Marianne in Chains : Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation

**A startling and original view of the occupation of the French heartland, based on a new investigation of everyday life under Nazi rule** In France, the German occupation is called simply the "dark years." There were only the "good French" who resisted and the "bad French" who collaborated. __Marianne in Chains__, a broad and provocative history, uncovers a rather different story, one in which the truth is more complex and humane. Drawing on previously unseen archives, firsthand interviews, diaries, and eyewitness accounts, Robert Gildea reveals everyday life in the heart of occupied France. He describes the pressing imperatives of work, food, transportation, and family obligations that led to unavoidable compromise and negotiation with the army of occupation. In the process, he sheds light on such subjects as forced labor, the role of the Catholic Church, the "horizontal collaboration" between French women and German soldiers, and, most surprisingly, the ambivalent attitude of ordinary people toward the Resistance. A great work of reconstruction, __Marianne in Chains__ provides a clear view, unobscured by romance or polemics, of the painful ambiguities of living under tyranny.

In France, the German occupation is called simply the "dark years." There were only the "good French" who resisted and the "bad French" who collaborated. Marianne in Chains, a broad and provocative history drawing on previously unseen archives, firsthand interviews, diaries, and eyewitness accounts, uncovers the complex truth of the time. Robert Gildea's groundbreaking study reveals the everyday life in the heart of occupied France; the pressing imperatives of work, food, transportation, and family obligations that led to unavoidable compromise and negotiation with the army of occupation.

The New Yorker

After the Liberation of France, the Resistance was glorified and collaborators punished, but these convenient categories obscured the varied and equivocal experience of the ordinary populace. To capture this experience, Gildea concentrates on one region, the Loire, going deep into its archives and interviewing survivors. He describes the blurry line between civility and collaboration -- drinking with Germans in a café was acceptable; inviting them home was not -- and citizens' confusion about where their patriotic duty lay. Typically, people defined their loyalty within their immediate community, which explains their willingness to betray Communists and Jews, but also the lasting bitterness toward the Resistance for the reprisals its attacks on Germans provoked. In terms that would doubtless seem familiar to the inhabitants of other occupied countries, this subtle and humane book shows that the French experience of occupation was one of comfort, deprivation, heroism, pettiness, terror, excitement, pride, and shame.

A startling and original view of the occupation of the French heartland, based on a new investigation of everyday life under Nazi rule

In France, the German occupation is called simply the "dark years." There were only the "good French" who resisted and the "bad French" who collaborated. Marianne in Chains, a broad and provocative history, uncovers a rather different story, one in which the truth is more complex and humane.

Drawing on previously unseen archives, firsthand interviews, diaries, and eyewitness accounts, Robert Gildea reveals everyday life in the heart of occupied France. He describes the pressing imperatives of work, food, transportation, and family obligations that led to unavoidable compromise and negotiation with the army of occupation. In the process, he sheds light on such subjects as forced labor, the role of the Catholic Church, the "horizontal collaboration" between French women and German soldiers, and, most surprisingly, the ambivalent attitude of ordinary people toward the Resistance.

A great work of reconstruction, Marianne in Chains provides a clear view, unobscured by romance or polemics, of the painful ambiguities of living under tyranny.

"Drawing on previously unseen archives, firsthand interviews, diaries, and eyewitness accounts, Robert Gildea reveals everyday life in the heart of occupied France. He describes the pressing imperatives of work, food, transportation, and family obligations that led to unavoidable compromise and negotiation with the army of occupation. In the process, he sheds light on such subjects as forced labor, the role of the Catholic Church, the "horizon collaboration" between French women and German soldiers, and, most surprising, the ambivalent attitude of ordinary people toward the Resistance, which was often dismissed as a bunch of bandits who were militarily irrelevant."--Jacket A close-up look at everyday life in Nazi-occupied France draws in firsthand interviews, previously unseen archives, diaries, and eyewitness accounts to shed light on such topics as forced labor, the role of the Catholic Church, romantic relationships between French women and German soldiers, and the ambivalent attitudes of ordinary people toward the Resistance. Reprint. 10,000 first printing. On 18 June 1940, as the recently formed government of Marshal Petain sued for an armistice, General de Gaulle, broadcasting on the BBC, famously told the French people that though the battle of France was lost, the war-a world war-was not over: "Crushed by superior mechanical force today, we can conquer in the future by virtue of a superior mechanical force.