German military administration in occupied France during World War II subclass of occupied territory
Administrative structure
After Germany and France agreed on an armistice following the defeats of May and June, Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and General Charles Huntzinger, representatives of the Third Reich and of the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain respectively, signed it on 22 June 1940 at the Rethondes clearing in Compiègne Forest. As it was done at the same place and in the same railroad carriage where the armistice ending the First World War when Germany surrendered, it is known as the Second Compiègne armistice.
France was roughly divided into an occupied northern zone and an unoccupied southern zone, according to the armistice convention "in order to protect the interests of the German Reich". The French colonial empire remained under the authority of Marshal Pétain's Vichy regime. French sovereignty was to be exercised over the whole of French territory, including the occupied zone, Alsace and Moselle, but the third article of the armistice stipulated that French authorities in the occupied zone would have to obey the military administration and that Germany would exercise rights of an occupying power within it:
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