France had a relatively easier time under German occupation during World War Two. That is because Hitler did not consider West Europeans as 'Untermenschen'. The infamous German brutality was reserved for the Russians.
It shows in the following images of Paris under German occupation.
“These images were taken in Occupied Paris during WWII by André Zucca for Nazi German propaganda magazine Signal using rare Agfacolor film supplied by the Wehrmacht. Zucca was arrested after the 1944 liberation but never prosecuted. He worked until his death in 1976 under an assumed name”
When exhibited in Paris in 2008, Bertrand Delanoë, Mayor of Paris, ordered a notice to accompany the images stating that the pictures avoid the “reality of occupation and its tragic aspects”
Controversy about the exhibit began building shortly after it went up
in mid-March at an annex to the Paris Historical Library, in the Marais
district, and escalated sharply last weekend, when Mayor Bertrand
Delanoë's chief aide for culture, Christophe Girard, told Le Journal du
Dimanche, a leading Sunday newspaper, that when he first saw the display
it made him want to vomit.
Girard ordered posters around Paris
advertising the exhibition to be taken down, while Delanoë - no
stranger to controversy - went into damage control. He acknowledged at
a media lunch that the way the exhibition had been organized left
plenty to be desired but said it would stay up, declaring that he did
not wish to add "a wrong" - censorship - to the errors already
committed. He added that debates about the photos would be organized.
Even
before Delanoë spoke out, organizers of the exhibition began making
small changes after complaints from historians, visitors and groups like
the French Human Rights League. On April 2, a panel headlined "Warning"
went up, and a few days later leaflets reprinting the warning began
being handed to visitors as they entered.
The leaflet describes
the photos as exceptional: "The only color pictures taken in occupied
Paris by a French photographer" who was not only accredited but also
used German Agfacolor film - "almost impossible to get hold of at the
time."
It adds:
"What André Zucca portrays for us is a casual,
even carefree Paris. He has opted for a vision that does not show - or
hardly shows - the reality of occupation and its tragic aspects:
waiting lines in front of food shops, rounding up of Jews, posters
announcing executions."
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| A French women with two Luftwaffe officers at Paris' Longchamp race course |
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| Showcase with a portrait of the French Marshal Petain-collaborator in occupied Paris. |
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| Cinema for German soldiers in occupied Paris. |
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| Poster exhibition at the corner of Rue Tilsit and the Champs Elysees. |
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| The German commandant's office on the corner of September 4th and Avenue of the Opera in occupied Paris. |
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| German soldiers at the Longchamp racetrack |
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| French women at the Longchamp race course. Who says there is a war going on? |
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| This couple is enjoying life at Luxembourg garden in Paris |
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| A German soldier browses books at a Paris street book stall |
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| German propaganda poster at Champs Elysees |
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| A German band in Paris |
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| These German soldiers do some shopping on a street in Paris |
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| An advertisement inviting to go work in Germany |
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| An elderly Jewish women in Paris. See the star on her dress? Yeah. There was a war going on. |
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| A Parisienne on the waterfront. She is happy. |
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| A rickshaw taxi on the streets of Paris |
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| Belleville neighborhood in Paris |
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| Parisiana Cinema in Paris |
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Place de la Concorde in occupied Paris
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| Pont du Carrousel bridge in Paris |
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| Rue de Rivoli in occupied Paris. |
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| German soldiers at Paris' Vincennes Zoo |
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| Central market in 1942 |
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| A German Panther tank at Arc De Triomphe |
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| German signboard pointers in a Paris street |
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| German soldiers at a street cafe with Parisians |
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| Lux Cinema in German occupied Paris |
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| Roller-skating at the Eiffel Tower |
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| German officers at a Paris sidewalk cafe. Things were different in a Russian city. |
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| A Paris street under German occupation. Normal life goes on. |
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| German women from the Wehrmacht at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arc De Triomphe. Site seeing. |
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| German military band in Paris at Republic Square |
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Bicycle taxi at the famous Paris Maxim's Restaurant under German occupation
Fashionable french girls at the Luxembourg Gardens. De Gaulle would have foamed at the mouth. |
