Sous le Manteau (literally Under the Cloak; usually translated as Clandestinely) is a French documentary consisting of footage shot clandestinely by French officers held during World War II in Oflag XVII-A, a POW camp in northeastern Austria.
Oflag XVII-A was a prisoner-of-war camp operated by Nazi Germany in Austria, on the border of Czechoslovakia. Its 40 barracks housed five thousand French prisoners of war captured during the Battle of France. [1] According to Robert Christophe, in his making-of booklet on the film, Oflag XVII-A had a Gaullist resistance group called "La Maffia", which had ties to a French Resistance group (apparently the only such collaboration between prisoners outside France and resistance inside it), and thus acquired the materials for the camera (and supplies for escape attempts). [2]
Taking advantage of humanitarian packages from France, the prisoners smuggled in materials necessary for the construction and operation of a camera. Film was sent from France in packets with food for prisoners; they were hidden in sausages and other foods, [3] and after being developed the negatives were hidden in the heels of the prisoners' boots (the footage documents such detail). Fourteen rolls were filmed by March 1945. [3] The camera was made from a wooden box, which was hidden in a Larousse dictionary; [3] the spine of this dictionary was capable of being opened like a shutter. [1]
The 30-minute film documents daily life in the camp, including a theater production, food distribution, as well as a surprise raid by the Nazi guards. The film even documents the digging of tunnels for several escape attempts. [4] One, of which parts are documented in the film, resulted in 132 prisoners escaping; only two made it back to France. [5]
After the camp was liberated by the Soviets the rolls were hidden in a mess tin and given to the French liaison officer for General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny. A booklet by Christopher about the making of the film was published in 1948 by Éditions OPTA. [3] [6] Sous le Manteau has been distributed by Armor Films, with commentary by Maurice Renault and Robert Christophe. [7]
The BBC's Christian Fraser described it as "so professional ... that on first viewing you would be forgiven for thinking it is a post-war reconstruction." [1]
Madeleine Zoe Damerment was a French agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) organization during World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in countries occupied by the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. Damerment was first involved in escape lines helping downed allied airmen escape occupied France. She fled France in March 1942 to avoid arrest. After arriving in Britain, she was recruited by the SOE. Damerment was to be a courier for SOE's Bricklayer circuit but was captured by the Gestapo on 29 February 1944 upon arrival in France. The Gestapo knew she was coming because they had captured SOE radios and were reading SOE radio messages. She was subsequently executed at the Dachau concentration camp on 13 September 1944 along with three other female SOE agents.
In Germany, stalag was a term used for prisoner-of-war camps. Stalag is a contraction of "Stammlager", itself short for Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschaftsstammlager, literally "main camp for enlisted prisoners of war". Therefore, "stalag" technically means "main camp".
Liberté chérie was a Masonic Lodge founded in 1943 by Belgian Resistance fighters and other political prisoners at Esterwegen concentration camp. It was one of the few lodges of Freemasons founded within a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War.
Oflag IV-C, often referred to by its location at Colditz Castle, overlooking Colditz, Saxony, was one of the most noted German Army prisoner-of-war camps for captured enemy officers during World War II; Oflag is a shortening of Offizierslager, meaning "officers' camp".
Stalag XVIII-A was a World War II German Army (Wehrmacht) prisoner-of-war camp located to the south of the town of Wolfsberg, in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia, then a part of Nazi Germany. A sub-camp Stalag XVIII-A/Z was later opened in Spittal an der Drau about 100 km (62 mi) to the west.
Oflag XVII-A was a German Army World War II prisoner-of-war camp for officers (Offizierlager) located between the villages of Edelbach and Döllersheim in the district of Zwettl in the Waldviertel region of north-eastern Austria.
Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier was a French Resistance member in World War II as well as a photojournalist, deported to Auschwitz in 1943. She survived the war and became a Communist politician, elected to Parliament under the Fourth and Fifth Republic.
Abraham Salomon Glück was a French physician and a member of the French Resistance.
Gertrude Mary Lindell, Comtesse de Milleville, code named Marie-Claire and Comtesse de Moncy, was an English woman, a front-line nurse in World War I and a member of the French Resistance in World War II. She founded and led an escape and evasion organization, the Marie-Claire Line, helping Allied airmen and soldiers escape from Nazi-occupied France. The airmen were survivors of military airplanes shot down over occupied Europe. During the course of the war, Lindell was run over by an automobile, shot in the head, imprisoned twice, and captured and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Her son Maurice was captured and tortured. Her son Octave (Oky), also captured, disappeared and presumably died in a German concentration camp.
Night and Fog is a 1956 French documentary short film. Directed by Alain Resnais, it was made ten years after the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The title is taken from the Nacht und Nebel program of abductions and disappearances decreed by Nazi Germany. The documentary features the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek established in occupied Poland while describing the lives of prisoners in the camps. Night and Fog was made in collaboration with scriptwriter Jean Cayrol, a survivor of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. The music of the soundtrack was composed by Hanns Eisler.
Robert d'Harcourt was a French Catholic intellectual, scholar of German culture and anti-Nazi polemicist.
The Independent Front was a left-wing faction of the Belgian Resistance in German-occupied Belgium in World War II. It was founded in March 1941 by Dr Albert Marteaux of the Communist Party of Belgium, Father André Roland, and Fernand Demany, another communist. The aim of the organisation was to unite Belgian resistance groups of all opinions and political leanings; nonetheless the only political party that was affiliated as such was the Communist Party. The FI operated a significant propaganda, social and paramilitary organization, in addition to its military and sabotage functions and operated in competition with the larger pro-government Secret Army.
Dutch-Paris escape line was a resistance network during World War II with ties to the Dutch, Belgian and French Resistance. Their main mission was to rescue people from the Nazis by hiding them or taking them to neutral countries. They also served as a clandestine courier service. In 1978 Yad Vashem recognized Dutch-Paris's illegal work of rescuing Jews by honoring the line's leader, Jean Weidner as Righteous Among the Nations on behalf of the entire network.
Although no precise estimates exist, the number of French soldiers captured by Nazi Germany during the Battle of France between May and June 1940 is generally recognised around 1.8 million, equivalent to around 10 percent of the total adult male population of France at the time. After a brief period of captivity in France, most of the prisoners were deported to Germany. In Germany, prisoners were incarcerated in Stalag or Oflag prison camps, according to rank, but the vast majority were soon transferred to work details (Kommandos) working in German agriculture or industry. Prisoners from the French colonial empire, however, remained in camps in France with poor living conditions as a result of Nazi racial ideologies.
During World War II, Belgian prisoners of war were principally Belgian soldiers captured by the Germans during and shortly after the Battle of Belgium in May 1940.
During World War II, the relations between art and war can be articulated around two main issues. First, art found itself at the centre of an ideological war. Second, during World War II, many artists found themselves in the most difficult conditions and their works are a testimony to a powerful "urge to create." Such creative impulse can be interpreted as the expression of self-preservation, a survival instinct in critical times.
Lionel Richard is a French poet, historian and a former professor for Cultural studies.
Nazi Germany operated around 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps during World War II (1939-1945).
Émilie Tillion was a French writer and art critic. Tillion is known for her work on the popular "Les Guides Bleus" and as a member of French Resistance during the Second World War.
According to Nazi theorists, denordification is the racial counterpart of the political decadence experienced by peoples throughout their history. The concept was coined by Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg, based on his analysis of the decadence of Rome and Ancient Greece.