FRANCE: The Terror

Occupied France was aflame last week. Cried pro-Nazi Jacques Barteaud over Radio Paris:

“Harvests are burning, railway lines are being blown skyhigh, trains are being derailed. Everywhere French National Socialists are falling under Tommy-gun bullets, while the army of terrorists is moving about freely almost under the protection of the robes of judges who are only too ready to acquit criminals!”

“Plan A.” Vichy was slipping, and the Nazis knew it. They did what they could. A specially trained German army rumbled to the revolt areas of the Savoie and the Haute-Savoie to clean out the underground at any cost. The French Garde Mobile was given orders to shoot on sight. The death penalty was decreed for all Frenchmen caught aiding grounded Allied flyers. At last, all else failing, German authorities told the Vichy Government that the long-threatened “Plan A” would be put into effect.

The Germans had been saving “Plan A” for Allied invasion. Salient features: arrest of all officers of the French armistice army, internment of all army reserve officers, disarmament of the Garde Mobile, the arrest of all Jews and suspected foreigners.

But the hour was late. “Peaceful and decent Frenchmen,” awaiting invasion, would know how to deal with “Plan A.”