Collaboration

The arrival of the troops Italy in June 1940 worries the prince Louis II of Monaco to personal capacity. It fears an annexation and a dismissal. It approaches the Vichy government. It is with Pierre Laval and the marshal Pétain - of which he engaged the old aide-de-camp - that he asks, successfully, assistance.

The June 25th 1943, Louis II offers a banquet to the Consul of Germany. The Nazis arrive at Monaco in September 1943. It names Doctor Bernhard Bodenstein, a member of the Nazi party, consul of Monaco with Berlin, whereas Germans, take participations in the Société of the sea bathings. The bonds with the Nazis go back to 1936, when the German Minister for Finance Hjalmar Schacht returns visit to the prince to set up financial meccano starting from German banks.

The prince Louis II fact of passing the same laws as the government of the French state on the Jewish .

Propaganda

Radio Monte Carlo (RMC) is launched on July 1st 1943. Maurice Chevalier inaugurates a radio with the service of new Europe under the control of the German Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The Nazi Germany benefits from this ally by establishing on the territory Monegasque his second radio station of propaganda after Radio Paris.

The principality of Monaco will exert towards the Third Reich what will be named later a strange neutrality . At that time, the captain Jean Ardant, the father of the actress Fanny Ardant, tutor of Rainier III, leaves the princely palate " nauseated money fiddles and intrigues politiques" , the French Consul of the time writes.

Dirty money

Since the beginning of the war, tens of German companies settled; the financings Nazis flow into the principality. After one period of financial food shortage, since the end of its monopoly of the plays on the Riviera in 1933, the principality of Monaco finds one period ostentation from the financial point of view.

In March 1942, Doctor Schaefer, president of the monitoring service of Reich to the Banque de France, receives a princely reception in Monaco with a view to install on the Rock a German bank subsidiary and not branch of Reichsbank or Deutsche Bank. Consequently, Monaco became a capital of all the traffics, black-markets and frauds not only tax. By the Swiss and Monaco, the Nazi Germany succeeded in circumventing the embargoes imposed by the Allies.

During the Second world war, the Germans trading with Vichy carry out a great number of placements in Monaco, so much so that in 1945, when one sequesters the German money, one discovers on the principality a sum which would correspond today to 500 million Swiss francs (approximately 300 million euros), sum equivalent to that seized on the whole of the French territory.

Release

With the Release, purification will be hard, as Raymond Aubrac tells it, local police chief of the Republic. Louis II fears to be reversed by his grandson Rainier III and to lose his throne. In 1944, forces of resistance which follows the Anglo-American ones (which released the principality occupied by the Germans the September 6th 1944) suggest in Raymond Aubrac, then police chief of the Republic for south-east, to annex the principality with the France. Charles de Gaulle refuses, but declares in Raymond Aubrac that this one would have not to inform it of this project, in which case Monaco would have been annexed. Young prince Rainier, by his voluntary engagement in the French Army, with which it will take part in the release of the Alsace, regilds upon point named the blazon of the Grimaldi family. One needed of them little that this one is not shown of collaboration with the Nazis, like were grinds French leaders.

Sources

• Monaco, a strange neutrality , documentary of Pierre Abramovici, diffused on Arte the May 26th 1999
• a quite occupied rock: Monaco during the war of 1939-1945 , Pierre Abramovici, the Threshold, 2001

Random links:

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