French History Advance Access originally published online on January 27, 2008
French History 2008 22(1):94-114; doi:10.1093/fh/crm070
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The informer, the lover and the gift giver: female collaborators in Pau 1940–1946
Correspondence: * Sandra Ott is an associate professor at the Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno. She may be contacted at sott{at}unr.edu.
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Abstract |
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In July 1940 the Armistice Commission sent a German delegation to Pau in south-western France. The delegation included André Müller, a Nazi who also worked for the German Security Police. Müller's twenty-nine letters to a female collaborator, alongside the testimonies of those who knew the two friends, provide an unusual opportunity to recapture a sense of day-to-day relations between the occupied and occupiers. The Nazi officer's letters reveal his reflections on the war, his hopes and, above all, his material needs. The cycle of epistolary exchange that linked the two friends entailed a unidirectional flow of gifts from the female collaborator to Müller. The letters, goods and services they exchanged raise important questions about the location of power, indebtedness and gratitude in Franco-German partnerships; they also provide an opportunity to test assumptions about the inequality of such relationships in occupied France. The court testimonies in Pau also offer rare insights into female involvement in collaborationist movements, which were primarily a male sphere of activity and influence.
There was an error in the acknowledgement of the originally published version.