Abstract

"Working for the enemy: French aircraft companies under the German occupation"

Patrick Fridenson, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (patrick.fridenson@ehess.fr)

100% of French aeronautical production from July 1940 to August 1944 went to Nazi Germany : 4,142 aircraft and 12,456 aircraft engines. Aeronautical products thus represent half of total arms sales from France to the Third Reich. Moreover, these numbers do not take into account the multiple tasks of repair and maintenance which constituted an essential part of an activity almost exclusively geared towards the satisfaction of German needs. Both state-owned and private firms contributed to execute the German orders, with the exception of two major Jewish business leaders that French authorities imprisoned. A peculiarity of this German hegemony on French companies’ production was the role of the French Air Ministry (where military officers and engineers were very present). Contrary to other branches, it negotiated with German authorities in order to impose state collaboration instead of private arrangements between firms. It argued that such a production was doing business in the public interest (survival of a French air force, survival of a key modern industry) and that it had to supervise it. Regarding aircrafts, this proved to be an illusion, as production was devoted to light transport and liaison planes the technology of which predated the war itself. The only exception was the Air Ministry’s decision to relocate the design offices of five state-owned aircraft manufacturing companies to the Southern city of Cannes. Though remaining under the grip of both the occupants, the Air Ministry and the Wiesbaden armistice commission, this concentration was conducive to innovation, via the design and experimentation of processes and prototypes. The Air Ministry also subsidized the experimentation of a few French rockets in Lyons, which were successfully hidden, but soon to be eclipsed by German V2. However, the German University of Göttingen mobilized French scientists and engineers of the Paris area to develop aerodynamics research for aircraft, some under German scholars’ control. Finally, this paper will survey the various attitudes and practices of business leaders, engineers and workers.