Zone Interdite

The zone interdite ("forbidden zone") refers to two distinct territories established in German occupied France during the Second World War after the signature of the Second Armistice at Compiègne.

A zone of restricted access to civilians was established to increase the security of the Atlantic wall. It was 20 km wide and ran along the Atlantic coast from Dunkirk to Hendaye. It was administered by the military administration in Northern France and Belgium (German: Militärverwaltung in Belgien und Nordfrankreich) from Brussels.

A vast expanse of territory in northern and eastern parts of occupied France comprising a total of six départements and parts of four others running from the mouth of the Somme to the Swiss frontier in the Jura. This area was separated from the rest of the Occupied Zone by a demarcation line and was effectively cut off from the rest of France. The terms zone réservée ("reserved zone") and zone interdite were often used interchangeably, but some sources distinguish a smaller forbidden zone, comprising parts of Somme, Aisne and Ardennes départements, from the larger reserved zone. This extra demarcation line never seems to have existed beyond theory.

Although Adolf Hitler had initially no plans of territorially expanding towards eastern France except for the return of the formerly German Alsace-Lorraine (even so he did not regard the acquiring of these provinces as a real benefit to Germany, telling Albert Speer his belief that they had become "racially worthless" after decades of French rule), the position of total German hegemony gained after the Battle of France now made it possible for him to plan the annexation of those regions of France deemed of possessing strategic or economic advantage to Germany. This was especially the case with frontier regions whose incorporation could be somehow justified on the basis of historical Franco-German borders. During the end of May 1940 (before the Armistice), Hitler instructed Wilhelm Stuckart, State Secretary in the Ministry of Interior to prepare suggestions for a new western frontier. A memorandum written on June 14, 1940 by Stuckart or someone in his vicinity in the Interior Ministry discusses the annexation of certain areas in Eastern France to the German Reich. The document presents a plan to weaken France by reducing the country to its late mediaeval borders with the Holy Roman Empire and replacing the French populace of the annexed territories with German settlers. This memorandum formed the basis for the so-called "North-east line" (also called the "Black line" and the "Führer line"), which marked the territorial extent of the forbidden zone.

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