December 5, 2024 • 11 mins
The “The Weeping Frenchman” photograph from the fall of France in 1940 is one of the most emotional images from World War II. Professor Buzzkill explains the story behind that famous image, and why it’s been used so much in social media by people who are upset with the recent election. The actual story of “The Weeping Frenchman” is much more interesting (and significant) than the mythical story of him watching the Nazis march into Paris. Listen and learn! Episode 574.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hello, everyone, it's Professor Buskill here. In the wake of
Trump's victory, many of his opponents in the United States
posted images of disbelief, shock and betrayal on social media.
The people who are posting these kinds of images are
obviously in despair over what will happen in the United
(00:34):
States in the next four years and possibly longer than that.
One of those images struck me very forcefully, mainly because
it's an image that I've often used when teaching about
the fall of France to the Nazis in nineteen forty
Most of you, I think, will have seen it, and
of course it's the picture we're using for the blog
post for this episode and in our social media post
(00:54):
promoting it. Known as the Weeping Frenchman. It's usually just
as depicting a Frenchman crying as he watched German soldiers
march into Paris. Now, I've been teaching about World War
Two since roughly the end of the war in nineteen
forty five, and that's what I used to tell my students,
(01:15):
so I fully expected to tell that story today with
all its tragedy, in this short episode, and to try
to explain why I thought people were using that specific
image in November twenty twenty four. Well, you'd think I
would have learned by now, having done this mythbusting show
for almost ten years, that most of the history stories
we take a purely face value, you know, the ones
(01:36):
we've been told by someone and not bothered to investigate,
are false more often than not. Such is the case
with the Weeping Frenchman. When I started looking into it,
I sort of assumed that the true story wouldn't be
as forceful and emotional as we've been told. It could
have been a man crying at almost anything, and was
probably taken out of context by subsequent generations to show
(01:59):
for despair at the Nazi takeover. The true story, I
began to think, is probably less emotional and more pedestrian
than we all have believed. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The real story behind the Weeping Frenchman photograph is actually
more emotional and more tragic than I had known. And
(02:21):
I'm putting known in quotation marks here because I didn't know.
The fall of Paris on the fourteenth of June nineteen
forty was devastating for French morale, but Parisians weren't on
the streets as the Nazis rolled in. If you watched
the newsreels from that day, you'll see that the streets
were more or less empty. Parisians, no doubt, wanted to
(02:41):
stay inside and not witness what they saw as an
invasion of probably the most civilized place in the world
at the time, So the Frenchman depicted wasn't weeping on
the streets of Paris as the Barbarian Nazis swept in.
The image actually comes from a film clip which was
used by, among other people, the famous American director Frank
(03:01):
Capri in his Why We Fight documentary slash propaganda films.
These short films were designed to explain some of the
wars events to American soldiers and the broader public, but
they were also intended to motivate them to support the
war effort. The third film in the Way We Fight
series was entitled Divide and Conquer, and in it, after
(03:23):
explaining the German invasion of northeastern France and how the
Nazis then moved west and south in an attempt to
conquer the whole country, the film showed a truly devastating
emotional scene French regimental Army standards The flags and colors
carried by important army divisions were in the old days
(03:43):
flown at the head of French armies and were very,
very glorious. The French has so often forgotten these days
were a highly militaristic people, and French armies were held
in very high esteem by the French public and by
other nations. After World War One, these regiment standards were
generally considered ornamental and ceremonial, but they were revered nonetheless.
(04:07):
As the Nazis swept across France in the summer of
nineteen forty, those regimental standards had to be evacuated, eventually
to Marseilles on the southern coast. If Hitler's armies had
captured those symbols, it would have been a major blow
to the psyche of the French people. So here's how
the Weeping Frenchman story unfolded. When it became obvious that
the French military could not recover and push the Nazis back,
(04:30):
and as the German army was moving ever closer to Marseilles,
the French military and government decided to send those regimental
standards to their colonial possessions in North Africa for safekeeping.
The French government then decided to march those standards through
the main streets of Marseilles on their way to the ships,
and they did this in public deliberately. They were trying
(04:52):
to convey the message that they were not giving up,
that they were preserving French ideals again as symbolized by
these regims mental standards, by sending them overseas until France
itself could be liberated. French cameraman George Maja, working for
Fox Movietone News, filmed the procession but also shot footage
(05:12):
of the reactions of the people watching it. In that
film clip, you see the frenchman who's been identified as
Jerome Barzetti, weeping as those regimental standards left their rightful home.
It's a brief clip, and I've put a couple of
links to where you can see it in the blog
post for this episode. But if you look closely at
the left side of the screen, you can see perhaps
(05:34):
an image that's even more moving. To the weeping frenchman's right,
and a little behind him, there's a woman weeping and
clapping as the standards are marched by. Now that woman,
to my mind, is applauding to show her support of
the beliefs that those regimental standards represented. Yet along with
(05:54):
Jerome Barzetti, she's weeping at the same time as she's clapping.
Those two among bound up in that one person that
is believing in French ideals and applauding them and crying
that those ideals have to be preserved elsewhere. I think
makes her reaction all the more significant for historians and
people trying to understand what happened in France and how
(06:16):
it affected many French people. I wish I knew her name.
I tried, but I couldn't find it. For Americans, the
closest comparison to this scene that I can think of
would be this imagine the country was attacked and invaded
by a brutal and overwhelming foreign power, and in order
to save lives, the United States government had to surrender.
(06:39):
One of the things that the government would probably do
before Washington, DC itself fell to the invaders would be
to get the original copies of the Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution, which are housed in the National Archives,
and take them somewhere on the globe where they would
be safe, and in order to show the magnitude of
this event and the commitment preserving the original manifestations of
(07:02):
American political culture, the government might indeed hold a public
procession of these documents being taken away in an attempt
to secure their survival. You see, despite the fact that
there are innumerable copies of the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution, especially at the time in the seventeen eighties,
seventy seventies and seventy eighties made lots of copies. In
(07:24):
spite of that, the connection that American people have always
made between the true originals and the ideals they contained
is undeniable. So I'm sure that Americans would line the
streets to watch them being taken away for safekeeping, and
that they would show the same emotions that the weeping
Frenchman and the woman next to him displayed that day
(07:47):
in September nineteen forty in Marseille. And the danger of
losing a republic as we've seen in recent events makes
it perfectly understandable why Americans in twenty twenty four when
out of their way to find this eighty four year
old foreign image, and why they have used it to
show their dismay at what indeed might happen here. I
(08:12):
hope you remember what I said at the end of
the previous episode where I talked about preserving the republic
part of the battle Hymn of the Republic. The only
way that preservation can be done is by insisting that
our republic not be forgotten and by never letting any
force try to extinguish it. So let me end this
(08:33):
episode by asking you to do one thing. Go watch
the famous scene in the Hollywood classic Casablanca where the
German soldiers are at a corner table drunkenly singing one
of their triumphal songs in Rix Cafe where the film
is set. You'll remember that the true hero of that film,
Victor Laslow, outraged that this Nazi bombast, goes over to
(08:55):
the bandstand and insists that the Rix Cafe house band
play Lamasiers. Remember what he says, play La Mansiers, and
when they hesitate, he insists play it. They play it,
and the French people in the cafe are moved, start
singing quietly and build up to sing it loudly and forcefully.
(09:18):
Eventually the singing Nazis are drowned out and have to
sit down. And Americans right now must take every opportunity
we have to do exactly that. Speak loudly and forcefully
that our republic must never be overrun by barbarians.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Talk to you next time.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Wait said that all's done, so down
Speaker 2 (10:28):
You so don
Hello, everyone, it's Professor Buskill here. In the wake of
Trump's victory, many of his opponents in the United States
posted images of disbelief, shock and betrayal on social media.
The people who are posting these kinds of images are
obviously in despair over what will happen in the United
(00:34):
States in the next four years and possibly longer than that.
One of those images struck me very forcefully, mainly because
it's an image that I've often used when teaching about
the fall of France to the Nazis in nineteen forty
Most of you, I think, will have seen it, and
of course it's the picture we're using for the blog
post for this episode and in our social media post
(00:54):
promoting it. Known as the Weeping Frenchman. It's usually just
as depicting a Frenchman crying as he watched German soldiers
march into Paris. Now, I've been teaching about World War
Two since roughly the end of the war in nineteen
forty five, and that's what I used to tell my students,
(01:15):
so I fully expected to tell that story today with
all its tragedy, in this short episode, and to try
to explain why I thought people were using that specific
image in November twenty twenty four. Well, you'd think I
would have learned by now, having done this mythbusting show
for almost ten years, that most of the history stories
we take a purely face value, you know, the ones
(01:36):
we've been told by someone and not bothered to investigate,
are false more often than not. Such is the case
with the Weeping Frenchman. When I started looking into it,
I sort of assumed that the true story wouldn't be
as forceful and emotional as we've been told. It could
have been a man crying at almost anything, and was
probably taken out of context by subsequent generations to show
(01:59):
for despair at the Nazi takeover. The true story, I
began to think, is probably less emotional and more pedestrian
than we all have believed. I couldn't have been more wrong.
The real story behind the Weeping Frenchman photograph is actually
more emotional and more tragic than I had known. And
(02:21):
I'm putting known in quotation marks here because I didn't know.
The fall of Paris on the fourteenth of June nineteen
forty was devastating for French morale, but Parisians weren't on
the streets as the Nazis rolled in. If you watched
the newsreels from that day, you'll see that the streets
were more or less empty. Parisians, no doubt, wanted to
(02:41):
stay inside and not witness what they saw as an
invasion of probably the most civilized place in the world
at the time, So the Frenchman depicted wasn't weeping on
the streets of Paris as the Barbarian Nazis swept in.
The image actually comes from a film clip which was
used by, among other people, the famous American director Frank
(03:01):
Capri in his Why We Fight documentary slash propaganda films.
These short films were designed to explain some of the
wars events to American soldiers and the broader public, but
they were also intended to motivate them to support the
war effort. The third film in the Way We Fight
series was entitled Divide and Conquer, and in it, after
(03:23):
explaining the German invasion of northeastern France and how the
Nazis then moved west and south in an attempt to
conquer the whole country, the film showed a truly devastating
emotional scene French regimental Army standards The flags and colors
carried by important army divisions were in the old days
(03:43):
flown at the head of French armies and were very,
very glorious. The French has so often forgotten these days
were a highly militaristic people, and French armies were held
in very high esteem by the French public and by
other nations. After World War One, these regiment standards were
generally considered ornamental and ceremonial, but they were revered nonetheless.
(04:07):
As the Nazis swept across France in the summer of
nineteen forty, those regimental standards had to be evacuated, eventually
to Marseilles on the southern coast. If Hitler's armies had
captured those symbols, it would have been a major blow
to the psyche of the French people. So here's how
the Weeping Frenchman story unfolded. When it became obvious that
the French military could not recover and push the Nazis back,
(04:30):
and as the German army was moving ever closer to Marseilles,
the French military and government decided to send those regimental
standards to their colonial possessions in North Africa for safekeeping.
The French government then decided to march those standards through
the main streets of Marseilles on their way to the ships,
and they did this in public deliberately. They were trying
(04:52):
to convey the message that they were not giving up,
that they were preserving French ideals again as symbolized by
these regims mental standards, by sending them overseas until France
itself could be liberated. French cameraman George Maja, working for
Fox Movietone News, filmed the procession but also shot footage
(05:12):
of the reactions of the people watching it. In that
film clip, you see the frenchman who's been identified as
Jerome Barzetti, weeping as those regimental standards left their rightful home.
It's a brief clip, and I've put a couple of
links to where you can see it in the blog
post for this episode. But if you look closely at
the left side of the screen, you can see perhaps
(05:34):
an image that's even more moving. To the weeping frenchman's right,
and a little behind him, there's a woman weeping and
clapping as the standards are marched by. Now that woman,
to my mind, is applauding to show her support of
the beliefs that those regimental standards represented. Yet along with
(05:54):
Jerome Barzetti, she's weeping at the same time as she's clapping.
Those two among bound up in that one person that
is believing in French ideals and applauding them and crying
that those ideals have to be preserved elsewhere. I think
makes her reaction all the more significant for historians and
people trying to understand what happened in France and how
(06:16):
it affected many French people. I wish I knew her name.
I tried, but I couldn't find it. For Americans, the
closest comparison to this scene that I can think of
would be this imagine the country was attacked and invaded
by a brutal and overwhelming foreign power, and in order
to save lives, the United States government had to surrender.
(06:39):
One of the things that the government would probably do
before Washington, DC itself fell to the invaders would be
to get the original copies of the Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution, which are housed in the National Archives,
and take them somewhere on the globe where they would
be safe, and in order to show the magnitude of
this event and the commitment preserving the original manifestations of
(07:02):
American political culture, the government might indeed hold a public
procession of these documents being taken away in an attempt
to secure their survival. You see, despite the fact that
there are innumerable copies of the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution, especially at the time in the seventeen eighties,
seventy seventies and seventy eighties made lots of copies. In
(07:24):
spite of that, the connection that American people have always
made between the true originals and the ideals they contained
is undeniable. So I'm sure that Americans would line the
streets to watch them being taken away for safekeeping, and
that they would show the same emotions that the weeping
Frenchman and the woman next to him displayed that day
(07:47):
in September nineteen forty in Marseille. And the danger of
losing a republic as we've seen in recent events makes
it perfectly understandable why Americans in twenty twenty four when
out of their way to find this eighty four year
old foreign image, and why they have used it to
show their dismay at what indeed might happen here. I
(08:12):
hope you remember what I said at the end of
the previous episode where I talked about preserving the republic
part of the battle Hymn of the Republic. The only
way that preservation can be done is by insisting that
our republic not be forgotten and by never letting any
force try to extinguish it. So let me end this
(08:33):
episode by asking you to do one thing. Go watch
the famous scene in the Hollywood classic Casablanca where the
German soldiers are at a corner table drunkenly singing one
of their triumphal songs in Rix Cafe where the film
is set. You'll remember that the true hero of that film,
Victor Laslow, outraged that this Nazi bombast, goes over to
(08:55):
the bandstand and insists that the Rix Cafe house band
play Lamasiers. Remember what he says, play La Mansiers, and
when they hesitate, he insists play it. They play it,
and the French people in the cafe are moved, start
singing quietly and build up to sing it loudly and forcefully.
(09:18):
Eventually the singing Nazis are drowned out and have to
sit down. And Americans right now must take every opportunity
we have to do exactly that. Speak loudly and forcefully
that our republic must never be overrun by barbarians.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Talk to you next time.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Wait said that all's done, so down
Speaker 2 (10:28):
You so don
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