PARIS: WORLD WAR II, 1940.
Shortly after German forces occupied Paris in June 1940, Hitler Jugend and members of Bund Deutcher Mädel (League of German Girls) visit Notre Dame Cathedral, August 1940.
Author: Zachrey Sims
Interviewer: Brooke Fife
France from 1940 through 1944 was in turmoil. To the north and the coast, The Nazis occupied, and the remainder of the nation was under control of a Nazi puppet authoritarian regime known as Vichy France. All the while the Catholic Church was politically tied to non-action, opening the door for more injustice in Europe. The lower French clergy had the flexibility to ignore the political ties of the church or the choice of supporting Vichy or the Nazis, gaining them legitimacy among the French people. This legitimacy gave them power that would last beyond the war.