomatic momentum that Scapini was keen to exploit for further
concessions. Right after the Montoire meetings, Scapini received from Abetz a
letter authorized by Reinecke, which indicated OKW support for some of the
demands Scapini had articulated during his visit in September, including the
44 Scapini to Abetz, 9 September 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Laval’. It is likely
that Scapini changed his mind after conversations with Pétain and Laval prior to his departure for
Berlin.
45 Protocol by v. Rintelen, Berlin, 28 September 1940, PAAA, R 145 077.
46 For the minutes of the meetings, see Akten zur deutschen Auswärtigen Politik (ADAP), Series
D, vol. XI, 1, Doc. 212, 301–6 and Doc. 227, 326–32.
47 E. Jäckel, Frankreich in Hitlers Europa: Die deutsche Frankreichpolitik im 2. Weltkrieg
(Stuttgart 1966), 120–5.
48 ADAP, Series D, vol. XI, 1, Doc. 212, 303.

permission to broadcast German-censored French radio messages to the pris-

oners and to supply the camps with books, food, clothing, and other articles
(the other demands were still awaiting a decision from the OKW or Hitler).49
Scapini answered by requesting the dismissal of specific groups of prisoners
whose expertise would stabilize the French administration, at home and in
the Empire, and revive the French economy. He repeated his suggestion that
Germany, as a gesture of chivalry, free the first world war veterans, and, in the
same vein, he added that the sons of fathers killed in the first world war should
also be liberated. He again justified all of these demands with the policy of col-
laboration, arguing that the release of these prisoners would turn France into a
more effective and willing supporter of Germany. He urged Abetz to consider
that the spirit of Montoire, to be plausible to France, required rapid German
concessions.50
At the time he formulated these requests, on 3 November, Scapini received
an urgent message from Laval to come to Vichy. According to Scapini’s mem-
oirs, Laval had heard from the German Embassy in Paris that Hitler desired
the substitution of France for the United States as the protective power for the
French POWs. Whereas Scapini claims that the initiative came from Hitler,
historians are divided on this issue. Mark Spoerer sees it as a result of ‘German
pressure’, but Yves Durand believes that it originated from Vichy.51 The pub-
lished diplomatic records of France, the United States, and Germany contain
nothing about this matter. The German Foreign Office archives hold a telegram
from Abetz dated 3 November, but it states only, first, that the Vichy govern-
ment had ‘confirmed that it would immediately inform the United States gov-
ernment that it [the U.S. Government] was no longer the protective power for
the French POWs’, and, second, that Pétain would see Scapini on the following
Tuesday (5 November) and charge him officially with taking over the functions
of a protective power. But who took the initiative? It is noteworthy that the
thick documentary trail for September and October 1940 does not reveal a
French request to assume the role of protective power. Laval had been in close
contact with Abetz and other German officials during the preceding days,
and the German records list many detailed suggestions and requests he and
other French officials made, but they never mention this issue.52 It is therefore
likely that the initiative came from the German side. Hitler in these days faced
a dilemma. His Gauleiter in Lorraine, Joseph Bürckel, planned to start the
49 Abetz to Scapini, 24 October 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Laval’. For the letter
by Reinecke whose content Abetz communicated to Scapini, see Reinecke to Sethe, 19 October
1940, PAAA, R 40770a.
50 Scapini to Abetz, 4 November 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Laval’.
51 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 31–3; Durand, La vie quotidienne, op. cit., 191;
M. Spoerer, ‘Die soziale Differenzierung der ausländischen Zivilarbeiter, Kriegsgefangenen und
Häftlinge im Deutschen Reich’, in J. Echternkamp (ed.), Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite
Weltkrieg, vol. 9/2 (Munich 2005), 485–576, at 505.
52 Abetz to Foreign Office, 3 November 1940, PAAA, R 145077. See also Baud, Devaux and
Poigny, Mémoire complémentaire, op. cit., 446–7; ADAP, series D, vol. 11, docs. 257, 264 and
272.

expulsion of 100,000 allegedly pro-French Lorrainers on 4 November. Abetz

and officials from the OKW, the Armistice Commission, and the Military
Command in France, however, warned that Bürckel’s action would undermine
Laval’s position and torpedo collaboration. Hitler, who had himself inspired
Bürckel’s action and consistently supported him, did not back down (except to
delay it by a few days), but given the storm of warnings he faced, it is plausible
that he decided to offer France something that at least resembled a concession,
which Vichy propaganda could exploit as a fruit of Montoire.53
In any case, the transfer of the protective power to France was an unprece-
dented arrangement in international law. Article 86 of the Geneva Convention
expects a neutral country to be the protective power, not the power whose
soldiers are kept as prisoners. Scapini initially hesitated — mostly because he
believed that his blindness would make him unsuitable for camp visits. Laval
reassured him, however, that he would have a staff of officers at his disposal
and would not have to conduct camp inspections himself. (Later on, Scapini did
conduct many camp visits accompanied by his trusted Tunisian valet, Ahmed
Ben Bella, who appears on many newsreels guiding Scapini by his left arm.54)
It had become obvious that the American consular staff in Germany, despite
much goodwill, was too small in light of the magnitude of the problem posed
by so many French prisoners of war spread over a territory from East Prussia
to the Franco-Spanish border. In reaction to the United States’ increasing mili-
tary and financial support for Britain, moreover, the German government had
created difficulties in the inspection of POW camps by American personnel.55
Although in theory the United States could impose sanctions on Germany
for violations of the Geneva Convention, this was a hollow threat, given the
already high tension between the two states and the interruption of their bilat-
eral trade since the outbreak of the war. Rejecting the transfer of protective
power risked leaving the French POWs in legal limbo, given that Hitler seemed
to be unwilling to accept any other protective power. The new arrangement did
fit well with the spirit of collaboration, however, and Scapini saw many advan-
tages in it: France would be allowed to conduct camp inspections and monitor
the well-being of the prisoners, organize relief where necessary, rein in abuses,
provide legal assistance to the prisoners, and, more generally, make them feel
more connected with their country and their families.56 The German authorities
hinted, moreover, that they would accept several of Scapini’s key demands and
invited him back to Berlin to sign an agreement.
In Berlin, Scapini received a warm welcome from Bran, Reinecke, and
Abetz. Even Ribbentrop granted Scapini a lengthy audience, during which
53 ADAP, series D, vol. 11, docs. 271, 278, 282 and 331.
54 For a description of Ahmed Ben Bella, see J. Benoist-Méchin, A l’épreuve du temps, op. cit.,
vol. 2, 30; and Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 24–5.
55 President Roosevelt had signed a destroyers-for-bases deal with Britain on 2 September: I.
Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940–1941 (New York 2007),
217–9.
56 For the French acceptance of the role of protective power for the POWs, see telegram Abetz
to Auswärtiges Amt, 3 November 1940, in PAAA, R 145077.

he stressed the connection between German concessions regarding the POWs

and the general state of Franco-German relations. Reinecke gave Scapini a
protocol that Hitler had personally approved; it was typed in the unusually
large font used by Hitler’s secretaries because of his deteriorating eyesight.
The main points of the protocol, which Scapini signed on 16 November, were
that Scapini’s office in Paris would become the central agency on behalf of
French POWs, taking over the functions of the protective power, and would be
allowed to open a ten-person mission in Berlin charged with the inspection of
POW camps in Germany. (Although this was not mentioned in the agreement,
Scapini’s Paris office was allowed to conduct inspections in the Frontstalags in
occupied France.) Moreover, the Germans agreed to release all prisoners who
were fathers of four or more needy children, as well as the oldest brothers of
four or more children if the father had died or was unable to work (embarrass-
ingly for Scapini, who had initially only suggested the liberation of fathers of
five children, the Germans found out that the French army did not draft fathers
of five children).57 This ‘release’ was de jure not a liberation but a conditional
dismissal; the released prisoners were legally still POWs and could in theory be
recalled to the camps, although this in practice rarely happened.58 In addition,
Hitler and the OKW authorized the repatriation of the French soldiers interned
in Switzerland and agreed to substantially increase the monthly amount of mail
the French POWs could send and receive. The Germans also agreed to liberate
many of the French medical personnel in the POW camps and consented to the
dispatch of three trains — 52 cars in total — carrying special Christmas rations
to French POWs in Germany.59
A few issues were left open. One of them concerned the transfer of respon-
sibility from the American agencies to the French. Scapini was finally allowed
to visit the American Embassy — the Germans had found numerous pretexts
to prevent such a visit in September — and discuss the details. He found
that the Americans were left in the dark (in spite of Abetz’s telegram stating
that Vichy would inform the United States Government). Still, the American
Embassy official in charge of French POWs, Jefferson Patterson, hurriedly
drafted a report that he sent to Scapini at Christmas 1940, and the transfer
happened smoothly.60 Moreover, there were misunderstandings concerning one
important category of French POWs, the approximately 100,000 prisoners
of color (or ‘indigenous’ prisoners, as they were called at the time) from the
French overseas territories and colonies. Most of these prisoners were kept in
the Frontstalags in occupied France, according to an order by Hitler, and those
57 Telegram Abetz to Ribbentrop, Paris, 31 October 1940, PAAA, R 145077.
58 The German term was Beurlaubung, which the French translated into mise en congé de
captivité.
59 For a copy of the document, see PAAA, R 145077. See also ‘Notiz für Herrn Geheimrat
Albrecht, Rechtsabteilung Auswärtiges Amt, Wilhelmstr.’ by Abetz, Berlin, 15 November 1940,
PAAA, R 145077. This note confirms that Hitler read and approved the attached treaty on 15
November.
60 ‘Memorandum destiné à la mission diplomatique française pour PG, Hôtel Continental,
Berlin’, by Jefferson Patterson, 24 December 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 22.

who had already been transferred to Germany were sent back to France. When
Scapini visited Reinecke in September, he believed that Reinecke had prom-
ised that all of the prisoners of color would be sent to the unoccupied zone of
France and handed over to the Vichy government.61 The protocol of Scapini’s
meeting with Reinecke does not mention this, and it is therefore likely that the
question was broached informally and that Scapini misunderstood Reinecke.62
In any case, the Germans rejected Scapini’s repeated requests for a blanket
dismissal of all prisoners of color.63 The protocol of 16 November 1940 did
not specifically exclude them, but in a discussion with Major von Rosenberg,
Reinecke’s deputy in Paris, Scapini learned that the OKW did not plan to
apply the clause about fathers or brothers with large and needy families to the
‘indigenous’ prisoners.64
Scapini was triumphant after signing the protocol of 16 November. His
Paris office became a diplomatic mission, and the Berlin office was organized
without delay under the leadership of Jacques Benoist-Méchin, a journalist
and freelance historian who had worked with Scapini on the Franco-German
Committee. Scapini considered all the German concessions to be unprec-
edented examples of victor generosity and beamed at the thought of getting
direct access to the French POWs. Here was a tangible result of collabora-
tion, a fruit of Montoire, that would restore thousands of fathers and old-
est brothers to their families (the exact number was not known at the time,
but it was estimated at 50,000; in reality, only 18,731 people were released
under this clause).65 Scapini was confident, moreover, that his good rapport
with Reinecke, Abetz, and Ribbentrop would soon trigger more concessions.
Hitler’s personal involvement in the protocol of 16 November seemed to con-
firm his interest in collaboration, and his obligingness in the question of the
Swiss internees boded well for future concessions. In fact, Reinecke testified
at his trial that Hitler had told Keitel after Montoire that French POWs ought
61 Scapini to Abetz, 4 November 1940, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1 (folder ‘Laval’).
62 For the protocol, see ‘Aufzeichnung über Besprechung Scapini’s [sic] mit Generalleutnant
Reinicke [sic],’ 27 September 1940, PAAA, R 145 077. The most likely explanation for the misun-
derstanding is that Reinecke granted that the prisoners from the colonies would be sent to German
camps in southwestern France, which did actually happen to some degree later on in order to offer
these prisoners a milder climate and reduce their vulnerability to diseases exacerbated by cold
weather. Scapini may well have misunderstood this as a transfer to the southern (unoccupied) zone
of France and hence as a complete release.
63 See, for example, ‘Entretien du 20 mai 1941’, AN, F 9, 2176; the minutes of the Scapini–von
Rosenberg meeting of 30 July 1941, in AN, F 9, 2177; and ‘Note pour l’OKW’, 11 December
1941, AN, F 9, 2276 (requesting the dismissal of all prisoners of color still left in Germany).
64 Minutes of Scapini–von Rosenberg meeting, 11 September 1941, and minutes of Médecin-
commandant Brucker–von Rosenberg meeting, 4 November 1941, both in AN, F 9, 2177.
65 Durand, op. cit., 324. François Delpla considers the release of the fathers and brothers from
large families as a tiny concession that appears almost as an ironic response to Pétain’s discourse
about the low birth rate: F. Delpla, Montoire: Les premiers jours de la collaboration (Paris 1996),
348.

to be treated better than other POWs and that he supported making specific
alleviations for French POWs, which he later took back.66
It is true that some German concessions went beyond the requirements of
the Geneva Convention, in particular the release of fathers and brothers from
large, needy families. A critical look at the documents reveals, however, that
the Germans did not agree to much that did not in some way work to their
advantage or at least cost them nothing. When Abetz informed the Foreign
Office of Scapini’s visit in September 1940, he wrote: ‘Given that we have
an interest in strengthening Scapini’s position, it would be desirable to grant
his mission some successes, for example by making concessions we plan to
make in any case and by letting these concessions appear as results of his
intervention.’67 Letting the French soldiers interned in Switzerland go home
made sense in light of the fact that the French government had to pay the
Swiss government a daily fee for room and board at a hotel for every single
prisoner. Stopping this financial hemorrhage served Germany’s interest in
exploiting French resources and finances for its own purposes. Moreover, the
OKW made sure that the equipment of these troops would be handed over to
the German army.68 Allowing Scapini and other Vichy officials to broadcast
German-censored radio messages to the prisoners, something Reinecke con-
ceded even before the agreement of 16 November, was also in the interest of
nazi Germany and not far removed from Dr Bran’s scheme for showering the
French POWs with pro-nazi propaganda. In fact, Abetz claimed that Benoist-
Méchin, as the director of Scapini’s Berlin office, had agreed ‘to devote himself
above all to the moral consideration of prisoner of war questions in order to
win over the mass of the prisoners of war, who will be decisive for France’s
future political orientation, for honest collaboration with Germany.’69 In the
same spirit, Scapini later encouraged the formation of ‘Pétain Circles’ in the
camps, groups that studied Pétain’s speeches and fostered loyalty to him.70 The
release of prisoners necessary for the restoration of French services and eco-
nomic strength would benefit German exploitation of France in the long run,
and the French Delegation at the German Armistice Commission in Wiesbaden
correctly suspected that the substitution of France for the United States as the
protective power would be a pretext for the Germans to send qualified French
prisoners into the armaments industry in violation of Article 31 of the Geneva
66 ‘Sténographie du procès Reinecke’, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 6: Trials of War Criminals.
67 Telegram Abetz to Schwarzmann, 24 September 1940, PAAA, R 145 077.
68 Protocol of 16 November, and telegram Abetz to Ribbentrop, Paris, 31 October 1940, both
in PAAA, R 145077.
69 Abetz to Reinecke and Sethe (telegram), 11 December 1940, PAAA, R 145077.
70 See the memorandum of Scapini dated 14 March 1943 in HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 9. Scapini
here approves of the pro-Pétain propaganda in the camps, but also points out that he is facing
strong pressure from the German Foreign Office, particularly Dr Bran, for a more blatantly col-
laborationist propaganda. His support for the Pétain Circles later played a role in Scapini’s indict-
ment: ‘Affaire Scapini’, Directeur des services de Police Judiciaire to Juge d’Instruction, Paris, 24
August 1945, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 20. See also Overmans, ‘Kriegsgefangenenpolitik’, op.
cit., 764.

Convention.71 In fact, Scapini later took an ambiguous stance on this issue. He

first protested against the use of French prisoners in the armaments industry,
but Reinecke reminded him that the liberations of French POWs went beyond
what the Geneva Convention required, and that, given the friendship between
the two countries, a pedantic insistence on the Geneva Convention made little
sense. This was, of course, a veiled threat that Germany might revoke ear-
lier concessions and perhaps call back some of the released prisoners. After
consulting his government, Scapini backed down and even went to Berlin to
speak to prisoners at an armaments factory in order to break a strike in early
1942.72 Toward the end of the war, Scapini’s stance hardened again, and he
managed to get some, though not all, French POWs out of the armaments
industry or other directly war-related activities (they were replaced by Italian
Military Internees and Soviet POWs).73 Finally, the German agreement to allow
France to provide supplies of food, clothing, and medicine to the prisoners was
no concession at all, because it eased the legal obligation of Germany as the
detaining power to care for the prisoners. The supply to French prisoners by
France was suggested to the Germans by Scapini with the backing of Pétain,
and it was certainly motivated by humanitarian concerns and the worry that
Germany, as in the first world war, would face severe shortages and therefore
not adequately feed its prisoners of war. But this French generosity led to a slip-
pery slope, as the Germans increasingly relied on supplemental French deliver-
ies to alleviate shortages instead of remedying them themselves. The United
States government recognized this problem from the start; on 7 October 1940,
Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles rejected French Ambassador Gaston
Henry-Haye’s request to unblock frozen French funds in the United States for
the purchase of beef in Argentina for the prisoners of war. Welles argued that it
was the duty of the detaining power to feed its prisoners and that beef delivered
to the occupied zone of France would likely be used by the German occupation
troops themselves.74
While Scapini was still celebrating the German concessions as an outcome
of the spirit of Montoire — on 4 December 1940 he read a triumphant
newsreel address in Braille — the train of collaboration hit severe bumps.75
71 Costes, La délégation française, op. cit., vol. 2, 368.
72 ‘Procès-verbal de l’entretien du 21 février 1942 à l’O.K.W.’ and ‘Note verbale’, both in
AN, F 9, 2176, folder ‘Entretien du 21 février 1942’. See also Scapini to Darlan, HIA, Scapini
Papers, Box 1. Scapini had discussed the question with Darlan and Pétain, who had both argued
that it made no sense to insist on Article 31, given that France was at the same time encouraging
volunteers to work in the German armaments industry. See ‘Note: Février 1942, Article 31’, HIA,
Scapini Papers, Box 15.
73 Affidavit Scapini on Reinecke for the OKW trial, April 1948, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 6. See
also Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 152.
74 Memorandum of Under-Secretary of State Welles with French Ambassador Henry-Haye,
Washington, 7 October 1940, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1940, vol. 2,
388–90.
75 The newsreel address of 4 December 1940, like several other speeches by Scapini, is accessible
on the online archive of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA): http://www.ina.fr/archive-
spourtous/index.php?vue=notice&from=themes&cs_page=0&cs_order=0&code=C0524219956

There had been disturbing signs already in the preceding weeks. The ruthless
expulsion of allegedly Francophile residents of Lorraine by Gauleiter Bürckel
did indeed proceed until his quota of 100,000 expellees was filled in late
November. Bürckel’s action was widely understood to be a step toward the re-
annexation of Alsace and Lorraine.76 Other signs pointed in the same direction:
the German Armistice Commission requested, for example, that all residents
of Alsace be released from the French armistice army. Moreover, the OKW
announced that it would not allow released French POWs and military intern-
ees from Switzerland living in the northernmost region of France, which was
administered by the German military command in Brussels, to return home.
Of course, the French government was willing, as Scapini’s conversations in
September 1940 made clear, to pay a price for a peace treaty with Germany.
It therefore objected less to potential German annexations than to the fact
that they seemed to be carried out in an underhanded, ruthless, and one-sided
way that severely compromised Vichy in the eyes of the French people.77 An
explanation for the unfriendly German acts was not obvious at the time; Abetz
hinted to Scapini that an anti-German demonstration by Parisian students on
11 November had raised doubts in Germany about the sincerity and depth of
the French commitment to collaboration.78 The deeper reason, however, was
that Hitler, aware that a direct invasion of Britain in short order was not realis-
tic, had explored the possibility of a rapprochement with France only briefly as
part of a ‘peripheral’ strategy against Britain in the Mediterranean. But Hitler’s
meetings with Pétain, Laval and Franco had left him unconvinced, and he had
therefore reaffirmed his commitment to the option that he had favored since
July 1940: to attack the Soviet Union.79 In this context, Franco-German col-
laboration had a low priority. As long as Vichy France was willing to defend
its colonies against Britain and the Free French, as it had done when de Gaulle
launched an abortive raid on Dakar on 23 September 1940, and as long as
France remained relatively quiet, no major concessions seemed necessary.
While French officials were still trying to blunt German measures hinting at
future annexations, a surprising event created a shockwave in Franco-German
relations. On 13 December, Pétain dismissed Laval, one of the most avid but
also most unpopular advocates of collaboration. Although this step was largely
motivated by Pétain’s personal dislike of Laval and not meant as a departure
from collaboration, it triggered a hysterical reaction from Hitler and German
officials. Abetz drafted a Gestapo motorcade, drove to Vichy, and took Laval,
&num_notice=1&total_notices=1 (accessed 31 January 2009). The film L’oeil de Vichy by Claude

Chabrol (1993) uses some of this footage.
76 F. Delpla, Montoire, op. cit., 352–4; Jäckel, Frankreich, op. cit., 75–9; Jackson, France: The
Dark Years, op. cit., 175.
77 Costes, La délégation française, op. cit., vol. 2, 443–5, 449.
78 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 36.
79 Kershaw, Fateful Choices, op. cit., 78–81; I. Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (New York
2000), 326–9. See also N.J.W. Goda, Tomorrow the World: Hitler, Northwest Africa, and the Path
toward America (College Station, TX, 1998), 94–112.

who had been arrested, to Paris.80 Hitler, even though he professed not to
have liked Laval when he met him in Montoire, had a fit of rage over what he
believed was a sign of French betrayal. He may have been particularly offended
because Laval’s dismissal spoiled a propaganda coup Hitler had personally
prepared for 15 December, namely the transfer of the remains of the Duke of
Reichstadt, Napoleon I’s son, from Vienna to Paris for burial next to Napoleon
I in the Invalides. Scapini and Benoist-Méchin, who were in Berlin for the
opening of the French Mission, were horrified when they learned of Laval’s
dismissal. Their German contacts suddenly adopted an icy tone and closed
their doors. Scapini believed that all of his efforts for the prisoners had been in
vain. Benoist-Méchin returned to Paris and, assisted by Abetz, feverishly tried
to reconcile Pétain and Laval.81 Pétain, who had completely failed to predict the
German reaction, refused to recall Laval but stressed that he remained commit-
ted to collaboration. Although the dismissal of Laval provided Hitler with a
convenient excuse to torpedo collaboration while putting the onus for its fail-
ure on France, he was still full of rage when Admiral François Darlan, Pétain’s
confidant and later prime minister, visited him and delivered a justification
letter by Pétain at Christmas 1940.82 Scapini quickly discovered, however, that
all was not lost. Having remained in Berlin, he held talks with Reinecke and
other OKW officials on 16 December, only three days after the dismissal of
Laval. According to the minutes, the Germans spelled out procedures for camp
inspections in Germany and also for the Frontstalags in occupied France. There
is no mention of Laval’s dismissal or of potential sanctions.83 Camp inspec-
tions began in the following weeks, both in Germany and in occupied France,
and regular meetings of Scapini with Reinecke and von Rosenberg continued.
Scapini oversaw the camp inspections and organized relief where necessary.84
After the agreement of 16 November 1940, however, the Germans drove
a harder bargain, and France had to make substantial concessions to obtain
the release of more prisoners. On 11 May 1941, during a visit of Darlan and
Benoist-Méchin to Berchtesgaden, Hitler finally signaled support for the libera-
tion of all first world war veterans, which had been Scapini’s first demand.85
In return, France made concessions that compromised Vichy’s neutrality, for
example by allowing German planes to land in French Syria on their way to
Iraq, where a pro-Axis coup had triggered a British intervention, and by help-
ing to supply the German Africa Corps from French Tunisia.86 In July 1941,
80 Benoist-Méchin, A l’épreuve du temps, op. cit., 52–5; Lambauer, Otto Abetz, op. cit.,
266–8.
81 Benoist-Méchin, A l’épreuve du temps, op. cit., 53–61.
82 Jäckel, Frankreich, op. cit., 153; Ferro, Pétain, op. cit., 207–13; Jackson, France: The Dark
Years, op. cit., 175.
83 ‘Berlin, Rencontre du 16 décembre 1940 avec l’Oberkommando de la Wehrmacht’, HIA,
Scapini Papers, Box 15.
84 See the 1941 protocols in AN, F 9, 2176 and 2177.
85 Benoist-Méchin, A l’épreuve du temps, op. cit., 122–39; Jäckel, Frankreich, op. cit., 165–70.
86 Jackson, France: The Dark Years, op. cit., 179–80; C. Levisse-Touzé, L’Afrique du Nord dans
la guerre, 1939–1945 (Paris 1998), 113–21.

the Military Commander in France agreed to release the few remaining white
POWs left in the Frontstalags, but this concession came in response to the sale
of French trucks from Tunisia for use in the Africa Corps. In December 1941,
finally, the OKW granted a release of 10,000 North African prisoners from
the Frontstalags as a reward for the recall of General Maxime Weygand from
North Africa. Weygand, the chief deputy of the Vichy government in North
Africa, was believed by Hitler to be anti-German because he had repeatedly
opposed the German use of French bases in North and West Africa.87 The liber-
ation of the 10,000 North Africans was also self-serving because the Germans
had exposed many of them to anti-British and anti-French propaganda and
hoped that they would spread the word when coming home. Moreover, as
Scapini found out, almost half of the selected North Africans should already
have been released as fathers and brothers from large and poor families accord-
ing to the agreement of 16 November 1940.88
The agreement of 16 November 1940, as well as the later German conces-
sions, came to a halt when another unforeseen event again led to a hysterical
reaction by Hitler. On 17 April 1942, General Henri Giraud escaped from the
POW camp in the fortress of Königstein in Saxony and made his way to the
unoccupied zone of France. Hitler, who believed that Giraud had exploited
special freedoms he had received on his orders, had a fit of rage. Abetz and the
Vichy government feared that collaboration would come to an end if Giraud
did not return to Germany. With the help of Vichy officials, Abetz arranged a
meeting with Giraud and tried to persuade him to return, but Giraud formu
lated unacceptable conditions. Scapini, worried about reprisals against the
French POWs, also traveled to the unoccupied zone to implore Giraud to
return, but Giraud ran to his plane and took off just as Scapini stepped onto
the tarmac to meet him.89 Even though Pétain reinstated Laval on the day after
Giraud’s escape (Pétain had made this decision two days earlier and therefore
without connection to Giraud’s escape), Hitler’s anger did not abate. He passed
vindictive orders, many of which violated the Geneva Convention. All repatria-
tions of French officers had to be stopped, including the repatriation of sick
officers. French camp inspections and all negotiations for the release of French
POWs also had to be terminated. Hitler even ordered the recall of all prison-
ers who had only been released (not liberated), which applied to most of the
prisoners the Germans let go outside the framework of the Geneva Convention,
and the suppression of all measures designed to alleviate the captivity of
87 Overmans, ‘Kriegsgefangenenpolitik’, op. cit., 765; Levisse-Touzé, L’Afrique du Nord, op.
cit., 109–10, 177–8. In a letter to Darlan, Scapini alludes to the dismissal of the 10,000 as a
German reaction to ‘the détente that has been noticed in the interior politics of North Africa’,
which was almost certainly an allusion to the recall of Weygand: Scapini to Darlan, 6 December
1941, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1.
88 Scapini had initially agreed with Reinecke that 3800 West Africans and 6200 North Africans
would be released, but then the OKW single-handedly decided to limit the measure to North
Africans: ‘Note au sujet de la libération des Prisonniers Indigènes’, 26 December 1941, AN, F 9,
2869; see also Scapini to Darlan, 6 December 1941, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1.
89 Ferro, Pétain, op. cit., 395–6.

French POWs, such as theater performances, libraries, and sports activities.90

In response, Scapini made a dramatic plea in a letter to Hitler: he offered to
surrender himself as a prisoner in Giraud’s stead and join one of the penal
camps for recaptured French POWs in the East if Hitler rescinded his orders.
He reminded Hitler of their pre-war meetings and appealed to his chivalry.
Hitler replied in a personal letter on 19 June 1942, in which he showed himself
to be deeply insulted by France’s alleged ingratitude, emphasized Germany’s
generosity in the treatment of French POWs, and called Giraud’s flight ‘an
undignified answer to the chivalrous treatment by the German Wehrmacht’.
Regarding Scapini’s proposal to consider himself prisoner instead of Giraud,
Hitler replied: ‘I do recognize the noble spirit inspiring this proposal made by
a former soldier heavily affected by the previous war, but you will without
a doubt understand that such a gesture cannot erase the flight of General
Giraud and its consequences.’91 Scapini found, however, that Reinecke and
other German officials managed to mitigate the effects of Hitler’s outrageous
orders. Reinecke wryly told Scapini that he should be patient and that things
would return to normal after a while. Abetz said very much the same thing.92
The OKW watered down Hitler’s orders, and the prohibition from inspecting
POW camps was lifted after five months for camps with soldiers and after nine
months for officer camps.93 Releases of prisoners resumed, albeit at a much
slower pace.
The frantic Giraud episode occurred in a context of increasingly repressive
German actions. By the end of 1941, with the German campaign in Russia stall-
ing, the OKW had stepped up pressure on French POWs to work in the arma-
ments industry. Reprisals against escaped and recaptured French prisoners, as
well as against those French NCOs who refused to work, became harder. In
the spring of 1942, the OKW began sending these prisoners to especially harsh
camps in Poland and Ukraine, which Scapini’s mission was not allowed to
inspect until the summer of 1943.94 During the crisis following Giraud’s escape,
Hitler’s plenipotentiary for labor, Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel, invited Scapini to
the German Embassy and asked him point blank how many POWs Germany
would have to release in order to receive 250,000 French voluntary laborers.
Scapini, who had made a similar proposal to Reinecke in September 1940,
answered that Germany would have to release at least the equal number of
prisoners.95 Sauckel abruptly ended the conversation and went directly to
90 ‘Annexe à la réponse de la troisième question’, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 20 (materials on the
Scapini trial).
91 Hitler to Scapini, 19 June 1942, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 4.
92 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 90, 178–9, 188.
93 ‘Annexe à la réponse de la troisième question’, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 20 (materials on the
Scapini trial).
94 R. Vinen, The Unfree French: Life under the Occupation (New Haven, CT, and London
2006), 188.
95 ‘Mémoire pour mon procès’, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 19, p. 55; ‘Huitième question’, HIA,
Scapini Papers, Box 20, folder ‘Scapini, Georges, Trial, First, 1949, Investigation, Interrogation
of Scapini’.

Laval, who signed the deal on Sauckel’s terms — a three-to-one rate in favor of
Germany. When not enough volunteers could be found, Sauckel’s service and
other nazi agencies began rounding up young French people for forced labor.96
In this context, Scapini tried to maximize the advantages of the agreement of
16 November 1940, in particular the functions of a protective power that it
had conferred onto his mission. The camp inspections, once the Germans per-
mitted their resumption, kept up a steady flow of information from the camps
and triggered countless inquiries and interventions by Scapini and his staff. His
continued appeals to Pétainist loyalty notwithstanding, Scapini had no illu-
sions after the spring of 1942 about the harshness of the German exploitation
of the prisoners and about the dangers of reprisals, both of which he tried to
mitigate in meetings with Reinecke and other German officials.
Collaboration and the prisoner of war issue were inseparable to Scapini and
to most French officials in the early Vichy period, but what exactly was their
relationship? It is clear that Vichy officials expected German concessions in
the POW question as a consequence of collaboration. In his communications
with German officials in the fall of 1940, Scapini always stressed the French
government’s will to collaboration in the same breath as he was pressing for
concessions regarding the prisoners. But there is no evidence that Vichy chose
collaboration as a means to alleviate the fate of the POWs. Scapini himself put
it clearly in a letter to General Charles Huntziger of 4 June 1941:
it is in my opinion crucial that public opinion not have the impression that the liberations of
prisoners of war are determining France’s choice of a policy, but rather that the choice of a
policy, which is inspired exclusively by French national interest, has as its consequence the
liberation of the prisoners of war or the transformation of their status.97
There is no question that Scapini, in agreement with Pétain, Laval and Darlan,
sincerely believed collaboration with Germany to be the best policy for France,
at least until his experiences with Hitler and Sauckel after the escape of Giraud.
In a memorandum of 2 June 1941, which Scapini sent to Abetz, he went so
far as to compare France’s potential contribution to Germany to the United
States’ support for Britain’s war effort: ‘It is not absurd to assume that, under
the present conditions, the course of events will lead France to play a role
toward Germany that is essentially analogous to the role that America plays
with respect to Britain’. That Scapini made this analogy as a ploy to gain more
concessions from Abetz is not plausible, because he had earlier said the same
thing to French officials.98
96 Jackson, France: The Dark Years, op. cit., 219–20; Vinen, Unfree French, op. cit., 197–9.
97 Scapini to General Huntziger, 4 June 1941, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1, folder ‘Huntziger’.
Huntziger reacted positively to Scapini’s ideas and pointed out that they agreed well with the
policy of the Vichy government: Huntziger to Darlan, 8 June 1941, HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 1,
folder ‘Huntziger’.
98 ‘Rapport sur les conditions où une solution générale au problème des prisonniers de guerre
français pourrait être recherchée’, 2 June 1941, PAAA, Paris 2471, Kriegsgefangenenwesen;
Durand, La vie quotidienne, op. cit., 192–3; and Y. Durand, La France dans la deuxième guerre
mondiale: 1939–1945 (Paris 1993), 51.

Collaboration was therefore not the direct response to a situation compara-

ble to a hostage crisis (although we have seen that Scapini did once refer to the
POWs as hostages), but Scapini — probably correctly — saw it as the necessary
precondition for German concessions in the POW question and tried to use it
as a bargaining chip in order to obtain more. Scapini repeatedly stressed that
the OKW would never let French soldiers go if it had to fear that these soldiers
might become a threat to Germany again. By the same token, however, he
insisted to the Germans that collaboration would only be credible and accept-
able to the French public if the Germans made real concessions, particularly
on the POW question. His memorandum to Abetz of 2 June 1941 demanded
the liberation of all prisoners by arguing that Franco-German friendship would
not become palatable to French public opinion as long as Germany kept French
prisoners of war and refused to reassure France regarding the conditions of a
future peace treaty. Scapini clearly hoped in the fall of 1940 that collaboration
would become a substitute for reciprocity, insofar as Germany would hesitate
to alienate a cooperative France by mistreating French POWs. But the hostile
German acts in the wake of Montoire, such as the expulsion of the Lorrainers,
proved that Hitler attached very little importance to French collaboration,
even with Laval at the helm. In this matter, Scapini and the Vichy leaders were
tricked by the Germans, whose priority always was the exploitation of France
and the POWs.
Accepting the substitution of France for the United States, however, was a
defensible move. According to Scapini, Hitler had made it clear that he would
allow no other power to step in. Letting the French POWs become military
internees would very likely have been a bad choice, even though we cannot
know whether their fate would have been as terrible as that of the Italian
military internees in 1943–45.99 But the French POWs would have been placed
outside the Geneva Convention. Camp inspections might have ended, and the
use of the French prisoners in the war industry might have happened much
sooner. The supply to the prisoners and the sanitary conditions of the camps
would probably have deteriorated, and the release of diseased or wounded
prisoners might have stopped. The protection of the Jews among the French
prisoners, one of the bright spots of Scapini’s activity highlighted during his
trial, would have been much harder.100 Accepting the role of protective power
was probably a case of preventive collaboration — going along in order to
prevent a greater evil.
It would be beyond the framework of this article to evaluate exactly how the
agreement of 16 November 1940 affected the prisoners. There is no question,
99 G. Schreiber, Die italienischen Militärinternierten im deutschen Machtbereich 1943–1945

(Munich 1990); and G. Hammermann, Zwangsarbeit für den Verbündeten. Die Arbeits- und
Lebensbedingungen der italienischen Militärinternierten in Deutschland 1943–1945 (Tübingen
2003).
100 See Léon Blum to Scapini, 19 October [1940], and R.-A. Olchanski to Scapini, 1 August
1949, both in HIA, Scapini Papers, Box 15; see also: Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 240–1;
Durand, La vie quotidienne, op. cit., 197.

however, that camp visits by French officials were, aside from the interruption
caused by the Giraud crisis, much more frequent and thorough than what the
Red Cross or the staff of the American Embassy were ever able to provide.101
The agreement of 16 November 1940 also inaugurated a system for supplies to
French POWs from French resources. It is true, as Sumner Welles pointed out
to the French ambassador in Washington, that Vichy in this matter accepted
alleviation of a legal obligation of the German army. But who could take it for
granted that the OKW would fulfill this obligation? The information from the
POW camps available to Vichy officials in the summer and fall of 1940 indicat-
ed severe shortages, and a French government could not take a purely legalistic
position if hundreds of thousands of its citizens were starving. The fate of the
POWs was quite literally a family matter for millions of French people and, as
is often overlooked, for hundreds of thousands in the French Empire. Although
the overall death rate of French POWs in German captivity was fairly low
(35,000 to 45,000 deaths altogether), the supply situation was precarious even
with the French supplemental deliveries.102 The death rate might have been
considerably higher without them. In a sense, Vichy’s willingness to supply the
POW camps was another case of preventive collaboration.
The negotiations leading to the agreement of 16 November 1940 also inau-
gurated high-level contacts between Scapini and German officials. It may be
true that Scapini, in the description of historian Henry Rousso ‘a man of good
will’ but somewhat naïve, shared illusions about his German interlocutors.103
But his appeals to chivalry sought to exploit the remaining reserves of respect
for France among high German officials, as noticed by Rüdiger Overmans.
Scapini’s diplomacy played to the desire of profoundly criminal nazi officials,
including Hitler himself, to still be perceived as chivalrous and decent by repre-
sentatives of the now defeated ‘hereditary enemy’ of Germany. Again, it would
be difficult to assess how much these contacts affected the prisoners. But there
is evidence that in the wake of the two most serious threats to the agreement
of 16 November 1940, the crises following Laval’s dismissal and the escape
of Giraud, Scapini managed to mitigate the effects of Hitler’s hysterical reac-
tions, thanks to the cordial relations he had fostered with German officials, in
particular Reinecke. There is some truth in Scapini’s reflections in his memoirs:
‘All of these human contacts had more relevance than the powerless texts of
the Geneva Convention, whose substance had become hollow because of the
absence of German prisoners of war in France.’104
101 I have seen in the context of prisoners of color in the Frontstalags that the Germans quite fre-
quently considered concerns raised by French camp inspections. They reprimanded or disciplined
abusive guards, remedied some shortages, and improved accommodation. True, these measures
were often frustratingly slow, half-hearted, and incomplete, but they would not have happened
without the French camp inspections.
102 Durand, ‘Das Schicksal der französischen Kriegsgefangenen’, op. cit., 76; Durand, La vie
quotidienne, op. cit., 123–8.
103 Rousso, Pétain et la fin de la collaboration, op. cit., 305, 310.
104 Scapini, Mission sans gloire, op. cit., 113.

The agreement of 16 November 1940 reflected a notion about a special and

friendly Franco-German relationship. It offered advantages but also serious
drawbacks. The Germans did make concessions that went beyond the Geneva
Convention, such as the liberation of fathers and brothers from large, needy
families. But these concessions also served them as an argument for hollow-
ing out the Geneva Convention, particularly its prohibition of war-related
work (Article 31). As we have seen, Reinecke argued in February 1942 that
the friendship of France and Germany, and their striving for a common goal,
made the letter of the Geneva Convention obsolete, and he made a veiled threat
that Germany might take back the concessions not required by the Geneva
Convention. Scapini, with the agreement of Darlan and Pétain, complied, but
it is highly unlikely that his insistence on the Geneva Convention would have
prevented the deployment of French prisoners in the war industry.
One important aspect of the agreement of 16 November 1940 was its value
for the legitimacy of the Vichy government itself. From the start, Scapini
attached great value to opening official channels of communication with the
POWs, such as radio messages. There was no question that these communica-
tions would be Vichy propaganda and that they would have to be submitted
to German censorship. The prisoners in German hands, relatively isolated
from channels of information, were to become stalwarts of Pétainist values. In
turn, every German concession in the POW question offered a justification of
French collaboration and the Vichy regime in general. After Montoire, Laval
and Pétain were eager to highlight a positive result of collaboration, and both
of them pointed to the agreement of 16 November 1940 as the first (and only)
example.105 Scapini’s efforts to win over the prisoners to Pétain and collabora-
tion were entirely in keeping with Pétain’s vision of the prisoners as the ‘good
Frenchmen’ who represented the unity, selflessness, and communal spirit that
he wished all French people would possess.106 Vichy propaganda depicted
the prisoners as devoted to Pétain and his conservative ideas, and advertised
French assistance and German concessions as justifications for collaboration.
Although Pétain probably remained more popular among the prisoners than
among the general population of France, Vichy propaganda created, as Sarah
Fishman has noted, a false image that only helped to widen the gulf between
the returning prisoners and the rest of French society. By the end of the war,
returning prisoners often found themselves accused as collaborators or trai-
tors, and they did not always find appreciation of their suffering.107 In speeches
to released prisoners, newspaper articles, and announcements in newsreels,
105 G. Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France (New York 1969), 245–6; Paxton, Vichy
France, op. cit., 98. See also F. Delpla, ‘Montoire: Du nouveau?’, Guerres mondiales et conflits
contemporains 47(186) (1997), 81–94, at 88–90.
106 Ferro, Pétain, op. cit., 285–7; Durand, La vie quotidienne, op. cit., 189–90.
107 S. Fishman, ‘Grand Delusions’, op. cit., 242–4. See also Christophe Lewin, Le retour des
prisonniers de guerre. Naissance et développement de la F.N.P.G. 1944–1958 (Paris 1987), 75–9;
and C. Lewin, ‘Le retour des prisonniers de guerre français (1945)’, Guerres mondiales et conflits
contemporains 37(147) (1987), 49–79.

Scapini played a strong role in this propaganda, at least until the spring of
1942.108
The agreement of 16 November 1940 happened in the context of a volun-
tary policy of collaboration initiated by the Vichy authorities. Hitler probably
offered the agreement as a ‘concession’ that would allow Vichy to demonstrate
to the French public the success of Montoire, and that would sweeten the
bitter pill of other German actions he condoned, such as the expulsion of the
Lorrainers. Vichy took the bait because it hoped to win over the French POWs
in Germany to Pétainist ideology, and was eager to demonstrate a success of
collaboration and bolster its own legitimacy. But humanitarian considerations
certainly played a role in the French consent to this agreement, and to some
extent it can be seen not exactly as forced, but rather as preventive, collabora-
tion. Plausibly, the agreement and the framework it established, despite the
dangers, represented a lesser evil for the French POWs.
Raffael Scheck
is professor of modern European history at Colby College. He has
published books and articles on German right-wing politics 1914–33
and on the massacres of Black French prisoners by the German army
in 1940. He is working on a book on the experience of soldiers of
color from the French Empire in German captivity during the second
world war.
108 See his appearance in newsreels on 4 December 1940, 7 March, 2 May, 4 July, and 19
December 1941, and 1 September 1942, all online at the INA site: www.ina.fr, as well as news
paper articles collected in PAAA, R 40768.

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The Prisoner of War Question and the Beginnings of Collaboration: The

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Keywords: collaboration, France, French prisoners of war, Germany, Georges

On 16 November 1940, German and French representatives signed an agree-

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R. Overmans, ‘Die Kriegsgefangenenpolitik des Deutschen Reiches 1939 bis 1945’, in J.

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Scapini for a long audience. He claimed that he felt an affinity to Scapini

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Scapini promptly contacted the two leading German authorities in Paris,

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permission to broadcast German-censored French radio messages to the pris-

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expulsion of 100,000 allegedly pro-French Lorrainers on 4 November. Abetz

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he stressed the connection between German concessions regarding the POWs

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Convention.71 In fact, Scapini later took an ambiguous stance on this issue. He

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&num_notice=1&total_notices=1 (accessed 31 January 2009). The film L’oeil de Vichy by Claude

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French POWs, such as theater performances, libraries, and sports activities.90

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Collaboration was therefore not the direct response to a situation compara-

99 G. Schreiber, Die italienischen Militärinternierten im deutschen Machtbereich 1943–1945

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The agreement of 16 November 1940 reflected a notion about a special and

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