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The Journal of Military History 67.4 (2003) 1320-1322



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L'Empire colonial français dans la stratégie du Troisième Reich (1936- 1945), 2 vols. cased. By Chantal Metzger. New York: Peter Lang, 2002. ISBN 90-5201-956-8. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Tables. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. Pp. 1123. $58.95.

Chantal Metzger's recent book, L'Empire colonial français dans la stratégie du Troisième Reich, will undoubtedly become a key reference for any scholar looking at the politics of imperialism in Europe between 1936 and 1945. It examines the military, cultural, economic and political importance [End Page 1320] of the French empire in German diplomacy and war planning. Her conception of empire is comprehensive, including the colonies of French West Africa and Indochina, as well as the protectorates and mandates of Africa together with the Mediterranean.

Metzger's main argument revolves almost entirely around Hitler. According to her, Hitler had little interest in finding darker-skinned people to dominate, concentrating instead on Lebensraum in Eastern Europe. True, he did at times make statements or demands suggesting an interest in overseas territory; similarly he gave some fairly benevolent latitude to the dreams of colonially ambitious members of his entourage such as General Franz Xaver Ritter Epp. This, however, was not because Hitler seriously desired an overseas empire, but rather because it was at times strategically useful, at home and abroad, to promote the idea and fight for it. In the build-up to war, for example, he was willing to guarantee the British their colonies, but only in exchange for a free hand in Eastern Europe. He was happy to play second fiddle to the Italians in the Mediterranean during the war, so long as they could provide competent administrators and exploit the region's resources effectively. At home, he saw no reason to curtail colonialist enthusiasm until Germany lost Tunisia, his final foothold in the French empire, to the allied forces in the spring of 1943, at which point he abandoned all colonial objectives.

This is the gist of Metzger's analysis, which is well-supported in her three chronological sections. The first deals with the prewar period from 1936 until the Franco-German armistice in 1940. It outlines domestic responses to the colonial losses of the First World War, as well as the continuing colonialist propaganda, business ventures, and religious missions in the 1930s. Hitler's proclamation in 1936 of Germany's right to regain the colonies lost at Versailles is a key point, coinciding with his decision to take control of the colonial lobby. The second section covers the years from 1940 to 1942. Here we find detailed accounts of Italo-German collaboration in the Mediterranean, indigenous dissidence, German relations with Vichy and conflicts with the Allies at Dakar and in the Middle East. The third section describes the final blows to Germany's colonial aspirations, namely the Allied landing in Morocco in November 1942 and the fall of Tunisia in May 1943.

Although Metzger's main argument is devoted largely to Hitler, there are at least three interesting themes covered extensively in her book which do not focus exclusively on him and perhaps deserve more analytical attention than she offers. The first is the evolution of Germany's complex structure of colonial lobbyists and administrators, which was marked by continual conflicts between industrialists, diplomats, and generals. The second is the delicate nature of bilateral negotiations between Vichy and Germany about commerce and defence: France, a defeated nation, still had to appear strong in the colonies in order to keep pro-Gaullist propaganda and indigenous dissidence at bay. Finally, we have the complexity of Germany's policies in the Arab world, which had to account not only for Italian aspirations in the Mediterranean and Vichy colonial sovereignty but also for possible Allied interventions and the actions of Arab leaders. In all three cases, Metzger [End Page 1321] describes incidents of collaboration and confrontation among and between different German, Vichy, and indigenous groups. Her narrative on these...

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