ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 1969
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

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William L. Shirer

COLLAPSE OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC
An Inquiry Into the Fall of France in 1940
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969.
Hardcover, 9.4 X 6.2 X 2.0 inches; 1084 pages.

The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940 by William L. Shirer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969) deals with the collapse of the French Third Republic as a result of Hitler`s invasion during World War II.

As a CBS correspondent in Germany during the climactic events under discussion and as a frequent visitor to and correspondent from prewar France, Shirer was left to question how Germany had overrun France within weeks in 1940. Both countries had fought each other for four years in 1914-1918, with France successfully resisting Germany at every turn of battle along the Western Front during World War I.

Shirer, who knew French, did much of his own research for his 1969 book by speaking with surviving politicians and French leaders from the immediate prewar period as well as those who were on duty during the final catastrophe. His conclusion was that France`s defeat had been self-inflicted. Unhealed wounds in its civil society, dating back to the 1890s Dreyfus Affair, had left France`s political left and right with unassuageable feelings of resentment towards each other.

The 1930s Great Depression further inflamed the feelings of bitterness. The right, in particular, believed that its country`s secular leadership was condemning the country to decadence. A badly-divided France tried to avoid war with Adolf Hitler by participating fully in the negotiations at Munich in 1938, but Hitler forced the issue the following year by his invasion of Poland. World War II had begun.

In 1939 and 1940, France faced a united, determined, and technologically-sophisticated enemy. Although it was desperately important for France to match its enemy`s traits with determination and unity of its own, French national leaders instead frittered away their final months before the catastrophe in a round of internal hostility, intrigue and backbiting, which led to the restoration of World War I hero Marshal Philippe Pétain as prime minister.

The French media had become thoroughly corrupt. Newspapers, in particular, were bought and paid for by political factions and served as their mouthpieces.

The German Blitzkrieg defeated the French Army and France`s will to fight and resist the invaders. After the Second Armistice at Compiègne, many Frenchmen, especially on the right, believed that their country had deserved to lose the war. Key leaders and politicians, led by the aging Pétain and the corrupt, power-hungry Pierre Laval, stepped in and proclaimed their devotion to the survival of France within a Hitlerian New Order for Europe. Overawing the French Parliament, which had fled occupied Paris and was meeting in exile in the resort town of Vichy, they forced their fellow politicians to grant them full powers to control the remainder of unoccupied France for the remainder of the war.

The Third Republic could not survive that disgrace. After the regime of the Pétainist French State (État français) and the liberation by the Allies, French officials did not restore the former constitution but quickly wrote a new constitution. Its ratification, in October 1946, paved the way for the French Fourth Republic.

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On June 17, 1940 William L. Shirer stood in the streets of Paris and watched the unending flow of gray German uniforms along its boulevards. In just six lovely weeks in the spring and summer of 1940 a single battle brought down in total military defeat one of the world`s oldest, greatest, and most civilized powers—the second mightiest empire on earth and the possessor of one of the finest military machines ever assembled. How did it happen? After nearly a decade of research in the massive archives left from World War II and after hundreds of conversations with the Third Republic`s leaders, generals, diplomats, and ordinary citizens, Shirer presents the definitive answer in his stunning re-creation of why and how France fell before Hitler`s armies in 1940. His book is also a devastating examination of the confusion, corruption, and cynicism that drained the strength and toughness of a democracy which Thomas Jefferson once called `every man`s second country.` This book complements and completes the dramatic story of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and continues to rank as one of the most important works of history of our time.