Armistice of 22 June 1940
The Armistice of 22 June 1940, sometimes referred to as the Second Armistice at Compiègne, was an agreement signed at 18:36 on 22 June 1940[1] near Compiègne, France by officials of Nazi Germany and the Third French Republic. It became effective at midnight on 25 June.
"French surrender" redirects here. For the related pejorative term, see cheese-eating surrender monkeys.Signatories for Germany included Wilhelm Keitel, a senior military officer of the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces), while those on the French side held lower ranks, including general Charles Huntziger.[1] Following the decisive German victory in the Battle of France (10 May – 25 June 1940) during World War II, this armistice established a German occupation zone in Northern and Western France that encompassed about three-fifths of France's European territory, including all English Channel and Atlantic Ocean ports. The remainder of the country was to be left unoccupied, although the new regime that replaced the Third Republic was mutually recognised as the legitimate government of all of Metropolitan France except Alsace–Lorraine. The French were also permitted to retain control of all of their non-European territories. Adolf Hitler deliberately chose Compiègne Forest as the site to sign the armistice because of its symbolic role as the site of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 that signaled the end of World War I with Germany's surrender.
Choice of Compiègne[edit]
When Adolf Hitler received word from the French government that it wished to negotiate an armistice, he selected Compiègne Forest as the place for the negotiations. Compiègne had been the site of the 1918 Armistice, which ended World War I with Germany's surrender. As an act of revenge Hitler held the signing in the Compiègne Wagon, the same rail carriage where the Germans had signed the 1918 Armistice.
In the last sentence of the preamble, the drafters inserted: "However, Germany does not have the intention to use the armistice conditions and armistice negotiations as a form of humiliation against such a valiant opponent", referring to the French forces. In Article 3, Clause 2, the drafters said that Germany did not intend to heavily occupy north-west France after the cessation of hostilities with Britain.
William Shirer, who was present on that day, reported, "I am but fifty yards from him. [...] I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph."[2] Then, on 21 June 1940, in the same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice had been signed (removed from a museum building and placed exactly where it was in 1918), Hitler sat in the same chair in which Marshal Ferdinand Foch had sat when he faced the representatives of the defeated German Empire. After listening to the reading of the preamble, Hitler—in a calculated gesture of disdain for the French delegates—exited the carriage, as Foch had done in 1918, leaving the negotiations to the chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), General Wilhelm Keitel. The negotiations lasted one day, until the evening of 22 June 1940: General Huntziger had to discuss the terms by phone with the French government representatives, who had fled to Bordeaux, mainly with the newly nominated defence minister, General Maxime Weygand.