《The Gestapo:A History of Horror》By Jacques Delarue
Gestapo in France (1)
For the French, the real war began on May 10, 1940. For more than 8 months, the British and French armies were mired in a "fake" war. People began to get used to this strange static conflict, and the main concern was the carelessness of the soldiers, their radios and football games, rather than offensive action. The Allied staff had anticipated the German offensive a few weeks earlier, and this attack made the war a reality.
However, no one expected a steel storm to hit the country. The Germans made rapid progress, and on 14 June the Wehrmacht High Command issued the following communiqué: In view of the complete collapse of the entire French front between the English Channel and the Maginot Line near Monmedi, the French High Command had abandoned its original intention of defending the French capital. While the communiqué was being broadcast, victorious German troops were entering Paris.
Paris fell. At 5:30 a.m. on 14 June, von Küchler's XVIII Corps entered Paris via levitte, just 36 days after the dutch border attack. At dawn, two teams advanced simultaneously, one toward the Eiffel Tower and the other toward the Arc de Triomphe, after which they raised the Nazi swastika. Before noon, General von Stuttnitz, the first commander of the "Greater Paris", stayed at the Chryon Hotel. Everything went according to plan, and everything seemed to be prepared in advance. Over the next few days, German follow-up troops continued to enter Paris, either stationed on the spot or continuing south through the city.
On 14 June 1940, Fedor von Bock, commander of Army Group B, inspected the troops at the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
In the large force there was a small group of men in secret gendarmerie uniforms, but no one noticed them. These men consisted of only a few light vehicles, barely armed, and no more than 20 in number. However, this small secret unit was the basis of the German police force and continued to implement a reign of terror in France for the next four years.
When German troops entered Poland, the Wehrmacht High Command formally protested the simultaneous arrival of the police commandos. However, Himmler had received Permission from Hitler to enter Poland as a fighting force, as well as the army, as had previously done in Austria and Czechoslovakia. After the completion of the Western offensive plan, the Wehrmacht High Command became increasingly opposed to Himmler following the same procedure in France. Some generals were greatly shocked by what the SS and Gestapo did in Poland (though they eventually got used to these atrocities), so this time their determination forced Hitler to make concessions. The latter promised the generals that no police or Einsatzgruppen commandos would enter France with the army, and the power of the police was given to the military administration, and the army was thus freed from Himmler's control.
This decision put Himmler in a difficult position. He has realized that if the army takes over the administration of the occupied western countries, both his SS and police organizations will be in danger. Therefore, he had to build a "bridgehead" to gradually weaken the power temporarily held by the soldiers.
Himmler ordered Heydrich to immediately form a contingent (Independent Commando) to be stationed in Paris at the same time as the first Wehrmacht units. It was a matter of security and prestige, so Heydrich carefully selected the members of the squad to carry out this tricky task and limited the number to 20. Although this team is small, it is enough to build the first "bridgehead". In order to enter France, Heydrich adopted a camouflage strategy, the 20 men were dressed in the uniforms of secret gendarmes, and the vehicles were all hung with military license plates, so that the task force arrived in Paris without any obstacles.
On the evening of 14 June, the contingent settled at the Louvre Hotel. Early the next morning, it started working. One of the members visited regional officials and asked them to provide files of German exiles and Jews, as well as a certain number of files related to the political opposition.
Who are these people? Also, who is their leader?
To command the task force, Heydrich selected a young intellectual who had done well in Venlow's kidnapping of two British intelligence agents: Helmut Knohen. Knohnheim demonstrated extraordinary organizational and decision-making skills at the age of thirty, a first-class athlete and university graduate, educated, sleek and well-behaved. Knohen personally selected his own ranks, with the exception of one, Müller, the chief of the fourth "Gestapo" division of the Imperial Security Service, insisting that someone he trusted—Fort Bermel, the leader of the commando brigade—as his representative. Fort Bermel was a veteran professional policeman whose abilities were well known, and he was the only Gestapo representative in the ranks.
It is clear that the contingent initially had no enforcement authority, and this could continue for some time, so the Gestapo only played an advisory role in it. The other members of the contingent are young, several of whom are college graduates. Hagen, for example, 27, joined the SS Security Service in 1934, earned his degree in Berlin in February 1940, and has been involved in journalism ever since.
Former Gestapo headquarters at 84 Rue Foch in Paris
With the exception of Fort Bermel and the two men sent by the Waffen-SS, the rest of the squad is provided by the Foreign SS Security Service, while Waffen-SS personnel will eventually perform "strong missions". All members of the contingent had long been engaged in external analysis, and since 1935 the Gestapo and SS Security Service had been studying the French police service, and extensive literature on French culture, religion, art, and especially economic and political aspects had been compiled. Each department of the Gestapo and SS Security Service was ordered to study in detail the French department corresponding to its own functions. As a result, agents in the Berlin area have been studying the "Fifth Arrondissement", in other words, Paris for many years.
The thorough preparations enabled the agents of the Gestapo and SS Security Service to move freely in this already familiar land, and they understood all the customs and habits of the local people and the behavior of the inhabitants, even the private lives of those important people. In 1937, Knohn himself went to Paris on a field trip.