ABSTRACT
Violating orders issued by the Army Commander in Chief, approximately twenty SS intelligence specialists surreptitiously entered France during the summer of 1940. Led by Sturmbannführer (SS Major) Dr. Max Thomas, the growing SS contingent secured permission to operate in France, established branch offices throughout the occupied zone, and zealously championed Nazi racial policies during the first eighteen months of the occupation. Contradicting the Military Commander in France (Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich or MBF), SS officers exaggerated threats posed by anti-German groups and described the mood in Paris as revolutionary. After the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, SS leaders condemned reprisals carried out by the army because they did not focus on Jews and attributed increasing resistance activity to an alleged Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy. SS officials also helped French collaborators bomb seven Parisian Synagogues to demonstrate that some Frenchmen supported Hitler’s anti-Semitic agenda and triggered a bitter conflict with the MBF. Frustrated by the army’s reluctance to institute Nazi racial policies and tired of mediating army—SS disputes, Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel placed a Senior SS and Police Leader (Hoherer SS- und Polizeiführer or HSSuPF) in charge of security in occupied France on 1 June 1942.
Carl Oberg, the new HSSuPF, had to deport Jews, suppress burgeoning resistance activity, and recruit or impress French workers into Germany’s slave labor program with fewer than three thousand German agents at his disposal. He needed support to discharge his responsibilities, and previous army-SS disputes limited assistance from the MBF, so the HSSuPF relied on the Vichy regime to realize his agenda. Rather than risk the loss of French police assistance, HSSuPF Oberg did not force Prime Minister Laval to turn over assimilated French Jews in July 1942. Instead, he relaxed the pace of racial deportations. By the end of the occupation, senior SS authorities even helped the army cover up support for the 20 July 1944 plot to avoid appearing incompetent or complicit in the attempted coup.
In France, the SS initially used Nazi ideology to discredit the MBF and seize control of German security policy. Once they secured executive authority, SS leaders became responsible for the success or failure of Hitler’s agenda and had to change tactics. Short of personnel, they moderated German demands in order to maintain Vichy support for racial deportations. Transfers also eased army—SS tensions. General Otto von Stülpnagel, the MBF from October 1940 to February 1942, resigned and was succeeded by his genial cousin, General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel. After Theodor Dannecker made demands that endangered Franco-German collaboration, Oberg transferred the fanatical SS captain to Bulgaria. Furthermore, HSSuPF Oberg maintained a cordial relationship with MBF Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel throughout the occupation. By July 1944, an increasingly desperate military situation encouraged former rivals to cooperate in order to survive impending defeat. In short, contextual and situational factors unique to France, along with Nazi ideology, shaped SS policy in the Hexagon during World War II.
