French Minister Henriot Speech in Berlin

Video size: 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) - 74 MB
Date: Tuesday, 6 June 1944
Place: Berlin, Germany
Cameraman: unknown

Philippe Henriot addresses French workers in Berlin. French Minister of Information enters hall and delivers speech (live) to audience of thousands, which climaxes in call for collaboration between France and Germany: "you will understand as I do how moving, pathetic and improbable it is [pointing to tricolour and swastika linked on backdrop]. In 1940 would you have thought this possible?" Henriot reportedly told French prisoners that they would have been home long ago had the treacherous generals kept their word. He thanks (live) "the head of the German nation, Adolf Hitler, who heads the European crusade against Bolshevism"; some members of audience clap, others look impassive.

Nowhere has propaganda played a more powerful role than in the theatre of war of 1939-1945, when a sustained propaganda war was fought between the Allies on the one hand, and Vichy and Berlin on the other, with radio as its principal weapon. On that stage, the most notorious and skilful French voice in the war of words belonged to Philippe Henriot, known as the 'French Goebbels'. Understanding the complexities, the methodology and the impact of Vichy's propaganda necessitates analysis and evaluation of the prominent part played by Henriot as the regime's official voice. A high-profile pro-collaboration propagandist from the early days of the Occupation, Henriot rose in January 1944 to become Minister for Information and Propaganda, just as Vichy entered its final and most disreputable stage. From then until his assassination by the Resistance on 28 June 1944, he delivered a relentless programme of 270 self-authored broadcasts on Radio Vichy, playing persistently on the fears and prejudices of a people suffering the pressures and anxieties inflicted by the events that were unfolding, and conversing in forthright terms with his broadcasting adversaries in London and Algiers. This is the role for which Henriot remains best known, on account of his mesmerising rhetoric and delivery. The broadcasts provide a valuable window on Vichy's endgame and an important insight into the themes and strategies of its propaganda. In 1944, Henriot's public presence was huge and he was a media star well before the modern concept had been developed. Whether they admired him or loathed him, the French, quite simply, could not escape him.


Source :
Die Deutsche Wochenschau No. 720 - 21 June 1944
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-DzDJmt5F8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrwDehP8bzc
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FH034072%2F1
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060004235

Giraud and de Gaulle Shaking Hands at Casablanca Conference

Image size: 1600 x 1308 pixel. 666 KB
Date: Sunday, 24 January 1943
Place: Casablanca, Morocco
Artist: Lieutenant H.A. Mason

On 24 January 1943, the final day of Casablanca Conference, Morocco, the journalists assembled on the lawn behind Roosevelt’s villa. Four white chairs sat empty before the scrum of reporters. Shortly after noon, the door to the villa opened, and Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, and Henri Giraud walked out, while Franklin Roosevelt was carried to his chair. The whirling of film and clicking of cameras quickly replaced the murmurs of disbelief.

“When the Press reporters saw us both they could scarcely believe their eyes, or, when they were told we had been there for nearly a fortnight, their ears,” wrote Churchill.

Roosevelt and Churchill hoped to bring the competing factions of the French resistance together in Casablanca, but their attempt proved futile. There would be no headlines touting a new, unified French war effort. But photographs showing American, British, and French leaders together would galvanize Allied propaganda efforts. As Giraud, Roosevelt, and Churchill traded small talk and offered occasional smiles for the cameras, a solemn-faced de Gaulle smoked a cigarette. A photographer wanted more—something that didn’t smack of a command performance—and urged Giraud and de Gaulle to shake hands. The generals ignored the suggestion, until the president prodded them. “Why not shake hands?” said Roosevelt. “You two Frenchmen are loyal to your country, and that warrants a cordial handshake anytime.”

They stood, de Gaulle pulling the cigarette from his mouth and holding it to the side, and managed a fleeting handshake. Unable to capture the moment, the photographers called for them to do it again. The second shake was no less awkward. After Giraud and de Gaulle departed, Churchill moved over to sit by Roosevelt and talk further with the reporters and war correspondents gathered before them. Roosevelt began by reading a background statement and then spoke from some notes for about fifteen minutes.

Source :
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_en_France
https://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?family=editorial&phrase=giraud+de+gaulle
https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/casablanca-film-mit-humphrey-bogart-und-ingrid-bergman-a-1170512.html
https://time.com/5101354/churchill-fdr-casablanca-photo/

Charles Foulkes and Harry Crerar in Dieppe

Image size: 1600 x 1160 pixel. 505 KB
Date: Sunday, 3 September 1944
Place: Dieppe, Seine-Maritime, Normandy, Northern France
Photographer: Unknown

Charles Foulkes (hand on windshield) stands with his patron and protector, Harry Crerar, outside the Mairie in Dieppe, 3 September 1944. When the war broke out, Foulkes was a major with the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division. In September 1940, he was appointed General Staff Officer Grade 1 with the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and General Crerar noted his outstanding ability and broad tactical knowledge. Lieutenant General Harry Crerar had once described Foulkes as possessing “exceptional ability; sound tactical knowledge; a great capacity for quick, sound decision; energy and driving power.” But on the eve of his first battle, he seemed hesitant and uncertain. At forty-one, Foulkes was a contemporary of Guy Simonds. Both Royal Military College graduates and Permanent Force officers, they started the war as majors and enjoyed subsequent rapid promotion. Similarities ended there. Foulkes was a Crerar favourite, who advanced through staff positions to brigadier.

Source :
"Corps Commanders: Five British and Canadian Generals at War, 1939-45" by Douglas E. Delaney
https://www.junobeach.org/canada-in-wwii/articles/lieutenant-general-charles-foulkes/

Captured German Kübelwagen in the Liberation of Paris

Image size: 1079 x 1600 pixel. 604 KB
Date: Saturday, 26 August 1944
Place: Paris, France
Photographer: Frank Scherschel

Paris, France, 26 August 1944: Car carrying journalists and photographers of YANK magazine give a ride to French partisan and unidentified woman during parade held the day after the liberation of Paris by Allied troops. They are using a captured VW Kübelwagen Typ 82, a light military vehicle designed by Ferdinand Porsche and built by Volkswagen during World War II for use by the German military (both Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS). Based heavily on the Volkswagen Beetle, it was prototyped as the Type 62, but eventually became known internally as the Type 82. Kübelwagen is an abbreviation of Kübelsitzwagen, meaning "bucket-seat car" because all German light military vehicles that had no doors were fitted with bucket seats to prevent passengers from falling out. The first VW test vehicles had no doors and were therefore fitted with bucket seats, so acquiring the name VW Kübelsitzwagen that was later shortened to Kübelwagen. Mercedes, Opel and Tatra also built Kübel(sitz)wagens. The picture was taken by Frank Scherschel from LIFE magazine.

Source :
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100326/Stunning-rare-colour-images-World-War-II.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_K%C3%BCbelwagen
https://www.gettyimages.com/license/72430265
https://ww2colorfarbe.blogspot.co.id/2018/04/captured-german-kubelwagen-in.html