Made for the enjoyment of Germans and sold for the home market in department stores, this silent newsreel shows the events of June 22, 1940, when the French government capitulated to Germany at Compiègne Forest. Adolf Hitler deliberately chose the site, since it was the same site where the humiliating 1918 Armistice between Germany and France was signed, and where a tablet proclaimed “Here on the eleventh of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German Reich… vanquished by the free peoples which it tried to enslave.” A gleeful Hitler personally presided over the surrender ceremony, which was attended by junior representatives of the French Third Republic. Following the signing, the railroad car (known as the Compiègne Wagon and previously used as the personal car of Marshal Ferdinand Foch) was removed and shipped to Germany. The surrender formalized a German occupation zone in Northern and Western France that encompassed all English Channel and Atlantic Ocean ports and left the remainder “free” to be governed by the French. Note: the Compiègne Wagon was later destroyed near the end of World War II, most likely by the SS, who may have viewed its potential return to France with dismay.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com