1. Skip to Menu
  2. Skip to Content
  3. Skip to Footer

Occupied Europe

 

Please take the time to enjoy a small selection of the artifacts that we have on display at the Museum of World War II. Every artifact in our collection has its own history, and ties to human lives. Each artifact has a small section of its story told here.

You can use this map to jump to any section of the Museum of World War 2 to view a selection of the artifacts displayed there.

You can click on any image for a larger view.

This section contains artifacts specifically about Occupied Europe. This area is primarily represented by France because of an outstanding collection acquired from a Frenchman who began collecting during the war. The museum does have extensive archived collections of all the occupied countries in Europe.

PLEASE NOTE: All firearms displayed at the Museum of World War II have been rendered inoperable.

Map of the Museum

 

DeGaulle

Phillipe Pétain, French World War I hero, selected by the Germans to head the Vichy government.  Document appointing the French delegation to meet with the Germans, June 27, 1940.
 
Posters from occupied France.
 
 
DeGaulle

Pétain drafts a Christmas message to the French prisoners of war in Germany, December 18, 1940: “Is there any fate more cruel than yours?”

 
DeGaulle

Phillipe Pétain, autograph letter signed June 26, 1944: “France is a field of battle….In our hours of anguish and torment, the spiritual life of the prisoners appears inspired by the moving assurance of a miracle….the unification of the French.”
 
 
 

Map of Paris for German soldiers showing various headquarters.
 

German Guidebooks
 

Martin Bormann, letter, June 30, 1943:  "The Fuhrer stressed...with Quisling...that we could only win over...Norwegians, Danes, Dutch, etc. if we treated them in a  100-hundred-percent legal way."
 

Poster from occupied Belgium.
 
 
 
  Vidkun Quisling. Norwegian who led pro-nazi government shot as a traitor in 1945.