Seventy years ago, the German Army reigned supreme, rolling up the highways of northern France amid straggling convoys of refugees and the devastated remains of the French Army, en route to Paris, which the Wehrmacht entered at 5:45 AM on June 14th, first one tentative motorcycle plus sidecar through the Porte de Clichy, then, soon afterward, entire tank divisions, rumbling past the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs Elysees to the Place de la Concorde. Much to their amazement, the Germans met no resistance, and few inhabitants. Many Parisians had left to stay with relatives in the provinces, and French forces had withdrawn to a defensive position south of the capital. But all such positions, and the entirety of the once-mighty armed forces of the nation of Louis XIV and Lafayette and Napoleon were soon to be rendered nonexistent by the Armistice; and the four nightmare years began.
In full color, here's a German home movie of the final days of the campaign of 1940, showing the sheer misery and horror of the refugees and defeated poilus, and the contentment of the conquerors, beneath the sunniest, most gorgeous summer skies since 1914.
