French prisoners of war in World War II

After the French armies surrendered during and after the Battle of France in the summer of 1940, Germany seized two million French prisoners of war and sent them to camps in Germany.

Work camps
About one third were released on various terms. Of the remainder, the officers and noncommissioned officers were kept in 'Offizierslager' (officers' camps or "Oflags") and did not work. The privates were sent out to work. About half of them worked in German agriculture, where food supplies were adequate and controls were lenient. The others worked in factories or mines, where conditions were much harsher. The Jewish POWs were not singled out by the Nazis.

The Germans held 120,000 non-white soldiers from the French colonies. These men were not sent to Germany; instead they were put to work on German Army projects inside France's Occupied Zone. Conditions were somewhat better for them than for the Frenchman held in Germany. However, they became very hostile to the Vichy regime, and on their return to the colonies rejected the idea of a close relationship with France. In the last days of combat in June 1940, German units killed several thousand black soldiers and POWs in French colonial regiments. About 60,000 black soldiers survived, and were treated like the other colonial POWs.

Repatriation
Between 1940 and 1941, 330,000 were eventually returned to France or repatriated for medical reasons, while 16,000 managed to escape.

The prisoners were repatriated to France in the summer of 1945. The reunion was not a happy one. Many returned to an atmosphere of indifference or scorn that they had allowed themselves to be captured rather than to have died for their country.

Meanwhile, while the men were gone, their wives became more independent. The Vichy government provided a small stipend; about 10% took to prostitution to provide essentials for their children. The government promoted a "cult of the return," with the theme that women earning wages or raising children on their own did so only temporarily until their husbands returned. After the war, there was a restoration of traditional patriarchal authority in the family.