France's 'greatest treasure', according to this excellent and
frequently surprising book, is wine. Many French people feel it is
part of their history, defining them and contributing to their wit,
gaiety and good taste. When the journalist authors happened to hear
some French winemakers telling their war stories, they realized
that those experiences under German occupation ahould be explored,
so they painstakingly interviewed winemakers and researched many
sensitive documents, though many relevant papers had been destroyed
by the German High Command at the end of the war. Hitler and his
Nazi top brass understood how prestigious and profitable wine could
be, and to obtain the very best of French wines they needed
knowledgeable men from the German wine trade to force the sale of
wine on their terms, to be used or resold at great profit. The
embattled and increasingly desperate French wine merchants soon
learnt how to send falsely labelled inferior wines in special
bottles stamped 'Reserved for the Wehrmacht', though this was a
most dangerous undertaking. They also tried to conceal their superb
wines in large 'caves' or underground cellars by walling them off,
often collecting spiders to spin their cobwebs over the walls for
instant 'ageing'. Many of these secret caches survived the war
intact, but so risky were these practices, and so harsh the
punishments and the German demands, that more and more winegrowers
built up their connections with the French Underground Resistance.
Many Resistance leaders were ferried in and out of the Occupied
Zone in wine barrels, which had to be completely taken apart first
in order to conceal a human being. There are tales here of horrific
cruelty, heartbreaking losses and 'collaboration with the enemy'.
There were heroic feats, and soul-destroying injustice and
deprivation. One of the luckiest escapes was that of the city of
Paris itself. Towards the end of the war, German planes had already
bombed the city's wholesale wine centre, and Hitler had ordered
General von Choltitz to destroy Paris rather than surrender it. The
Nazis planted explosives throughout the city in preparation for its
destruction before retreating. Pierre Taittinger, of the famous
champagne house, obtained an interview and pleaded eloquently with
the General. For the first time in his life this old-school
Prussian officer disobeyed an order - and surrended the city
intact. (Kirkus UK)
In the vineyards, wine caves, and cellars of France as war and
occupation came to the country winemakers acted heroically not only
to save the best wines but to defend their way of life. These are
the true stories of vignerons who sheltered Jewish refugees in
their cellars and of winemakers who risked their lives to aid the
resistance. They made chemicals in secret laboratories to fuel the
resistance and fled from the Gestapo when arrests became imminent.
There were treacheries too, as some of the nation's winemakers
supported the Vichy regime or the Germans themselves and
collaborated. Donald Kladstrup is a retired American network
correspondent. He and his wife Petie have accumulated these
fascinating stories, told with the pace and action that will
fascinate fiction and non-fiction readers alike.
General
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