Clairière de l'Armistice, forêt de Compiègne, France
N 49° 25.634 E 002° 54.389
31U E 493218 N 5474955
[FR] Après la défaite des troupes alliées, Adolf Hitler exige que l'armistice soit signé sur le lieu de l'armistice de 1918. [EN] After the defeat of the allied troops, Hitler demanded the armistice be signed at the place of the 1918 armistice.
Waymark Code: WM7JM5
Location: France
Date Posted: 11/01/2009
Views: 14
[FR] Le 20 juin 1940, l'organisation Todt remet la voie ferrée en état et place le wagon de l'Armistice sur le lieu exact qu'il occupait en novembre 1918, à une centaine de mètres du bâtiment qui l'abritait. Le 21 juin, Hitler accompagné de plusieurs hauts dignitaires allemands, le Feldmarschall Göring, le ministre des Affaires étrangères du Reich von Ribbentrop, l'amiral Raeder, chef de la Kriegsmarine, le général Keitel, le général von Brauchitsch, commandant en chef de la Heer, se rend sur place quelques heures pour le début de la négociation d'armistice, lequel sera signé le lendemain. La délégation française est menée par le général Huntziger accompagné de l'ambassadeur Léon Noël, du général d'aviation Bergeret et du vice-amiral Le Luc.
Après la signature, Hitler fait convoyer le wagon de l'Armistice jusqu'à Berlin où il sera exposé. Il fait araser le site de la clairière, les monuments sont dynamités (à l'exception de la statue de Foch) et le terrain est labouré et planté de blé.
Le site est reconstitué à l'identique à la fin des années 1940, le monument aux Alsaciens Lorrains est reconstruit et les morceaux de la dalle centrale ayant été retrouvés en Allemagne sont ramenés à Compiègne le 17 août 1946[2]. Évacué de Berlin en 1944, le wagon de l'Armistice avait été détruit par les SS en forêt de Thuringe, sur ordre d'Hitler, en avril 1945 face à l'avancée alliée[3]. L'État français fait l'acquisition d'un wagon identique de la même série de 1913 et un nouveau bâtiment est construit pour l'abriter.
[EN] When Adolf Hitler received word from the French Government that they wished to negotiate an armistice, Hitler selected Compiègne Forest near 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. Hitler decided to sign the armistice in the same rail carriage where the Germans had signed the first armistice in 1918.
On 21st June 1940 the carriage was brought out of its shelter and replaced exactly where it had been located in 1918.
The following day France signed its own capitulation.
Hitler was determined to remove the stain of 1918 from the face of France and had the entire clearing gutted.
The carriage shelter was demolished, the trees cut down, and the roads and walkways dug up.
The carriage itself was whisked away to Berlin.
The great central memorial block was also removed by the Germans and was discovered in Berlin at the end of that war.
The monument to Alsace and Lorraine was likewise crated up and taken back to Germany.
Foch was by now dead but Hitler had his statue left in place, looking out across the rubble of his achievement.
Following the liberation of the area on 21st October 1944, work began at the behest of the local people of Compiègne to repair the memorial glade.
On the 11th November the liberating commander: General Koenig (surely ironic) presided over a military parade which was followed by a symbolic burning of the clearing. It had been purified.
It would take six more years to return the memorial to its pre-1940 condition.
The centre block was replaced in its original position and the monument to Alsace-Lorraine returned.
On 11 November 1950 the Clairière was re-dedicated.
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Admission Fee: Free
Opening Days/Times:
fermeture annuelle sur notre passage
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Visit Instructions:
Posting a picture(s) of the location would be nice although not required.