The Second Armistice at Compiègne, France was signed on June 22, 1940, between Nazi Germany and France. Following the decisive German victory in the Battle of France (10 May - 22 June 1940), it established a German occupation zone in Northern France that encompassed all English Channel and Atlantic Ocean ports and left the remainder "free" to be governed by the French. Adolf Hitler deliberately chose Compiègne as the site to sign the armistice due to its symbolic role as the site of the 1918 Armistice with Germany (Compiègne) that signaled the end of World War I with a German defeat.

Battle of France

Main article: Battle of France

The best and most modern French armies had been sent north and lost in the resulting encirclement; the French had lost their best heavy weaponry and their best armored formations. Between May and June, French forces were in general retreat and Germany threatened to occupy Paris. The French government was forced to relocate to Bordeaux on June 10 to avoid capture and declared Paris to be an open city. By June 22, the Wehrmacht had lost 27,000 (dead), more than 111,000 wounded and 18,000 missing, against French losses of 92,000 (dead) and more than 200,000 wounded. The British Expeditionary Force had lost more than 68,000 men.

Choice of Compiegne

When Adolf Hitler received word from the French Government that they wished to negotiate an armistice, Hitler selected Compiègne as the site for the negotiations. As Compiègne was the site of the 1918 Armistice ending the Great War with a humiliating defeat for Germany, Hitler saw using this location as a supreme moment of revenge for Germany over France.

In the very same railway carriage in which the 1918 Armistice was signed (removed from a museum building and placed on the precise spot where it was located in 1918), Hitler sat in the same chair that Marshal Ferdinand Foch had sat in when he faced the defeated German representatives. After listening to the reading of the preamble, Hitler - in a calculated gesture of disdain to the French delegates - left the carriage, leaving the negotiations to his OKW Chief, General Wilhelm Keitel.

Terms

The armistice terms imposed on France were far harsher than what France had imposed on Germany in 1918. It provided for German occupation of two-thirds of France north and west of a line through Geneva, Tours and the Spanish border so as to give the German Navy access to all French Channel and Atlantic ports. All persons who had been granted political asylum had to be surrendered and all occupation costs had to be borne by France. A minimal French Army would be permitted. As one of Hitler's few concessions, the French Navy was to be disarmed but not surrendered, for Hitler realized that pushing France too far could result in France fighting on from French North Africa. The unoccupied third of France was ostensibly left free to be governed by the French, until a final peace treaty would be negotiated, and was eventually occupied by Germany in 1942 in Case Anton.

The French delegation - led by General - tried to soften the harsher terms of the armistice, but Keitel replied that they would have to accept or reject the armistice as it was. Given the military situation that France was in, Huntziger had "no choice" but to accede to the armistice terms. The cease-fire went into effect on 25 June 1940.

Destruction of Compiègne

The Armistice site was demolished by the Germans at Hitler's order three days later. The carriage itself was taken to Berlin as a trophy of war (where it was destroyed in 1945), along with pieces of a large stone tablet which bore the inscription (in French):

HERE ON THE ELEVENTH OF NOVEMBER 1918 SUCCUMBED THE CRIMINAL PRIDE OF THE GERMAN REICH. VANQUISHED BY THE FREE PEOPLES WHICH IT TRIED TO ENSLAVE.

The Alsace-Lorraine Monument (depicting a German eagle immolated by a sword) was destroyed and all evidence of the site was obliterated, with the notable exception of the statue of Marshal Foch: Hitler intentionally ordered it to be left intact so that it would be honoring only a wasteland. After the war, the stone tablet's pieces were recovered and reassembled, and a replica of the railway carriage placed at the restored site.

Cease Fire Document text

see Armistice Document Text (in English)

Further reading

William Shirer's book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich gives an excellent description of the armistice, in particular Hitler's mood on that day.