The Collapse of the Third Republic by William L. Shirer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Some amazing things in this history! I had no idea Shirer was a radio correspondent basically embedded with the Nazi army and thus present at many key events, such as outside Foch's rail car for the defeat signing and strolling into an abandoned Paris. (At that point cows gazed in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.) Peeling away the onion of sociological and political France pre-WWII the sudden defeat makes sense with the seeds planted there. Riddled with fascist support, even the far left was against fighting Hitler. "Die for Danzig?", they asked. Heck, it seems like the could have joined The Axis with a bit more of that. This basically briefly in the attacks on the (much hated) British as they tried to sink the French Fleet and prevent it from falling into German hands. The book concludes, before an Epilogue, with the signing away of the Republic to estable Petain's collaborationist, anti-Semite Vichy regime.
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