Sur Les Traces De l'Armee Allemande: Grenoble Et Le Vercors, 1940-1944

The aim of this book is to reconstruct at least in part the image of the German troops present in the Grenoble region in 1940 at the end of the campaign for France, but above all in 1943/44 following the Italian capitulation and during the operations against the Maquis forces in the Vercors region, until the end of summer 1944. It concerns mainly the land troops (Heer), especially the Gebirgsjager, the air force troops (Luftwaffe mainly paratroopers and bomber aviation), but also the Police (Ordnungspolizei) and incidentally the customs. Although the actions and the heinous crimes these troops committed have been known about for a long time from the accounts and pertinent studies of the Resistance which distinguished itself in the region, the reality on the other hand is not widely known, mainly because of an almost total lack of photo sources for the period. Using soldiers’ personnel documents, German and French archives and also period objects, an attempt is made to reconstruct a part of that reality, going back through the chronology of the events, following the routes taken by the units engaged, the way they were made up, their officers, the soldiers themselves and especially their losses, and where all this happened within the context of the actions carried out in the area.