Laval-Kaufmann Agreement

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The Laval-Kaufmann Agreement was an agreement made between the German government and the French Vichy regime on November 22, 1942 and signed on January 23, 1943, according to which a large part of the after the German occupation of southern France in November 1942 in and around Marseille fixed French merchant fleet de facto in German and Italian hand reached.

It followed the Nevers Agreement signed on August 28, 1942, with which Vichy-France delivered 29 Danish , Norwegian and Greek ships to the Axis powers .

prehistory

The supply of the German and Italian troops in North Africa had already become critical in the summer of 1941, because on the one hand Italy could only provide limited shipping space and on the other hand the ship losses from submarines , fighter planes and mines continued to increase. The Italian seafarers called the shipping route to Libya “Rotta della Morte” (Route of Death). In Berlin they recognized the critical situation and began to put pressure on Vichy to get access to additional shipping space. The Vichy regime had previously delivered a total of 50 ships to Germany that belonged to German opponents of the war and had found refuge in non-occupied France or in French North Africa . First, Vichy agreed only chartering of eight ships without crews to to Italy, but refused further Greek, Belgian , Dutch surrender, Danish or Norwegian ships that were stranded since the armistice of June 1940 in French ports. Finally Vichy delivered eight more cargo ships with a total of 22,387 GRT to Germany; these were Danish, Belgian, Dutch and Yugoslav ships; H. Ships from countries occupied by the German Reich . Since Germany did not have enough personnel available to provide crews for these ships, they were passed on to Italy; they all sank under the Italian flag as the war continued .

The Nevers Agreement

On December 21, 1941, the German Reich demanded the surrender of Danish and Norwegian ships with a total of 125,000 GRT in new negotiations by the Armistice Commission in Wiesbaden . This demand was rejected by the Darlan government . In the summer of 1942, Germany increased its claim to 135,000 GRT, while Italy demanded the surrender of all Greek ships remaining in France. The Axis Powers invoked that these countries were occupied by them and therefore had a right of ownership and that these ships would contribute to the fight against Bolshevism .

During negotiations in Nevers on August 26 and 27, 1942 , the Hamburg Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann , Reich Commissioner for Maritime Shipping appointed on May 30, 1942, put the Reich's requirements at 200,000 GRT and emphasized that this requirement should be completed with French ships if there is not enough foreign tonnage available. On August 28, Prime Minister Pierre Laval signed the so-called Agreement of Nevers (l'accord de Nevers), with which Vichy France returned 29 Danish, Norwegian and Greek merchant ships with a total of around 115,000 GRT to their "rightful owners". The Reich had previously obliged these rightful owners in the occupied countries to charter the ships to the German Reich Commissioner for Maritime Shipping immediately after their pro forma return, from which they were then passed on to German shipping companies or Italy for management. Since it was difficult to mobilize crews , only six of these ships had arrived in Italian ports by November 8, 1942, the start of the British-American invasion of French North Africa ( Operation Torch ).

The German demand of November 1942

At this time, the availability of ship space was so critical that the Italian Navy had to temporarily deploy 47 of its submarines for cargo service to North Africa. At the same time, on the other hand, there were 177 French merchant ships with a combined total of more than 700,000 GRT blocked in ports of the as yet unoccupied Free Zone of France, most of them in Marseille and in the Étang de Berre . During the German occupation of the Free Zone of France ( Company Anton ) on November 10 and 11 , the Wehrmacht commanders were instructed to place these ships under armed guard. On November 20, Germany demanded that the ships, which were unfortunately now useless for France, be used by themselves. Prime Minister Laval orally agreed to this request. On the following day, the Navy was instructed to prepare a violent takeover of the ships if the Vichy government did not agree to Laval's verbal promise. 150 naval officers and 750 crews, which had become available due to the cancellation of the invasion of Spain ("Gisela case"), were sent to Marseille to take over the ships and those made available by the Nevers Agreement, but still in Marseille lying units finally to march to Italy.

Anticipation of the agreement

A forcible takeover of the French ships was not necessary. As early as November 22nd, Laval confirmed the promise he had given orally two days earlier in a letter handed over to Reich Commissioner Kaufmann, without consulting his cabinet; even the Minister of the Navy, Admiral Abrial , hadn't been informed. In view of the urgent need for transport space to recapture North Africa, the German Reich was given free disposal of 159 French ships with a total of 646,000 GRT (around a quarter of the shipping space of the French merchant fleet in 1939), either with their previous crews or with new crews from volunteers. Only 18 ships with a total of around 50,000 GRT were retained for French needs ( cabotage on the Mediterranean coast, connections with Corsica and Spain).

On December 1st, a German-Italian meeting took place in Rome with Hermann Göring , Field Marshal Albert Kesselring , Field Marshal Erwin Rommel , Reich Commissioner Karl Kaufmann, General Ugo Cavallero ( Chief of Staff of the Italian Comando Supremo ) and Admiral Arturo Riccardi (Admiral Chief of Staff of the Italian Navy and State Secretary in the Ministry of the Navy). It was about the distribution of this blackmailed contribution. At that time, the two Axis powers had only about 1,000,000 GRT of shipping space available in the Mediterranean , of which around 600,000 GRT were designated to supply the troops in North Africa. In order to be able to assert himself in Libya and Tunisia , Rommel demanded a secure supply of 375,000 tons of supplies per month. The vast majority of the French ships were therefore made available for supplying North Africa, where they represented a doubling of the usable transport capacity. The rest was distributed to the Adriatic , Aegean and Black Seas . Since Germany was not in a position to provide the necessary crews, the largest part, around 500,000 GRT, was to sail with Italian crews and under the Italian flag.

Without waiting for the agreement to be signed, which formally sealed the transfer of the French ships to the “joint effort”, German navy members took possession of the Sud Est tanker (627 GRT) in Bizerta on November 26th . Numerous other ships were also taken over in December 1942 and January 1943 by the people of the sea transport chief Marseille, Rear Admiral Menche , who was appointed on November 26th . The staff of Vice Admiral Weichold in Rome, German Admiral at the Admiral Staff of the Royal Italian Navy and since November 22, 1941 also Commander of the German Naval Command Italy, was responsible for the transfer of the ships and the provision of the armed escort ships, which, however, especially in the first few weeks were by far not available in sufficient numbers.

The agreement

It was not until January 23, 1943, after the legal and administrative details had been negotiated, that the agreement was signed in Paris, on the French side by Louis Nicol, Director of the Merchant Navy (Directeur de la Marine Marchande), on the German side by Reichskommissar Karl Kaufmann. It became known as the Laval-Kaufmann Agreement (l'accord Laval-Kaufmann). It provided that the German Reich, or the Reich Commissariat for Maritime Shipping, chartered a total of 159 ships free of charge : 31 passenger ships , 112 cargo ships and 16 tankers . The Reich would pay compensation for lost ships, but not on voyages to and from North Africa. For the ships used in the Adriatic, the Aegean and the Black Sea - and only for these - the Reich agreed to pay a rent of 5% of their value on August 31, 1939 and a depreciation rate of 5% of this value for the total usage time to be paid. Laval's proposal to have the ships under the French flag sail with French crews was not taken up; On the one hand, the French garrisons showed no inclination to work as volunteers for the occupying power; on the other hand, after the liberated French territories in Africa had joined the war against the Axis, the Germans were also unwilling to accept volunteers with dubious loyalty.

The handover of every ship should take place according to a uniform procedure. An armed German guard came on board with a captain from the German merchant navy and a German hull crew. Under the watchful eye, the French sailors had an hour to pack their things and leave the ship. During this time, the previous French captain and the new German made a quick inventory of the condition of the ship and the basic supplies (fuel, food, consumables) and materials on board. Meanwhile , the German occupation hoisted the German flag ; in some cases the new owners were so sympathetic that they waited to raise the flag until the French crew left their ship. The other aspects of the takeover were also often not literally according to regulations. In most cases, the departing crews were given more time to pack, and most German captains signed off the inventory lists presented to them by the French captains without the customary cross-checking of a proper charter.

The ships that were to be handed over to Italy were initially taken over by German crews and flying the German flag. It had been feared that in view of the deep-seated French resentment over the Italian "stab in the back" of June 10, 1940, an appearance by Italian navy personnel in Marseille could jeopardize the takeover action.

The ships that were not passed on to Italy, but taken over by Germany, were assigned to the semi-state German Mediterranean shipping company for ship management, were given German names for the most part and were put into service under the Reich service flag. A number of them were, however, very soon from the Navy requisitioned and auxiliary warships ( Mine ships , safety boats, barges converted etc.) and under the war flag taken with Navy crews in service.

Whereabouts of the ships

Only a very small proportion of the French ships handed over to the two Axis powers survived the war. Around 400,000 GRT were sunk under the German or Italian flag by enemy action and around 270,000 GRT were self- sunk in 1944 when the German troops withdrew .

literature

  • Jean-Ives Brouard, Guy Mercier, Marc Saibène: La marine marchande française 1939–1940. Marines Editions, 1996, ISBN 2-909675-26-2 (French)
  • Jean-Ives Brouard, Guy Mercier, Marc Saibène: La marine marchande française 1940–1942. Marines Editions, 1999, ISBN 2-909675-48-3 (French)
  • Jean-Ives Brouard, Guy Mercier, Marc Saibène: La marine marchande française 1943–1945. Marines Editions, 2001, ISBN 2-909675-71-8 (French)
  • Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Foreign ships in German hands 1939–1945. Strandgut, Cuxhaven, 2004

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The surrender of these ships would have jeopardized the tacit and fragile Franco-American agreement that guaranteed the “neutrality” of the French Antilles and the retention of the French flag on the ships that fled there.
  2. ↑ The ships were given German code names, e.g. B. Norda I to Norda XII for the Norwegian ships, but should sail under their previous names to maintain the charter fiction. (Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Foreign ships in German hands 1939–1945. Strandgut, Cuxhaven, 2004)
  3. ↑ Menche had been head of the Bordeaux naval service from January 27, 1941 and, from November 26, 1942 to April 30, 1943, at the same time chief of sea transport in Marseille.
  4. ↑ Informed by the successful decryption of the Italian naval communications in Bletchley Park in the summer of 1942 , the British Admiralty had already instructed its submarines on November 21 to sink ships heading east from France ("sink at sight"). On December 3, 1942, HMS Ursula sank the Sainte Marguerite II near San Remo ( http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/3386.html ). This loss was followed on January 10th by the torpedoing of the Dalny (ex German Waldeck ) by HMS Tribune ( http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/3486.html ) and on January 14th by the sinking of the Oued Tiflet ( http : //www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx? 96225 ) by HMS Sahib ( http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/3431.html ). Admiral Weichold was therefore forced to form convoys of two or more ships and to have them escorted by armed escort boats.
  5. ↑ At this point more than half of the French ships had already been taken over and transferred to Italy.
  6. ↑ Two of the passenger ships and a tanker were ultimately not delivered.