French Wine Under Nazi Occupation Part 2
While Part 1 explored the uncomfortable truths about collaboration in the French wine industry during Nazi occupation, it is equally important to recognize the courageous acts of resistance that helped undermine the Nazis and aid the Allied cause. Despite the economic incentives to collaborate, many winemakers took significant risks to defy their occupiers and protect their heritage.
Shifting Attitudes Toward Resistance
By 1942, France's wine production had plummeted from 69 million hectolitres in 1939 to just 35 million hectolitres, largely due to shortages of manpower and resources. While many in France’s wine regions had initially been sympathetic to the Vichy regime, attitudes began to shift as Vichy policies grew more oppressive. New laws forbade alcohol advertising, levied heavy taxes, and imposed the first minimum drinking age of 14. Resistance to these policies grew, and forced labor placements in 1943 pushed more winemakers into active defiance.
The heavy-handed policies of the Vichy regime—designed to align France with Nazi interests—also led to a growing sense of frustration among local winemakers. The imposition of taxes, forced work placements, and restrictions on alcohol consumption made it increasingly difficult for winemakers to comply with Nazi demands. By the mid-point of the occupation, many in the wine industry began to turn against the Nazi-controlled government, with resistance becoming not just a political act, but a cultural one.
Small Acts of Defiance
From the earliest days of occupation, winemakers found ways to resist. Many hid their best vintages behind hastily constructed walls in their cellars. The owner of La Tour d’Argent in Paris and the de Nonancourt family of Laurent-Perrier Champagne hid their finest bottles from Nazi requisition.
Robert Drouhin of Burgundy recalled being tasked, at just eight years old, with placing spiders before a newly built wall in his family’s cellar. The hope was that the webs would make the wall look undisturbed and keep the prized Romanée-Conti bottles safe from Nazi hands. Other winemakers took advantage of German orders to offload inferior vintages, assuming the Nazis wouldn't notice the difference.
In some cases, French winemakers had help from the other side. The weinführers were industry veterans hand-selected for their wine expertise. As such, they often harboured more sympathy for their fellow wine professionals than for the Reich. The Kladstrups write that Burgundy's weinführer, Adolph Segnitz, turned a blind eye to winemakers hiding their best bottles; and in Bordeaux, weinführer Heinz Bömers' particular hatred for Göring led him to fill Göring's order for several cases of Château Mouton Rothschild with wilfully mislabelled ordinary wine.
The Underground Resistance
As the occupation continued, more winemakers joined the growing French Resistance. This underground network, including communists, Gaullists loyal to Charles de Gaulle, and the Maquis, began coordinating efforts to fight the Nazi occupation.
Jean Monmousseaux, a wine producer from the Touraine region, used wine barrels to smuggle Resistance leaders across the demarcation line between occupied and free France. This underground movement grew as more winemakers risked their lives to support the Resistance.
By this point, resistance activities had become increasingly organized, and more members of the wine community recognized the importance of providing support to the Allies. The Maquis, for instance, began relying more on local winemakers to help them transport weapons and resistance fighters, knowing that many of the smaller wineries had already established secret networks for smuggling goods across enemy lines.
Champagne's Secret Underground
The chalk caves beneath Champagne houses became underground fortresses for the Resistance. During the war, Marquis Suarez d’Aulan, the head of Piper-Heidsieck, transformed his cellars into an arms depot, storing rifles and grenades for the Resistance. These weapons played a key role in disrupting German supply lines during the D-Day landings and helping liberate French cities.
One of the most extraordinary contributions came through intelligence gathering. Following a massive Champagne delivery to Romania just before Germany invaded it in 1940, the French Resistance enlisted Champagne producers to monitor unusual orders. In 1941, they informed British intelligence about a large shipment of Champagne in heat-resistant packaging destined for "a very hot country"—crucial information that alerted the Allies to the Nazi's planned invasion of North Africa.
Bernard de Nonancourt’s Irony and Heroism
The story of Bernard de Nonancourt is one of the most striking examples of irony and bravery during the Nazi occupation. Dreyfus describes how, in 1945, de Nonancourt discovered hundreds of cases of Salon 1928 Champagne in Hitler’s mountain lair at Berchtesgaden, a discovery that he called "a kind of irony" because just five years earlier, in 1940, de Nonancourt had witnessed those same bottles being stolen by occupation troops in Mesnil-sur-Oger. This dramatic contrast—between witnessing the theft of his family's wine and later finding the stolen goods in Nazi hands—reflects the profound impact the war had on the wine industry.
De Nonancourt, who was just 19 years old when the war broke out, joined the Resistance immediately, becoming a key figure in the movement. He fought alongside other members of the French Resistance, later participating in the liberation of Dachau and discovering Hitler's personal wine stash at the Eagle’s Nest. His actions were not just symbolic but vital to the liberation effort, and his bravery earned him the Croix de Guerre for his service.
Liberation and Celebration
The Allied landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, began the liberation of France. Champagne and Bordeaux were freed in August, with Burgundy following in September. On May 7, 1945, the Germans signed their surrender in Reims, the unofficial capital of Champagne. The timing of this surrender couldn’t have been more poignant, considering how much of France’s wine had been consumed by Nazi forces during their occupation.
On Victory Day, many Allied soldiers were given bottles of French wine to celebrate. For many, the wine that had been forced into the hands of the German invaders was now part of the celebration of France’s hard-won freedom. In Reims, a city historically known for its Champagne, the sight of soldiers raising glasses in a toast to victory was both a physical and symbolic moment of liberation.
A Complicated Legacy
The story of French wine during the Nazi occupation is a complicated one, full of contradictions. On the one hand, there was widespread collaboration, with wine producers trading their goods for survival in a country under foreign rule. On the other hand, there were countless acts of resistance, both big and small, that helped tip the scale towards liberation. Many French winemakers risked their lives to protect their heritage, to provide crucial supplies to the Resistance, and to ensure that their families and their wines survived.
The role of wine in World War II has often been reduced to a simple narrative of pillaging and resistance. However, as both Dreyfus and Lucand’s research demonstrate, the reality is far more complex. The wine industry was, like the rest of France, caught between collaboration with the enemy and the desire to resist. And though many winemakers cooperated with the Germans, others became key figures in the effort to liberate France.
As we raise our glasses today, we not only appreciate the quality of French wine but also honor the complicated human stories behind each bottle—stories of moral compromise, extraordinary courage, and the resilience of the French spirit.
Bibliography for Part 2:
Batonnet, Brigitte. The Committee Interprofessional of Champagne Wines. Personal Interview, 2024.
Kladstrup, Don, and Petie Kladstrup. Wine & War: The French, The Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure. 2001.
Lucand, Christophe. Wine and War: How the Nazis Ripped-off France’s Vineyards. 2017.