Loyalties

Frenchman of the Milice¹
Bundesarchiv

It is November of 1940, the war has settled into German bombing raids on the United Kingdom and British bombing raids on Germany. From the northernmost reaches of Norway to the Pyrenees and from the English Channel to old Poland most of continental Europe lies under the iron boot of Nazi Germany.

While ground fighting on the Continent is going on in the abortive Italian invasion of Greece, most of Europe lies quiet. Many people are just trying to get on with their lives, assuming that the war is lost and that the British will eventually sue for peace. Some actively assist their German conquerors, trying to get a leg up on their fellow citizens in Hitler's New World Order.

Some though, are beginning to resist, loyalties are being tested. Often it is the innocent who suffer most of all.

In the town of Épernay, two Opel trucks pulled up to the the scene of an attack on German soldiers which had taken place the previous day. Twelve German soldiers dismounted from those trucks and quietly surrounded the small sidewalk café owned by Eduard and Colette Bousquet. Colette turned to her husband.

"What is this Eduard, why are the Germans here? Has this got something to do with that murder yesterday?"

Colette had been at the market when the attack had taken place, she had returned to find the café closed. She had nearly fainted at the amount of blood on the sidewalk and one of their tables.

"I don't know, chérie,² perhaps." Inside Eduard was deathly afraid, he had heard rumors of German hostage taking in some of the bigger towns and cities throughout France, but something of this nature had never happened in Épernay. There were only a hundred Germans in the entire town, what could this mean?

SS-Hauptsturmführer³ Oswald Müller saw that the infantry he had requested had already arrived. He nodded with satisfaction as his Kübelwagen pulled to the curb, "Do you want to join in the fun Hannes?" He asked his driver.

SS-Oberschütze Johannes Berger nodded and said, "I'd love to Sir."

The two SS men got out of the car and watched the French near the café, there appeared to be fifteen or so being held up by the soldiers. Looking for the man in charge, Müller saw a sergeant and called out, "You, Unteroffizier, are you in charge here? Where is your officer?"

Unteroffizier Werner Schmitz looked towards the SS officer, then turned to the interior of the café, "Herr Leutnant, you have a visitor!"

Müller walked over to the young sergeant, noticing that the man was highly decorated⁴, he didn't remonstrate with him concerning his attitude towards the SS. Combat veterans seemed to have a lower opinion of rear area men like himself. Not that we don't serve the Reich in other ways, Müller thought. Any fool can point and shoot a rifle.

"Ah Leutnant, how good of you to join us on this fine day, I think it might rain tonight, perhaps snow if it gets any colder." Müller offered.

The lieutenant, also a combat veteran by the looks of his decorations, sniffed and said, "My men are here Herr Hauptsturmführer, we have sealed off the café and prevented those who were here when we arrived from leaving. What else do you need?"

"Why, arrest these people of course. They are potential witnesses to the crime which took place here yesterday. You'd think that the local commander would have done this yesterday rather than wait for me to drive down from Reims. Obviously you people are unaware of proper procedure." Müller was smiling, which made the lieutenant nervous.

The Bousquets were confused at first when the Germans began loading people onto the trucks. At first things were smooth, the French were nervous but the Germans were remaining calm. Then one of the civilians, an older man, began to protest loudly. The Bousquets could hear him yelling, "I'm not getting onto any truck, I've done nothing wrong!"

At which point the SS officer nodded to his driver.

Berger walked over to the man who was now physically trying to push away the soldier who was trying to get him on the truck. Berger simply walked up to the older man and used the butt of his rifle to drive the man to the ground.

The man sat stunned upon the sidewalk, waving a hand over his bloodied head as if to say, "No more." The crowd began to get restless, more people were starting to try and get away. Which is when a single shot rang out, freezing everyone, German and French.

Müller still had his P 38 pointed skywards, his arm extended. Everyone naturally looked towards the source of the shot. Müller bellowed, "Everyone on the f**king trucks or we start shooting people, right here, right now!"

The French moved quickly now, boarding the two trucks with little resistance at this point. Two men began to help the older man who had been struck down up into one of the trucks. Müller shouted again, "Not him, leave him!"

The two men complied, they let go of the man, who managed to stay standing, then they climbed onto the truck. The older man looked at Müller and tried to speak, which is when Müller shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

"Do you Französischen Schweine understand now, we are not playing f**king games. You will comply and you will obey!"

Müller holstered his pistol then turned to Berger, "How many did we bag?"

"Fourteen, Hauptsturmführer."

Müller thought for a moment, he could see two people inside the café, probably the owners. Ah yes, he recognized Eduard Bousquet. He thought about loading the two of them on the truck, but decided not to, they could pick up six more Frenchmen on the way back to Reims. His boss had said twenty hostages, ten for each German killed. He'd leave the Bousquets, they had the only decent café in town.

At dawn the next day, the twenty hostages were brought out, in groups of five, and shot in front of a crowd of hundreds. The witnesses to this atrocity had been gathered by the Germans and forced to watch their innocent fellow citizens being murdered by the German Army.

It was nothing new, les Boches had behaved the same way in the Great War two decades before. Nearly every French and Belgian village had a monument to those murdered by the Germans, with their names on the monument and the inscription -

Fusillé par les allemands 1914 - 1918⁵

¹ The Milice française (French Militia), generally called la Milice, was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy regime (with German aid) to help fight against the French Resistance during World War II. (Source)

² Darling (French)

³ Captain in the SS (German)

⁴ German troops typically wore their decorations on their combat uniforms, even in combat.

⁵ "Shot by the Germans 1914-1918" (French) Now those monuments have a new list of names and a second inscription: Fusillé par les allemands 1940 - 1944