Paris Under the Nazis: Happy Days?

[Patzinak]

I have now had a chance to consult again the book by Milward "The New Order and the French Economy" […]

It seems that your current procedure is,

• (a) make claim,
  (b) argue about it,
  (c) consult reference.

If I may be so bold, I suggest considering a small change to,

• (a) consult reference,
  (b) make claim,
  (c) argue about it.

This would make (c) more informative, and would conceivably reduce its volume, with a significant economic benefit in respect of keyboard wear-and-tear and bandwidth usage.

[…] In 1943 at least 277,046,200 Reichsmarks were sent back to France. […]

Very impressive… Er, wait a minute…

How many French workers were there in the Reich? According to Spoerer and Fleischhaker (see above), > 660,000 were reported at end 1943 (table 4). To this we should add French POWs who "voluntarily" changed their status from POW to Fremdarbeiter, ie, >220,000 in 1943/44 (p188), so let's say 100,000. (There were, of course, far more French POWs forced into working for the Reich, but, presumably, those would not have had remittances to send back home.)

So, conservatively, in 1943, we've got RM 300 mil worth of remittances for 0.7 mil French workers; which comes to RM430 per worker -- for a whole year of work! (The German industrial wage at the time was around RM2,000/year -- cf Bry's "Wages in Germany…".) Somewhat underwhelming, wouldn't you say?!

And yet, this is to a considerable degree academic. Because, if I understand correctly, no funds were actually transfered. It was all a bit of hocus-pocus -- it was credited to occupation costs, so the payments were made by the French in FF (and we know about the exchange rate, right?). Paraphrasing one author, the French were paying their own people to work in Germany (Aly, p157). (And more than just remittances, for Vichy also had to introduce welfare schemes for their dependents.)

Btw, if that's all Milward has, then my recollection is correct, and he does not adequately cover the remittance issue. For, naturally, what you quoted does not even begin to address basic questions, such as what was the nominal wage of French Fremdarbeiter vs a German worker, what kind and how much of it was deducted by the employer, how much by the Reich in taxes, room and board, etc, what financial agencies handled the transfer, how did the transfers work, how long it took, and so on.

[…] On another matter, it is apparent from the quibbling by Patzinak that the meaining of "politocal occupation" is not entirely clear. […]

Very likely. (I've never even heard of a "politocal occupation", but I bow to your superior knowledge.)

A political occupation is […]

"'When I use a word', Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less'."

In contradistinction to "military occupation", I can find no definition such as yours in the OED on-line, or in the unabridged Webster's Third Int'l, or in Merriam-Webster. Neither can I find it in the Concise Oxford Dict of Politics, in the Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World, or in the Blackwell Dict of Political Science. If you propose to create a new concept, apparently hitherto unknown to the English language or to political science, then please say so and do it elsewhere. Otherwise, let's stick to the topic at hand and its much more modest remit.

I have provided you with a number of instances showing German interference in matters which could not possibly be described as military. You yourself have provided a quote showing Sauckel dictating wage levels to the French -- again, hardly a military matter. You have declined to discuss any of those; and you have declined to back up your opinion on the character of the German occupation with any references.

From http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53962

[…] If a poster stops asking questions and begins to express a point of view, he then becomes an advocate for that viewpoint. When a person becomes an advocate, he has the burden of providing evidence for his point of view. If he has no evidence, or doesn't provide it when asked, it is reasonable for the reader to conclude that his opinion or viewpoint is uninformed and may fairly be discounted or rejected.

--Patzinak

[David Thompson]

Patzinak wrote:

How many French workers were there in the Reich? According to Spoerer and Fleischhaker (see above), > 660,000 were reported at end 1943 (table 4). To this we should add French POWs who "voluntarily" changed their status from POW to Fremdarbeiter, ie, >220,000 in 1943/44 (p188), so let's say 100,000. (There were, of course, far more French POWs forced into working for the Reich, but, presumably, those would not have had remittances to send back home.)

So, conservatively, in 1943, we've got RM 300 mil worth of remittances for 0.7 mil French workers; which comes to RM430 per worker -- for a whole year of work! (The German industrial wage at the time was around RM2,000/year -- cf Bry's "Wages in Germany…".) Somewhat underwhelming, wouldn't you say?!

With the Reichsmark pegged at 4.30 RM : $1 (US) during WWII, that puts the average remittance per worker for the year 1943 at $100 (US). Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to $1,500 in 2004 US dollars. See the calculation charts at

Salaries in Nazi Germany
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 20#p570720

In 1943 that meant working 9-11 hours a day, six days a week, to send 27 cents a day (US) back to the folks at home; in 2004 it would mean working 9-11 hours a day, six days a week, to send $4.10 (US) a day back to your family. That's not very much -- unless the folks at home live in Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Bangla Desh.

Reckoned in 2004 dollars, the worker's "take" for a 66 hour work week would amount to 43.7 cents an hour ($1,500 / 3432 working hours per year); for a 54-hour work week the figure is 53.4 cents per hour ($1,500 / 2808 hours per year). -- See http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 7#p1210987 :

The working hours were legally set at 54 hours per week by Sauckel's decree of 22 August 1942. Actually, most foreign workers were subjected to still longer working hours. Rush work, which necessitated overtime, was mostly assigned to foreigners. It was not unusual for the latter to be forced to work 11 hours a day, that is, 66 hours a week, provided they had one day off per week.

"Underwhelming" is an apt description for those wages. This is all French workers had left over after the Reich subtracted room, board, taxes, fees and fines for those 9-11 hour, six days a week working days.

[Patzinak]

[…] The German rationale was that it was fighting a war on behalf of the whole of Europe, including France, against "Plutocracy and Bolshevism" […]

What is your basis for describing in those terms "the German rationale"? Internal memoranda of German officials or of the NS academic or political élite? Hitler's speeches to his acolytes (as opposed to public pronunciations)? Or is it German and pro-German propaganda?

[…] members of the French Government such as Jean Bichelonne […]

What Bichelonne said or wrote may tell us something about what he perceived "the German rationale" to be -- or, peharps better, what he hoped it was -- but it cannot tell us anything about what "the German rationale" was.

At any rate, how on earth is "the German rationale", whatever it might have been, relevant to THIS topic?

--Patzinak

[michael mills]

The problem with the German point of view here is that taking more from the occupied region than the legitimate garrison and administrative costs is a war crime.

The above is debatable when applied to the situation of France in the period from June 1940 to July-August 1944.

It is clear from the wording of Articles 48-53 of the annex to the 1907 Hague IV Convention that they apply to a situation where two states are in a state of ongoing war with each other, and the armed forces of one of those states gain control of territory belonging to the other state, contrary to the wishes of the second state, and assume the functions of the government of that territory.

For example, that is made clear by the wording of Article 52, which states in part:

Requisitions in kind and services ........ shall be in proportion to the resources of the country, and of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country.

That wording reveals the assumption that the forces of the occupying state are still involved in military operations against the state to which the territory occupied belongs. An example of tsuch a situation would be the four years from 1914 to 1918, when German forces occupied territory un northern France while involved in an ongooing state of hostilities with the French state.

However, such was not the case in France in 1940. Hostilities between Germany and France had ceased, and agreements had been made between the legitimate governments of France and Germany that determined the financial relationship between the two countries. Since the legitimate government of France had agreed to pay occupation costs, and to the level of those costs, the levying thereof by the German military occupation authorities cannot reasonably be considered a crime.

The true situation was obfuscated by the claim made by the government that came to power in France in 1944 on the coat-tails of the Allied invasion that the government of Petain was illegitimate, and that therefore any agreements made by it with the German Government were null and void. However, the government of Petain was legitimate, having been brought into being by a vote of the French legislature.

It is noteworthy that Article 53 permits the occupying power to take possession of property of the state whose terriotry is occupied, and also of certain categories of property belonging to private individuals. Accordingly, such seizures made by German occupation authorities in France cannot reasonably be described as "plunder", as certain ill-informed members of this forum have done, since that term implies an illegitimate act.

If it be argued that that article required such seizures of the property of private individuals to be restored when peace was made, then the answer is that the German authorities could not make such compensation during the period of occupation since peace could not be made due to the British decision to continue hostilities.

[michael mills]

Somewhat underwhelming, wouldn't you say?!

No, I would not neccessarily say so.

Whether or not the proportion remitted to France of the wages earned by French workers in Germany was "undewhelming" could only be determined by a comparison with average remittances made by persons working in a country other than their own. Remember that the proportion of wages earned available for remittance is what is left after all normal living costs of the wage-earner have been paid for from that wage.

If French workers in Germany were paid the average industrial wage in that country of 2,000 RM per annum, and their average annual remittance to France was 430 RM per annum, then that means they were remitting 21.5% of their wages, a relatively high proportion. If they received less than the German average, then the proportion remitted was correspondingly higher.

When it comes to the standard of living of French workers in Germany, the real comparison that should be made is with what those workers could have earned if they remained in France (assuming that they were employed at all), and the proportion of their wage that they could have saved. I have not seen anything to cast doubt on the statements made by Milward that the wages paid to French workers employed by German enterprises, whether the work was performed in France or in Germany, were higher than the level of wages paid to workers employed in French enterprises.

Patzinak seems to regard the fact that French workers employed in Germany were in effect being paid by the French state from taxation levied on and borrowings from the French population, as somehow reprehensible. The same would have applied if the French state had employed all those workers in productive enterprises owned by it and situated in France, paid them from the same sources of revenue, and then sent the product of their labour to Germany for use by the latter country in the "war against Plutocracy and Bolshevism". Since the government of the French state had consented to support that war, there is nothing abnormal or reprehensible in the situation described by Patzinak.

[michael mills]

If you have a 20th century example which you think is a war crime, as this German example is, don't hesitate to start a thread on it in the H&WC section.

Since I have nowhere claimed that the strong-arming of states by more powerful ones is in itself criminal, but rather a normal fact of life in international relations, I see no need to start such a thread. I am content to demonstrate to those who claim that such acts of strong-arming that occurred in the past were criminal, the reasons why they were not so, by comparison with comparable acts occurring in the present.

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You wrote:

Whether or not the proportion remitted to France of the wages earned by French workers in Germany was "undewhelming" could only be determined by a comparison with average remittances made by persons working in a country other than their own. Remember that the proportion of wages earned available for remittance is what is left after all normal living costs of the wage-earner have been paid for from that wage.

If French workers in Germany were paid the average industrial wage in that country of 2,000 RM per annum, and their average annual remittance to France was 430 RM per annum, then that means they were remitting 21.5% of their wages, a relatively high proportion. If they received less than the German average, then the proportion remitted was correspondingly higher.

This argument completely misses the rip-off by ignoring the amount of the wage. If the French worker is remitting 20% of his wages ($1,500 in 2004 US dollars; $100 in 1943 dollars), that means he's only getting $7,500 per year total in 2004 US dollars for working 9-11 hours a day, six days a week ($500 in 1943 US dollars per year) -- in other words, he's getting paid $2.18-$2.67/hr. in 2004 US dollars (15-18 cents an hour in 1943 US dollars) for a 54-66 hour work week. It also means that the remaining $6,000 in 2004 US dollars he earned ($400 in 1943 US dollars) -- 80% of the total -- was taken by the company store system over in Nazi-town.

If you can't or won't see the scam here, I'm sure our intelligent readers can

[Patzinak]

[…]Whether or not the proportion remitted to France of the wages earned by French workers in Germany was "undewhelming" could only be determined by a comparison with average remittances made by persons working in a country other than their own.[…]

No, they would not. Once again, you provide ample proof that you know not whereof you speak. Fremdarbeitern were not free to spend as they pleased in the Third Reich. First, because the Third Reich wanted their earnings (according to Aly, p164, between 1938 and 1943, wage tax revenues more than doubled -- at a time when an increasing number of German men were serving in the armed forces!). Second, because the last thing German economic administrators wanted was more pressure on scarce consumer goods, so they used every conceivable trick to prevent foreign workers -- even real volunteers, such as, up to 1943, some Italians -- from spending money in Germany.

[…] Patzinak seems to regard the fact that French workers employed in Germany were in effect being paid by the French state […]. The same would have applied if the French state had employed all those workers […]

With one tiny exception -- that in such a case they'd've been working for France, in France, paying taxes to the French state, and supporting their families in France (and therefore lessening the welfare burden). To say nothing of the exchange rate swindle, btw. So, on second thoughts, not such a tiny exception, after all -- just one more burden to increase the misery of the French populace.

--Patzinak

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You wrote, quoting me:

The problem with the German point of view here is that taking more from the occupied region than the legitimate garrison and administrative costs is a war crime.

The above is debatable when applied to the situation of France in the period from June 1940 to July-August 1944.

It is clear from the wording of Articles 48-53 of the annex to the 1907 Hague IV Convention that they apply to a situation where two states are in a state of ongoing war with each other, and the armed forces of one of those states gain control of territory belonging to the other state, contrary to the wishes of the second state, and assume the functions of the government of that territory.

If the issue was ever debatable (Germany insisted on the rights and status of an "occupying power" in Article III of the 25 Jun 1940 armistice), it was settled more than sixty years ago by the International Military Tribunal's judgment on the subject:

The evidence in this case has established, however, that the territories occupied by Germany were exploited for the German war effort in the most ruthless way, without consideration of the local economy, and in consequence of a deliberate design and policy. There was in truth a systematic "plunder of public or private property," which was criminal under Article 6 (b) of the Charter. The German occupation policy was clearly stated in a speech made by the Defendant Göring on 6 August 1942 to the various German authorities in charge of occupied territories:

"God knows, you are not sent out there to work for the welfare of the people in your charge, but to get the utmost out of them, so that the German people can live. That is what I expect of your exertions. This everlasting concern about foreign people must cease now, once and for all. I have here, before me reports on what you are expected to deliver. It is nothing at all when I consider your territories. It makes no difference to me in this connection if you say that your people will starve."

The methods employed to exploit the resources of the occupied territories to the full varied from country to country. In some of the occupied countries in the East and the West, this exploitation was carried out within the framework of the existing economic structure. The local industries were put under German supervision, and the distribution of war materials was rigidly controlled. The industries thought to be of value to the German war effort were compelled to continue, and most of the rest were closed down altogether. Raw materials and the finished products alike

482

30 Sept. 46

were confiscated for the needs of the German industry. As early as 19 October 1939 the Defendant Göring had issued a directive giving detailed instructions for the administration of the occupied territories; it provided:

"The task for the economic treatment of the various administrative regions is different, depending on whether a country is involved which will be incorporated politically into the German Reich, or whether we are dealing with the Government General, which in all probability will not be made a part of Germany. In the first-mentioned territories, the ... safeguarding of all their productive facilities and supplies must be aimed at, as well as a complete incorporation into the Greater German economic system at the earliest possible time. On the other hand, there must be removed from the territories of the Government General all raw materials, scrap materials, machines, et cetera, which are of use for the German war economy. Enterprises which are not absolutely necessary for the meager maintenance of the naked existence of the population must be transferred to Germany, unless such transfer would require an unreasonably long period of time, and would make it more practicable to exploit those enterprises by giving them German orders, to be executed at their present location."

As a consequence of this order, agricultural products, raw materials needed by German factories, machine tools, transportation equipment, other finished products, and even foreign securities and holdings of foreign exchange were all requisitioned and sent to Germany. These resources were requisitioned in a manner out of all proportion to the economic resources of those countries, and resulted in famine, inflation, and an active black market. At first the German occupation authorities attempted to suppress the black market, because it was a channel of distribution keeping local products out of German hands. When attempts at suppression failed, a German purchasing agency was organized to make purchases for Germany on the black market, thus carrying out the assurance made by the Defendant Göring that it was "necessary that all should know that if there is to be famine anywhere, it shall in no case be in Germany."

In many of the occupied countries of the East and the West, the authorities maintained the pretense of paying for all the property which they seized. This elaborate pretense of payment merely disguised the fact that the goods sent to Germany from these occupied countries were paid for by the occupied countries themselves, either by the device of excessive occupation costs or by forced

483

30 Sept. 46

loans in return for a credit balance on a "clearing account," which was an account merely in name.

From the IMT judgment (vol. 22 of IMT proceedings, pp. 481-483)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 3#p1210773

Article 6(b) of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal:

(b) WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/p ... t.htm#art6

You also wrote:

Since I have nowhere claimed that the strong-arming of states by more powerful ones is in itself criminal, but rather a normal fact of life in international relations, I see no need to start such a thread. I am content to demonstrate to those who claim that such acts of strong-arming that occurred in the past were criminal, the reasons why they were not so, by comparison with comparable acts occurring in the present.

The practice of "strong-arming" isn't always a crime, but plundering by an "occupying power" is, as our readers can see from the IMT judgment and the 1907 Hague IV Convention.

[GoldenGemster]

No Country which suffers invasion and occupation is happy. Of course there will always be some who "go with the flow" shall we say, in Paris Coco Chanel is one who immediately springs to mind as are the Boney Lafont gang but most citizens would have at the very least resented it and for those in the Resistance Paris was a very dangerous place to be.

[ThomasG]

Paris during Nazi occupation was ‘one big romp’

A new book which suggests that the German occupation of France encouraged the sexual liberation of women has shocked a country still struggling to come to terms with its troubled history of collaboration with the Nazis.

Like a recent photographic exhibition showing Parisians enjoying themselves under the occupation, the book’s depiction of life in Paris as one big party is at odds with the collective memory of hunger, resistance and fear.

“It is a taboo subject, a story nobody wants to hear,” said Patrick Buisson, author of 1940-1945 Années Erotiques (“erotic years”). “It may hurt our national pride, but the reality is that people adapted to occupation.”

Many might prefer to forget but, with their husbands in prison camps, numerous women slept not only with German soldiers – the young “blond barbarians” were particularly attractive to French women, says Buisson – but also conducted affairs with anyone else who could help them through financially difficult times: “They gave way to the advances of the boss, to the tradesman they owed money to, their neighbour. In times of rationing, the body is the only renewable, inexhaustible currency.”

Cold winters, when coal was in short supply, and a curfew from 11pm to 5am also encouraged sexual activity, says Buisson, with the result that the birth rate shot up in 1942 even though 2m men were locked up in the camps.

The book has stirred painful memories. One French reviewer called it “impertinent” and another accused Buisson of telling only part of the story by focusing on the “beneath the belt” history of the occupation. Le Monde, the bible of the French intellectual elite, chided the author, who is the director of French television’s History Channel, for painting life under the occupation as a “gigantic orgy”.

People who lived through the occupation found it insulting to suggest that they spent it in bed. “It makes me really angry,” said Liliane Schroeder, 88, who risked her life as a member of the resistance and has published her own journal of the occupation. “It’s shocking and ridiculous to say life was just a big party,” she told The Sunday Times. “We had much better things to do.”

Schroeder nevertheless described her life as a messenger in the resistance as a “marvellous time” in which “people got on with life even if they weren’t laughing”. Young women were useful to the resistance, she said, because “when a young woman and a man sat in a café it did not look as if they were plotting. They looked like lovers”.

French sensitivities about the country’s wartime record were demonstrated last month when an exhibition of photographs depicting Parisians enjoying life under the Nazis included a notice explaining that the pictures avoided the “reality of occupation and its tragic aspects”. The photographs showed well-dressed citizens shopping on the boulevards or strolling in the parks. People crowded into nightclubs. Women in bikinis swam in a pool.

Buisson dedicates a chapter in his book to cinemas, which he describes as hotbeds of erotic activity, particularly when it was cold outside. “At a few francs they were cheaper than a hotel room,” he writes, “and, offering the double cover of darkness and anonymity, propitious for all sorts of outpourings.”

The French even had sex in the catacombs, the underground ossuary and warren of subterranean tunnels in Paris: war, Buisson argues, acted as an aphrodisiac, stimulating “the survival instinct”. He said in an interview: “People needed to prove that they were alive. They did so by making love.”

It has been claimed that prostitutes staged the first rebellion against the Nazis by refusing to service the invaders but Buisson called this a myth. The Germans, he claimed, were welcomed into the city’s best brothels, a third of which were reserved for officers. Another 100,000 women in Paris became “occasional prostitutes”, he said.

Elsewhere, members of the artistic elite drowned their sorrows in debauchery. Simone de Beauvoir, the writer, and Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosopher, were devotees of allnight parties fuelled by alcohol and lust.

“It was only in the course of those nights that I discovered the true meaning of the word party,” was how de Beauvoir put it. Sartre was no less enthusiastic: “Never were we as free as under the German occupation.”

De Beauvoir wrote about the “quite spontaneous friendliness” of the conquerors: she was as fascinated as any by the German “cult of the body” and their penchant for exercising in nothing but gym shorts.

“In the summer of 1940,” wrote Buisson, “France was transformed into one big naturist camp. The Germans seemed to have gathered on French territory only to celebrate an impressive festival of gymnastics.” The author said he did not want to make light of a tragic part of French history, but there was a need to correct the “mythical” image of the occupation. “In this horrible period, life continued,” he said.

“It is disturbing to know that while the Jews were being deported, the French were making love. But that is the truth.”

Now Buisson is at work on a sequel, about how women were punished for sleeping with the enemy. The provisional title is Revenge of the Males.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 998943.ece

[David Thompson]

Like a recent photographic exhibition showing Parisians enjoying themselves under the occupation, the book’s depiction of life in Paris as one big party is at odds with the collective memory of hunger, resistance and fear.

In France, as in other countries under German occupation, the measure which put the torch to the tinder was the introduction of labor conscription in the spring and summer of 1942. More than anything else, the Nazi forced labor program was the most effective recruiting tool for national resistance organizations.

[Patzinak]

Paris during Nazi occupation was ‘one big romp’

[…] “It is a taboo subject, a story nobody wants to hear,” said Patrick Buisson […]

(1) Aren't you getting a bit tired of posting stuff from political blogs and news media? I was under the impression this was an apolitical forum dedicated to a historical subject. Am I wrong?

(2) Patrick Buisson (just like Pat Buchanan, whom you copiously advertised elsewhere) is not a historian. He is a journalist and politician (if I'm not mistaken, he is currently one of Sarkozy's advisers). His previous book on the OAS was co-authored with a former leader of PFN (a product of internal struggles within Le Pen's FN).

[…] numerous women […] conducted affairs with anyone else who could help them through financially difficult times: “They gave way to the advances of the boss, to the tradesman they owed money to, their neighbour. In times of rationing, the body is the only renewable, inexhaustible currency.” […]

To me, that sounds remarkably like prostitution, not "affairs". Selling one's body (female or male) for food and shelter can be described as an "affair" only by someone who believes in the teenage male fantasy that prostitutes engage in sex because they enjoy it.

In a paper written soon after Liberation, Louis Baudin wrote,

[…] Anyone who did not live under the occupation can scarcely imagine the atmosphere which prevailed in France: the feeling of total insecurity and the obsession with material problems such as heating, food, clothes and even habitation. The twentieth-century Parisian rediscovered the mentality of the cave man; he lived in the immediate present under the reign of what Keyserling rightly called "original fear". […]

This perspective is largely confirmed by recent Alltagsgeschichte publications. As a reviewer of two such books (Vinen's "The Unfree French…" and Alary et al's "Les Français au quotidien…") notes,

[…] Both Vinen and Alary emphasise how individual experiences were affected by one’s social position, the degree of social/family support enjoyed, whether one was in the town or the countryside, and by the zone and the département in which one was living.

[…] Vinen […] writes ‘there was no single unifying experience of the Second World War. Experience in the Loire, where food was relatively plentiful, was different from that in Marseilles, where food was very scarce’. […] Alary draws […] attention to differences between the ‘départements ruraux “nourriciers”’ like the Dordogne, Cantal, Gers, Mayenne and Vendée, the ‘départements “affamés”’ like the Alpes-Maritimes, Hérault and part of the Jura, and the ‘départements en situation “intérmédiaires”’ like the Aisne, Côtes-du-Nord, Deux-Sèvres, Eure, Loiret, Seine-Inférieure, Seine-et-Marne, et Seine-et-Oise.

Vinen observes that the ever heavier emphasis placed in recent years on those who suffered most horribly—Jews who were deported and murdered, the Resistance fighters who were tortured and/or shot, and ‘deviants’ who were interned—has sometimes given the impression that life for the rest of the population was bearable or even pleasant. […] While this might have been true for some people in some places, Vinen […] concludes that ‘life for most French people between 1940 and 1944 was miserable’.

Misery had many causes. Displacements caused by war (millions of refugees flew south during the rapid German advance), the POWs and uncertainty over their fate, shortages of food (queuing often started at 3AM), clothing, and fuel for heating or travel, etc. In the case of women, on whom fell much of this burden, Vichy's ideological mandate to keep "la femme au foyer" resulted in "driving many women into ‘prostitution clandestine’".

AFAIC, the notion that any reasonable person would allow his ideological prejudices to blind him to the point of describing such conditions as "happy days" boggles the mind.

Source:

• Baudin, L (1945) An Outline of Economic Conditions in France Under the German Occupation. Econ J 55(220): 326–45.
  
  Drake, D (2007) Du rutabaga et encore du rutabaga: Daily Life in Vichy France. Modern and Contemporary France 15(3): 351–56.

--Patzinak

[Ranke]

Many might prefer to forget but, with their husbands in prison camps, numerous women slept not only with German soldiers – the young “blond barbarians” were particularly attractive to French women, says Buisson – but also conducted affairs with anyone else who could help them through financially difficult times: “They gave way to the advances of the boss, to the tradesman they owed money to, their neighbour. In times of rationing, the body is the only renewable, inexhaustible currency.”

This just confirms the desperate situation many women found themselves in.

the young “blond barbarians” were particularly attractive to French women.

Oh please, give me a break. How can this be proved?

Studies of everyday life in Nazi Germany, occupied Europe, the DDR, the Soviet Union - in short, in any authoritarian regime - reveal that people adapt to the "abnormal" circumstances and attempt to lead as normal lives as possible. While this is perhaps not a surprise, it can nonetheless be jarring to outside observers. For instance, how was it possible for "ordinary Germans" to continue with their normal lives when criminal acts were occurring in their midst and in their names. To a large degree, adapting to abnormal circumstances is a necessary survival strategy, but it is also symptomatic of the moral/ethical collapse that characterizes bystander syndrome and that ultimately lends legitimacy to criminal regimes and acts.
Anyway, "happiness" is not measurable in the way that food prices are. It is a concept that has no value for historical analysis as it can't be quantified.