Company Anton
Company Anton was the code name for the plans for the military occupation of the area of France , which remained unoccupied after the Western campaign, under the Vichy regime by German and Italian troops during the Second World War .
course
After the Allies landed in French North Africa (November 8, 1942, Operation Torch ), Hitler had the plans for the Anton company updated since May 1942 and ordered its implementation with various German armed forces and Italian support. The Anton company went back to the planning for the Attila company that had existed since December 1940 .
On the evening of November 10th, the Axis Powers had completed preparations for Anton , and implementation began on November 11th at around 7:00 a.m. The German 7th Army advanced parallel to the Spanish border from the Atlantic coast, while the German 1st Army advanced from central France towards Vichy and Toulon - both armies were under the command of Colonel General Johannes Blaskowitz . The Italian 4th Army occupied the Côte d'Azur and an Italian division landed on the island of Corsica . By the evening of November 11th, German tanks had reached the Mediterranean coast.
The Vichy regime criticized the violation of the armistice agreement of 1940 in radio announcements. The 50,000-strong army of the Vichy regime initially took up defensive positions in front of Toulon ; when the Wehrmacht asked her to disband, she did so. In this way senseless bloodshed was avoided.
The Germans planned to take intact the demobilized French fleet in Toulon ( company Lila ). However, the commanders of the French navy were able to hold off the Germans with negotiations and deceit for so long that they were able to sink their ships before the Germans could confiscate them (see main article: Self- sinking of the Vichy fleet ). This prevented the three battleships Strasbourg , Dunkerque and Provence as well as seven cruisers, twenty-nine destroyers, twenty submarines and the seaplane carrier Commandant Teste from falling into the hands of the Axis powers. Four French submarines managed to leave the port. Three of them (Casabianca, Marsouin and Le Glorieux) went to North Africa.
See also
Company Anton I is the code name of a military action in May 1944 in partisan struggle in Slovenia.
literature
- Percy Ernst Schramm (Ed.): War Diary of the OKW , 1942, Part 1 and 2, ISBN 3-8289-0525-0 .
- Reinhard Stumpf : The war in the Mediterranean region 1942/43 - The operations in North Africa and in the central Mediterranean. In: The German Reich and the Second World War . Volume 6. Ed. Military History Research Office , Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-421-06233-1 , pp. 569-757.