Hitler Signs Armistice in Defeat Carriage: Revenge on France
Hitler forced the French armistice delegation to sign their surrender in the same railway carriage at Compiegne where Germany had signed the armistice ending World War I on November 11, 1918. William Shirer, reporting for CBS Radio, described Hitler dancing a little jig of triumph outside the carriage, though the footage may have been manipulated by Allied propagandists. General Wilhelm Keitel read the preamble, and Hitler left the carriage before the French delegation could respond, leaving Keitel to negotiate the terms. The armistice divided France into a German-occupied northern zone and a nominally independent southern zone governed from Vichy under Marshal Petain. Hitler ordered the railway carriage transported to Berlin as a trophy. It was destroyed in 1945, possibly on Hitler's orders, to prevent it from being used in a third armistice ceremony.
June 22, 1940
86 years ago
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