With the drawing of the Demarcation Line, most of France’s best vineyards, the grands crus, came under German control, and authorities wasted no time in letting winegrowers know who was in charge. Less than a week after the Germans arrived in Bordeaux, the Miailhes, at Château Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse de Lalande, were told to find another place to live.
“About two hundred fifty soldiers suddenly showed up, and one of the officers told us he wanted us out along with all the furniture,” said May-Eliane. “He was polite but firm and insisted we had to move immediately.” The château was furnished with a collection of Charles X furniture and artwork dating from the early nineteenth century that had been put together by the first Comtesse de Lalande. It took the entire Miailhe family to haul it to the château’s attic.
One piece was deliberately left behind. It was a massive armoire that held kitchen supplies. The Miailhes decided to use it to protect their wine, pushing it from one side of the kitchen to the other so that it stood directly in front of the door that led downstairs to the cellar.
When the Miailhes finally left their château, German soldiers were already throwing straw pallets for sleeping on the parquet floors and hammering nails into the boiseries, the carved wood paneling, to hang their guns.
With the seizure of their home, the Miailhes moved to Château Siran in neighboring Margaux, where May-Eliane’s grandparents lived. They found Siran jammed with refugees from northern France, among them some distant cousins from Verdun. “The place was overflowing but we really had no other place to go,” May-Eliane said.
They had been there only a couple of hours when the officer who had requisitioned Pichon suddenly arrived. “He was furious and ordered us to come with him,” May-Eliane said. “We were very, very scared.” The officer told them to get in their car and follow him back to Pichon. Upon their arrival, the officer motioned the Miailhes into the kitchen. It was full of armed soldiers. In horror, they quickly discovered why: the armoire hiding the door to the wine cellar had been moved and the door was wide open.
“Do you think we are thieves?” the officer thundered. “Did you think we would steal your wine?” Before the Miailhes could reply, he continued, “Well, we are not thieves, and we will not touch a bottle of your wine!” He then sent the shaken Miailhes away.
Their fears, however, had just begun. The officer’s tirade made them realize that something had to be done immediately about their Italian Jewish friends who were still at Château Palmer. “We knew they were no longer safe there,” May-Eliane said, “so we decided on a temporary measure and moved the two families into a small annex attached to the château.” An entrance connecting the buildings was then walled up. In the rear of the annex, concealed by a thick hedge, was a tiny window. The Miailhes added a small trapdoor so they could pass food, messages and other supplies to their Jewish friends.
But then, something frightening happened: the Germans announced they were requisitioning Château Palmer.
“When I heard that, my heart dropped,” May-Eliane said. “I really did not know what we were going to do. All we knew was that our friends couldn’t stay at Palmer much longer without being discovered.”
The Miailhes were lucky in one respect. The officer who requisitioned their château kept his word: none of their wine was touched. Others, however, were not so fortunate. For two nightmarish months, wine producers throughout much of France suffered through an orgy of looting as the Germans gorged themselves on triumph and the delights of people’s wine cellars.
In Burgundy, soldiers broke down doors of houses and pillaged the cellars of people who had fled.
In Champagne, nearly two million bottles were stolen and carted away. “They stacked everything in the center of our village—food, clothing and, of course, champagne—then loaded it onto trucks,” remembers one resident. “It left people in a very bad state.”
In the village of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, seventeen-year-old Bernard de Nonancourt was working with his brother and several cousins at the Delamotte champagne house, packing and loading cases of champagne, when they heard trucks approaching. Minutes later, a convoy of fifteen vehicles pulled up and armed soldiers piled out. With them was a stern-looking officer who said he was there on behalf of Field Marshal Göring. “Those who worked for Göring were always younger, rougher and more brutal,” Bernard said. “They played the black market and never hesitated to circumvent rules when it suited them.” With their young commander in the lead, the soldiers marched into Salon, one of the most prestigious houses in Champagne, and began carrying out cases of champagne. “It went on for several days,” Bernard said. “Each morning, they would come back and take away more champagne. I particularly remember seeing cases of the 1928 Salon being hauled out.”
For most French, those first two months of the occupation were bewildering. Everything seemed out of control. Even the Germans seemed a little confused.
“One thing became clear at once,” wrote historian Philip Bell. “German policy was not following a ‘blueprint.’ The speed of the victories took everyone by surprise—the German high command, government ministries, even Hitler himself. So far from there being any detailed program ready to be put into operation, nothing was prepared.”
In Bordeaux, Château Haut-Brion, which had been converted into a hospital for French soldiers by its owner, the American banker Clarence Dillon, was seized and turned into a rest home for the Luftwaffe.
The vineyards of Château Montrose were converted into a rifle range.
At Château Cos d’Estournel, decorative bells hanging from the towers of the famed wine estate suddenly began ringing. Soldiers were using them for target practice.
At Château Mouton-Rothschild, troops had no sooner moved into that jewel of a property than they began shooting at various paintings hanging on the wall. “It was totally ridiculous,” said Baroness Philippine de Rothschild. “I remember being told about this old cook, a woman, running around trying to remove the pictures before they were destroyed.”
Other times, however, the Germans were courteous and disciplined. Hugues Lawton’s mother was just sitting down to tea when the maid entered the salon and announced, “Madame, the Germans.” On her heels were several officers. “They were perfectly polite, but it was also perfectly clear they were taking over our house,” Hugues said.
In Burgundy, however, the Germans helped ruin the 1940 harvest when they prevented workers from entering the vineyards to treat vines for oidium and mildew. The problem was noted in the vineyard logbook of the Marquis d’Angerville of Volnay: “17 juin 1940, Pas de travail aujourd’hui, occupation par les Allemands.” (No work today, occupation by the Germans.)
At the Château du Clos de Vougeot, a landmark of Burgundy ever since monks planted vines there in the thirteenth century, soldiers moved in abruptly, turning the beautiful ground-floor salons into an ammunition depot and chopping wood on the floor, scarring the medieval monument permanently. They also had planned to chop up the château’s magnificent fifteenth-century pressoir for firewood but were talked out of it at the last minute by two prominent winegrowers who pleaded that the grape press was a museum piece.
One of the worst incidents of German thuggery occurred in Sézanne-en-Champagne at one of France’s most famous restaurants, the Hôtel de France. When troops arrived, they discovered the cellar was nearly empty and all of its most famous wines missing. They went on an angry rampage, breaking up the furniture, hacking at the artwork on the walls, smashing windows with their rifle butts and carting away what wine remained.
They no doubt would have been even angrier if they had known that the owner, only a few weeks earlier, had hidden his best wines behind the very walls they were bashing.
By the end of July, German authorities realized they had to find a way to control their troops. Not only were they stealing from the French; they were also stealing goods requisitioned by the Third Reich. At least 250 trainloads of goods destined for Germany had been looted. To put an end t
o it, authorities decided to make an example of two young soldiers who were arrested after breaking into the cellars of the Perrier-Jouët champagne firm in Epernay. The day after their arrest, a military court sentenced them to death. Although the sentence was later rescinded and the men instead were sent to the front, the message was clear: looting and pillaging would no longer be tolerated.
Field Marshal Göring, whose authority had been expanded to dictate economic policy for all occupied countries, was keenly aware that times had changed and that maintaining order was essential; but his instructions to the Occupation Authority also revealed a characteristic duplicity: “In the old days, the rule was plunder,” he said. “Now, outward forms have become more humane. Nevertheless, I intend to plunder, and plunder copiously.”
His first move was to sharply devalue the French franc, making the German mark nearly three times more valuable than it was before the war and purchases of fine wine or anything else tremendous bargains for the Germans.
For the French, it was a terrible blow. When some complained the franc would soon be worthless, Göring had a ready reply: “Good, I hope it happens. I hope that very soon the franc will have no more value than the paper that one uses for a certain purpose.”
Göring’s retort did not go down well, especially with a feisty little priest named Félix Kir (who bequeathed his name to that particular French aperitif). Shortly after the Germans changed the exchange rate, Kir spotted a merchant selling wine to German soldiers in Dijon. “How much are you charging them?” he asked. The merchant said thirty francs. Kir shouted, “Those guys just changed the exchange rate; charge ’em sixty! If they don’t want to pay, don’t sell.” The soldiers paid. Within an hour, the merchant was sold out.
Vichy was less outspoken. Its powers were only vaguely defined, set down in the armistice agreement which had been cobbled together in less than four hours by writers and translators who had to work by candlelight.
In theory, Vichy’s administrative authority covered the entire country. It could negotiate prices, even argue about exchange rates, but it was subject to German interference and veto in the occupied zone. Only in the unoccupied zone, or zone libre, did Vichy exercise full executive power, but then only within the restrictions of the armistice which the Germans could interpret as they saw fit.
Clouding the picture even more was a bitter power struggle between Göring, who believed France should be treated like a conquered country, a milch cow, and plundered without mercy, and those in the Foreign Office, headed by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, who favored a more subtle approach, one that would enable Berlin to bring France into a German-dominated New Order as a subordinate power but one which might retain a limited amount of sovereignty. “If France is to be treated like a milch cow,” argued one official, “it has to be given some fodder.” A limited amount of fodder is about all Vichy ever got.
Yet most French, in those first six months, believed that the regime, ensconced in its sleepy setting and headed by a grandfather figure who professed only to want what was best for France, was just what the country needed. It extolled the traditions of old, provincial France, the need to return to rural life, and the sanctity of the family in which a woman’s place was in the home. Under the motto “Travail, Famille, Patrie” (“Work, Family, Fatherland”), Vichy set out to rejuvenate France by promoting youth organizations, the pursuit of sports and a healthier, outdoor life. It also encouraged “good works” and called for a greater role of the Catholic Church in education.
But there was a darker, more sinister side. Vichy was authoritarian, patriarchal and messianic. “From the very beginning,” according to historian Kedward, “it was a divisive and punitive regime, acting under the illusion that the widespread veneration for Pétain indicated a similar consensus for its political and social program.” Against the values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, Vichy preached a society in which people respected their place—and were kept there. Married women were prevented from holding jobs. Their real job was staying home and having children; it was practically a sacred duty.
For others, it was much worse. Within two months of coming to power, Vichy published the first of a series of decrees making Jews second-class citizens. Immigrant Jews were stripped of their rights, constantly harassed and threatened with deportation. Vichy’s goal was to make France a unitary nation. “France for the French,” they said. Communists and Freemasons were hunted down. Trade unions were abolished; local elected councils and mayors of larger towns were swept away, all of them replaced with pro-Vichy nominees. In that context, Vichy, according to Kedward, “appeared as a force not of national integration but of political retribution.”
Although support for the government was about to fade, faith in the man who headed it remained high. For most French, there was a clear distinction: on one hand, there was Vichy; on the other, there was Pétain. Even the Marshal drew a distinction, saying he considered himself more as a moral tutor for the nation who shaped correct attitudes rather than policy. Crowds adored him and the Church worshipped him: “La France, c’est Pétain, et Pétain, c’est la France,” declared the French primate Cardinal Gerlier. On the road, peasants lined the rails when his train passed by; women held out their babies for him to touch. In one case, a woman hurled herself in front of his car to stop it so she might have a chance to touch his hand. According to an official report of the incident, the prefect turned to Pétain to apologize, but found the Marshal gently asleep (he was eighty-five), “without,” said the report, “losing his dignity or his sovereign bearing.”
The chaos of the first two months came as a rude awakening for most French, who traditionally viewed Germans as being disciplined and always “correct.”
By August, however, most of the trouble had been brought under control, the clearest sign being in Paris, where soldiers were behaving much like tourists. They went sightseeing, saw movies and filled restaurants. Authorities had even created an organization called Jeder einmal in Paris (Everyone in Paris Once) to offer all the troops a holiday in the City of Light.
One officer, who said he considered France a “second spiritual fatherland,” described Paris as “even more brilliant during the occupation than before.” Hitler himself made a whirlwind tour of the city, his daylong trip highlighted by a brief visit to Napoleon’s tomb.
For most Germans, however, the primary attraction of Paris was not historical monuments but gastronomic ones, restaurants which one soldier said “allow you to live as God in France.” One of those restaurants was La Tour d’Argent, which a young officer named Ernst Jünger visited, later describing the “diabolical feeling of power that came while dining on sole and the famous duck.”
Claude Terrail, who, three months earlier, had helped hide the restaurant’s most precious wines, said the Germans who dined there always behaved correctly. “They may have been killers outside but at night they came well dressed and behaved, and they paid for everything.” Where wine was concerned, the Germans always ordered the best. “We tried to push the cheaper stuff,” Terrail said, “but we didn’t play tricks. It wasn’t worth dying for.”
It was an attitude the Hugels of Riquewihr understood. Unlike the Terrails and so many others, they did not bother to hide their wine. “We were Germany again,” André said, “and the Germans were once again our customers, our only customers.”
Although there was no mention of Alsace in the armistice agreement, the region was annexed outright on August 7 and everything French was outlawed. Street signs were changed to German, Hugel et Fils became Hügel und Söhne and the wearing of berets was forbidden. “If you even said bonjour, you could go to a concentration camp,” André’s brother Johnny recalled. A cousin of the Hugels did, in fact, get sent to a camp when he refused to sign a statement saying he was of Germanic origin.
“You had to obey the rules, there was no alternative,” André said. “In order to go on to high school, I had to join the Hitler Youth.” Brothers Johnny and Georg
es faced a grimmer prospect: they had to join the German army.
Georges was the first, because he was the oldest. It was not a happy moment, “but I did what I had to,” said Georges. “I was afraid my family might get sent to a camp. I saw some other guys run away and their families were sent to Poland.”
Unlike others, the people of Alsace had little confidence in Marshal Pétain. “He was a weak man,” Georges said. “Sure, he was the ‘hero of Verdun’ and all that, but he was weak. The only reason soldiers liked him is that they thought there was less chance of being killed when he was in charge; that was because he never did much. A lot of officers felt he needed a good kick in the pants.”
Now that they were part of Germany again, the Hugels had to figure out how to keep their wine business running and, as Papa Hugel said, “adapt to the new economic situation.” In one respect, it was not terribly complicated: Germany was the only customer. “All of our wine, like everyone else’s, was blocked by the Germans,” André said. “We could not sell to our traditional customers like Great Britain; we could only sell to Germany and at prices the Germans set.” The Germans, he said, may not have stolen their wine in the usual sense, “but they did steal it legally and massively. They emptied Alsace of its wine.”
Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure Page 6
