What Happened to French Soldiers During WW2? | Animated History 

IT would have been nice If you mentioned the Mass killing of black french soldiers by the Wehrmacht in 1940, good Video though

Tell me what is the soundtrack your using in this video?

Ad End Point is 4:11.

Small correction about Alsace-Lorraine ; while it is true that at least at the time most people in those regions could speak German fluently, they are not exactly german speaking ; after 1918 (when they became part of France again), people in those regions stopped speaking german as a primary language, in that role they either spoke french, or their own local "patois", their own local languages that are basically mixes of French, German and language of oïl (medieval latin dialect spoken in the northern half of France in the middle ages).

Nicely done video

Normandie Nieman

@@nuttygeezer708 exactly

they're also the only foreign force to have received the medal of hero of the soviet union, which they still have to this day

And also the 177 French commandos that participated on D-day

my favorite barbie

He deserves more than an analytical RU-vid video. Hollywood should make a movie about him.

@@theawesomeman9821 Agreed, but Hollywood making a movie about a frenchman who resisted during ww2, not attractive enough for the average american public. For most of them the french never won a war and has this "white flag" stereotype. So unfortunately this would likely not happen

​@thatguynex😂us5935

Klaus Barbie got recruited by the CIA and helped hunt down Che Guevara too

Yooooo! Never thought I'd see somoene mention Tardi here of all places! I read all three parts of Stalag IIB. A very poignant story, I was taken aback by the bitterness and cynicism of the author and his father. Of course an understandable perspective considering his fathers experiences. He doesn't even hesitate to throw shades at de Gaulle or others like delattre de Tasigny.

Your great grandfather sounds like an absolute chad

Your great grandfather is the story of “The Cow and I” where a frenchman escapes german prison with a cow?

@@CouldBeNero maybe not this story especially but yes kinda.

They should've built lvl 5 forts and not guaranteed poland smh

Love this HOI4 reference 🤣🤣.

Unfortunately they were playing on iron man mode

I blame Huntziger directly for the collapse on the defense of the Ardennes. Although both Daladier and Gamelin were culpable in the events leading to the tragic Battle of France, Huntzinger actions were inexplicable on the days preceding and during the Battle of Sedan as the overall commander of the Ardennes sector. He ignored the pleas of his air scouts reporting the huge and long German column opposite the Ardennes. His ground commanders even asked permission to shell the bridges in the Ardennes but they were denied. Not surprising that when France fell, he was an ardent supporter of the Vichy regime.

you forget Chamberlain and the English politics of the moment......

@@jmb2140 But the main focus was France, since they had a direct border with Germany, they were an infinitely bigger threat to the Nazis than the UK ever was. Even if the UK dropped its guarantees, the French would've easily mowed down the Germans, let alone while they were banging their heads on the Sudeten Wall of fortifications.

@@Wakizaka_Yasuharu Agree absolutely...with the biggest army in Europe no less

Pierre Laval, 2nd most powerful guy in Vichy France, became the chief of Police for postwar Paris. His WW2 politics bled into the postwar French police forces and hence gaining the infamous reputation of immediate and disproportional police brutality. American police officers are babies compared to the bloody carnage a French police officer can dish out...

@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Laval was shot. Maurice Papon, a civil servant who deported Jews around Bordeaux, was the one who became a police chief.

Nothing, they remained in high positions and they worked with former free french to brutally crackdown in akgeria

​@@theotherohlourdespadua1131this is plain misinformation. He was executed for treason in 1945 after a kangaroo trial

They also prevented the Allies / Free French from using it.

@@jameshudkins2210 Idk man, a few ships actually managed to escape to the allies, while most of the ships were just saborded, but it wasn't necesseraly to prevent allies from taking them, but because there was no other choice (the germans were driving fast towards Toulon to seize the ships, everything had to be done quickly, the allies were only to the other side of the sea, no time)

Oh sad 0 likes :)

Underrated

Thanks to the USians and their "upcoming fight against communism", they wasted no time embedding themselves in the political institutions of France once De Gaulle left his provisional position in the government and during the 4th republic you had the american ambassador sieging and overseeing the ministers councils, you know : the kind of events in wich the most important decisions of the State are made, all under "supervision" of the USians so here you have your reason as to why so many traitors got off scott free : The USA bailed them out.

To learn what? That they surrended and then colaborated with germans and fought to the last men to defend Hitler in Berlin in 1945?

👍

That is a lie

All fun and games until you bump into the same German soldier again

@@Ch33secakeGaminghey he’s still moving the cow, right? 😏

It is a comedy starring Fernandel. Nothing true about it.

They've really stepped up in the past few years too. Incredible how far this channel has come.

Hats 👒 🎩 off to the animators for their hard work. I tip my hat to them.

Same, as a french, this feel so refreshing to see an american finally working on this subject with objectivity.

You guys should really stop surrendering

​@@ThebettermartyrMate that happened once. We literally won the most battles in History.

Tell your nation "France" to get out of the continent so called Africa. The biblical promised land. Get out of our land. Get out of our continent. With all the poverty, oppression your nation brought upon my people in the continent of Africa. 🌍 You used my people to fight your white wars.

​@@damienbaujean8581Tell your nation "France" to get out of the continent so called Africa. The biblical promised land. Get out of our land. Get out of our continent. With all the poverty, oppression your nation brought upon my people in the continent of Africa. 🌍 You used my people to fight your white wars.

It's because American got pissed of we didn't follow their war crime in Irak

@@alexandre069oh yes the famous ww2 irak campaign 👍

@@d.olivergutierrez8690 no the 2003 one

@@alexandre069y’all are too busy with war crimes in Mali

Not between fascists and anti-fascists : between pro-Vichy and anti-Vichy. There is a huge nuance.

Why Toulouse?

@@Kartavya64 nearest big city hed never been much further by then

Preach. The only ones to be heartily commended with their dedication, were the conscripted and POW soldiers of the Republic, the pre-D-day members of the Maquis as well as the ones who were able to volunteer and continue the fight as the Free French.

Heard about the last hour joiners from a documentary before. Did they actually go around shaving the heads of french women who had suspected relationships with german soldiers in an attempt to prove their 'loyalty to the resistance' like they actually contributed something to the fight?

@@johnacrts2171 a lot of heads were shorn a lot of heads got a superfluous cavity lots of unsanctioned justice took place between 1944-1945. You see a scene liek that in band of brothers but it's in the netherlands and never made clear whether the resistants were OG's ( for lack of a better term) or not Some of the last hour resistants to their credit joined the troops who fought along the Ruhr and Rhine and pushed into southern Germany so that France was the 4th biggest force on the western front by the war's end.

note: they were forced conscript, no french men especially from Alsace would have wanted to help the boches

​@@empereurnico6048The people from Elsass were Germans and never felt French. So don't try to apologize them. It was France who took their land and they were not happy with living under french rule. Don't forgett that WW2 WW2 didn't happen in a vacuum and France was allways a hostile country to the german people since the 30 years war.

​@empereurnico6048 Yeah no one wants to be a nazi in hindsight, but reality is, there were many french facists, likewise the germans want to blame mustache man and move on, without taking a look in the mirror, Hitler wasn't just a person, but a whole generation of like minded people

​@@60iger29I HIGHLY reccomend you to do check Alsace's history, Germans enforced German and speaking French was forbidden

So he had to go to Germany anyways. False choices man...

@@gabrielmontenegro9476 Strangely enough, everything revolved around Germany at that time

Communists betrayed him

The attack on Mers-el-Kébir would be a great topic for a video, theres a lot of controversy surrounding that event

So many of them fought for the Wehrmacht instead.

@@wtfroflffs yes, this could have been avoided if Britain didn't attack Mer els Kebir and trusted the French at their word that the fleet would be scuttled before it would be handed over to the germans as it was on the 27 November 1942 despite the british actions

​@@Storiedfrog9 There's no controversy. There are plenty of videos discussing the issue at length. Best one is watch Drachinifel's analysis. He puts it plainly all the various options and how it could have easily been averted. Ultimately, the reason was that The french admiral in charge was a right incompetent treasonous bastard who betrayed not only his own men but the very principles of a commander duty to his men. And needlessly sacrificed his own men for his hubris. Although let's be clear about something....The British did not 'betray' the French in any way at all. The very idea that anyone could reasonably have that thought disgusts me to my core. It was France that betrayed the Allied cause. They could have chose to fight on, enact a fighting retreat to North Africa or Britain. Chose to stay true to their allies. But all that fought on was DeGaulle and a few thousand of his most loyal troops. But no, they let the very identity of their country die, and relegated themselves to the Nazi rule. Giving up all hope of returning to the homeland and restoring the liberty of their country. Instead they sold out, relegation themselves to having to be liberated by the allies 4 years later. Its commonly misrepresented, The free french were Fringe, a tiny number compared to what should have been. The reality was far more bleak and it seemed that most french had simply given up on the ideals of their own nation. It's an embarrassement that the UK and US wanted to liberate France more than the bloody French themselves. And they have the guts to call their old allies as 'Traitors'. Make no mistake. There was only one Traitor in the allied cause. And it was France.

@@livethefuture2492dude shut up. They lost the war and capitulated like a dozen empires before them. Like Greece>Rome, a dozen kingdoms>ottoman. The entirety of France wasn’t gonna get in a band wagon and go to africa. France at home still flew it’s colors and started to prosper. The nationalism the Germans sold them was more appealing then continuing with the Allies who sank their ships

And the french soldiers in the Lille pocket that fought untill their last cartridge and kept 7 german divisions away from Dunkerque for a week during the most crucial moments of the Dynamo operation.

I forgot who said this but in this case it was spot on when in the context to France during the start of ww2. "The battle/war is fought 10-20 before it actually happens" or something to this effect. I think it was from Margin of Victory: Five Battles that Changed the Face of Modern War from Douglas Macgregor but I might be wrong but still we find examples of this. France was planning to fight ww2 thinking one way but one thing or another whatever they thought wasn't the case and what they did do was under supported. The forces did the best they could with effectively leadership that depending on who you view or ask basically failed them and give up long before their men under their command.

I mean.....resistance in the west is vastly overexagerated these days. There was way more collaboration then there ever was resistance. So much so that some allied nations even wanted to treat France as a defeated nation instead of a liberated nation but was stopped by the British because they didn't want a repeat of punishing countries like after ww1. Resistance in my country only started shooting in like 1944 and in Belgium late 1943.

Agreed but there was also french getting on the boats and Brits fighting the rearguard and holding the perimeter but maybe through jingoism or pride that's something the odd french revisionist overlooks blaming there whole defeat on the British while forgetting the debacle started with there collapse at Sedan

@@AdanClark-zx7pw Many of the French lifted from Dunkerque's beaches opted for return to France, rather than join de Gaulle.

it's De Gaule

@@alexandre069 apologies

​@@alexandre069 it's (Charles) De Gaulle two l's

No way just because this you have more credit to be in power in France than any corrupt politicians there

1:46 1:46 1:49

German with 12,000 deaths and Soviets with 400,000 deaths under just 3 weeks is insane....

@wifi_soldier5076 yeah that's why it's worth a video made about it

@@wifi_soldier5076those are the casualties for both sides not just deaths. A large amount of the Soviet casualties were prisoners not deaths.

@@bigchickenstrip2509there is no difference between pow and death in statistics as you still lose men to the other side wounded are temporary tho

@@Willing_Herold I agree with what your saying as both deaths and pows are listed as irrecoverable losses unlike wounded but I was correcting his statement that all 400,000 Soviet casualties were deaths

Peut être que si les anglais n'avait pas trahi la France en livrant les plan de la ligne Maginot aux Allemands. Et en fuyant des le début de la bataille sa aurait était plus simple.

It is the fault of the Ardennes commander for letting the germans succeed in their all in with their tank rush through the forest. They were spotted by recon aircraft. Artillery was able to shell the bridges and airwings were ready to bomb and straf the german tank trafic jam in the ardenne, all stuck rear to front on a thin forest road. He only had to give the order. He did not.

So true

I've seen a lot people say things like the British 'betrayed' the French at dunkirk by fleeing, or by attacking the base at Mers-el-Kebir, but let's be clear about something....The British did not 'betray' the French in any way at all. The very idea that anyone could reasonably have that thought disgusts me to my core. It was France that betrayed the Allied cause. They could have chose to fight on, enact a fighting retreat to North Africa or Britain. Chose to stay true to their allies. But all that fought on was DeGaulle and a few thousand of his most loyal troops. But no, they let the very identity of their country die, and relegated themselves to the Nazi rule. Giving up all hope of returning to the homeland and restoring the liberty of their country. Instead they sold out, relegation themselves to having to be liberated by the allies 4 years later. Its commonly misrepresented, The free french were Fringe, a tiny number compared to what should have been. The reality was far more bleak and it seemed that most french had simply given up on the ideals of their own nation. It's an embarrassement that the UK and US wanted to liberate France more than the bloody French themselves. And they have the guts to call their old allies as 'Traitors'. Make no mistake. There was only one Traitor in the allied cause. And it was France.

@@livethefuture2492 ok dude

@@livethefuture2492 Stop spamming

As a French person with Jewish great-grandparents who hid during the Occupation, I fully agree

The occupation and dutch resistence + involvement is much underrated, would be a good video

@@yourhistorybase279 yes along with the fact they put another resistance up in Indonesia.

all is good, since nut heads from around the world keep declaring that english must be The International language, then why not go along with their silly game. in the end an international language means that its every human's right to change it a little bit. no one is allowed to say your english is bad, just because you use non english phrases.

No worries, mon ami! I am American and I can tell you that a whole lot of people here have bad English. And cool story!

Tell your nation "France" to get out of the continent so called Africa. The biblical promised land. Get out of our land. Get out of our continent. With all the poverty, oppression your nation brought upon my people in the continent of Africa. 🌍 You used my people to fight your terrible wars.

Tell the nation "🇫🇷" to get out of the continent so called Africa. The biblical promised land. Get out of our land. Get out of our continent. With all the poverty, oppression your nation brought upon my people in the continent of Africa. 🌍

They signed an armistice.

France did not win anything.

Liar! it was an american and british decision. American created the 2nd Armoured division on US racist conception of an army..and Leclerc african soldiers were sent in other units, in 1943, before the division was sent to England. British also didn't want to have french colonial troops on their lands.. In 1940, a black african officer could command white soldiers the french army ( read about the history of captain N'Tchorore) . What could do a black american in... 1944? 1965? 2020??? I can't breathe.

​@@willnibor6075 French could just say no to Americans. But that takes guts....😂

Lol only with massive American aid

@@ak9989American weapons, but French soldiers.

They joined when everyone knew war was over. Germany was on it's knees. Just like french for the past 4 years

@@ak9989 USian lend and lease wich was repayed in full. The US never "galantly came to the rescue of France by pure good will" as it gets regurgitated everywhere, it was cynical and interested and if it wasnt for De Gaulle forcing both the hands of Churchill and Roosevelt : Hitler could have very well kept his New European Order as long as he kept being the lap dashund of the USA.

There are a lot of videos about Vichy France on RU-vid and many books have been written as well. But it is true that after the war people wanted to move on, which took a long time, especially in eastern Europe : "Savage continent - Europe in the aftermath of ww2" by Keith Lowe.

Does it really matter, did you ever meet him?

@@dave8323 Why wouldn’t it matter? He’s an ancestor of mine who played a role in one of the most important events in human history. The more I can learn about what he might have gone through, the better.

Good luck, may your search be fruitful

@@jackthorton10 thank you