Glade of the Armistice

The Glade of the Armistice (French: Clairière de l'Armistice) is a war memorial in the Forest of Compiègne. It stands on the spot where in 1918 the Germans signed the armistice that ended World War I. During World War II, Adolf Hitler deliberately chose the same location for the French and Germans to sign the Second Armistice at Compiègne after Germany won the Battle of France.

Today, Glade of the Armistice contains a statue of Ferdinand Foch and the Alsace-Lorraine Memorial.

History

Following their victory in the Battle of France, the Germans set out to humiliate the vanquished French by forcing them to sign the Second Armistice at Compiègne in the Glade, the same place that the Germans had signed the Armistice 22 years earlier. Adolf Hitler personally visited the Glade to participate in the ceremony. William Shirer reported on his reaction to seeing the monument:

"Through my glasses I saw the Führer stop, glance at the [Alsace-Lorraine] monument.... Then he read the inscription on the great granite block in the center of the clearing: Here on the eleventh of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German empire . . . vanquished by the free peoples which it tried to enslave." I look for the expression on Hitler's face. I am but fifty yards from him and see him through my glasses as though he were directly in front of me. I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph. He steps off the monument and contrives to make even this gesture a masterpiece of contempt. He glances back at it contemptuous, angry. . . . Suddenly, as though his face were not giving quite complete expression to his feelings, he throws his whole body into harmony with his mood. He swiftly snaps his hands on his hips, arches his shoulders, plants his feet wide apart. It is a magnificent gesture of defiance, of burning contempt....[1]

The Alsace-Lorraine Memorial was dynamited three days later on Hitler's orders. The railway carriage in which both armistices were signed was carried back to Germany as a war prize and later burned in order to prevent its recapture by the Allies. The Alsace-Lorraine Memorial was rebuilt following the war.

References

  1. ^ Books: Inside Germany. Time Magazine. June 23, 1941