Re: Coco Chanel, it’s an uncomfortable fact that huge swaths of French society (particularly the more conservative parts) were quite OK with German involvement in French governance, at least until the forced labor requirements sending people to work in Germany. The Third Republic was hardly a model social democracy and if the Nazis hadn’t been such incompetent overlords we might have seen a coal and steel union decades before it happened, with Vichy France being an integral part of a Nazi-led European union.
Instead the Nazis looted most of France and made it quite clear that the French were going to be second-class citizens forever, and once they started looking less unbeatable everyone was part of the Resistance.
For sure, there were many who would have prepared to cut a deal with Hitler - let him have Europe (and to hell with the strategy of not letting any major power dominate there) in return for the inviolability of the empire.
I recall reading a great twitter thread a while back that covered a lot of the nazi interplay in british high society in the years prior to ww2. really should re-find that and get it archived (and/or find some other primary sources to read about it)
Re: Coco Chanel, it’s an uncomfortable fact that huge swaths of French society (particularly the more conservative parts) were quite OK with German involvement in French governance, at least until the forced labor requirements sending people to work in Germany. The Third Republic was hardly a model social democracy and if the Nazis hadn’t been such incompetent overlords we might have seen a coal and steel union decades before it happened, with Vichy France being an integral part of a Nazi-led European union.
Instead the Nazis looted most of France and made it quite clear that the French were going to be second-class citizens forever, and once they started looking less unbeatable everyone was part of the Resistance.
look at the British aristocracy, who are still full of fucking Nazis
For sure, there were many who would have prepared to cut a deal with Hitler - let him have Europe (and to hell with the strategy of not letting any major power dominate there) in return for the inviolability of the empire.
i mean they were huge fans and think Britain joined the wrong side of the war
deleted by creator
I recall reading a great twitter thread a while back that covered a lot of the nazi interplay in british high society in the years prior to ww2. really should re-find that and get it archived (and/or find some other primary sources to read about it)