Popular in History

Arts and Humanities

Titus Quinctius Flamininus’ “Italian triumph”

McGill University Michael Fronda

Arts and Humanities

Lincoln and the Jews

Brandeis University Jonathan Sarna

Arts and Humanities

Early Modern Natural Law Theories

University of Copenhagen Knud Haakonssen

Arts and Humanities

Phoenicians Among Others: Why Migrants Mattered in the Ancient Mediterranean

University of California San Diego Denise Demetriou

Arts and Humanities

The loneliness of leadership

University of Liverpool Elaine Chalus

Arts and Humanities

La Güera Rodríguez

Brandeis University Silvia Arrom

Arts and Humanities

The Myth of Continuity in American Gun Culture

University of California Berkeley Brian DeLay

The Politics of Industrial Collaboration during World War II: Ford France, Vichy and Nazi Germany

View more insights in Arts and Humanities - History - European History

View more figures from University of Laval

View the page of Talbot Charles Imlay

Read the Study

Did Ford SAF sabotage the German War effort by deliberately manufacturing less viehcles than they could have? Talbot Charles Imlay discusses wartime interactions change the relationship between private enterprise and government

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 30, 2024

Generating Workspace

Export as PDF

This video is a detailed account of a research project examining the relationship between French businesses and German authorities during the occupation of France in World War II, particularly focusing on the automobile industry and Ford SAF (Société Anonyme de Fabrication Ford). The researcher initially set out to explore various industries but narrowed the study down due to the complexity and volume of available material.

The project emphasizes the notion of "underproduction" as a form of resistance by French auto manufacturers, who claimed they deliberately produced less during the war to resist German demands. This video claim has been echoed in contemporary French historiography, suggesting that these companies were not collaborators but rather resistors. The researcher found extensive archival records from both German and French sources that highlight the dynamics of collaboration, institutional support for Ford SAF, and the economic pressures faced by French companies during the war.

The narrative also touches on the evolving perceptions of collaboration and resistance, particularly how the French auto companies justified their wartime actions post-liberation. The researcher underscores the complexities of the era, including shifts in production rates, the need for companies to navigate a deteriorating economy, and the interplay of interests between French firms and German occupiers.

Ultimately, the study reveals how external pressures, economic necessities, and strategic decisions shaped the operations and narratives surrounding Ford SAF and the broader French automobile industry during and after the occupation. The research highlights the intricate relationships between different actors and the motivations behind their decisions, suggesting that these dynamics are crucial for understanding the complexities of wartime economies and collaborative actions.

Language:

Export as PDF

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.125 --> 00:03.085
I started as a, as a kind of a general project to look at,

00:03.185 --> 00:06.005
French bus American businesses in occupied France

00:06.185 --> 00:07.525
across various industries.

00:07.905 --> 00:11.605
And, it soon, I soon realized that was just too big.

00:11.605 --> 00:12.925
It would take a lifetime of work.

00:12.925 --> 00:14.565
There's too many companies, too many industries.

00:15.025 --> 00:16.325
So I decided to narrow it down

00:17.185 --> 00:20.605
and I was attracted to two industries, basically.

00:20.765 --> 00:22.685
'cause they were both heavily involved with,

00:22.685 --> 00:23.805
German war production.

00:23.905 --> 00:25.725
Uh, there was the aircraft industry

00:25.725 --> 00:26.845
in the automobile industry.

00:27.705 --> 00:30.205
And basically, I chose the automobile industry

00:30.265 --> 00:31.325
for two reasons.

00:31.705 --> 00:34.045
One is that there was a lot

00:34.045 --> 00:36.445
of good French work on the aircraft industry,

00:36.465 --> 00:38.325
and I thought less on the automobile industry.

00:38.585 --> 00:42.125
And also because I stumbled on the, on this Ford SAF case,

00:42.305 --> 00:43.805
almost really by accident.

00:43.985 --> 00:48.965
Uh, and, what got me really kind of excited about it,

00:48.965 --> 00:51.445
and I suppose was this whole notion of under production.

00:52.395 --> 00:54.575
How do you, how do you, I mean, what does that mean?

00:54.735 --> 00:57.535
I mean, the claim, there's this claim that's now, I mean,

00:57.535 --> 01:00.215
French historians, make the claim

01:00.235 --> 01:02.575
or they repeat the claim that was made by,

01:02.575 --> 01:04.255
French auto producers immediately

01:04.255 --> 01:06.455
after the war, that we weren't collaborating.

01:06.595 --> 01:08.095
We, we didn't collaborate with the Germans.

01:08.095 --> 01:09.095
We were actually resistors.

01:09.795 --> 01:11.175
So, and we were resistors

01:11.175 --> 01:14.495
because we deliberately under produced, which is a kind

01:14.495 --> 01:15.975
of a fascinating argument, really,

01:15.975 --> 01:19.735
because most, when you think of most of the, the kind

01:19.735 --> 01:21.695
of the polemics around collaboration

01:21.715 --> 01:26.135
and resistance, it's about what was done is how,

01:26.155 --> 01:28.255
how do we characterize some type of activity

01:28.275 --> 01:30.175
or comportment, does this constitute resistance?

01:30.175 --> 01:31.575
Does this constitute collaboration?

01:32.735 --> 01:34.875
Uh, or is there some kind of gray area between them?

01:35.375 --> 01:38.875
But now we're in a, in a different type of world

01:38.885 --> 01:42.835
where we're, I'm, resistance is not what I did or didn't do,

01:43.175 --> 01:44.875
or resistance is not what I did,

01:44.875 --> 01:47.355
but it's what I could have done, but decided not to.

01:48.255 --> 01:50.115
And I find that's interest. I find it interesting.

01:50.115 --> 01:51.475
It's interesting kind of claim.

01:51.535 --> 01:54.035
And it's also interesting to think about

01:54.035 --> 01:55.475
how would you actually demonstrate that?

01:55.575 --> 01:57.155
And how do you, you know, how do you,

01:57.155 --> 01:58.795
how do you prove or disprove it?

01:58.795 --> 02:00.355
And can you, so

02:00.355 --> 02:02.155
that was the motivation basically for the book.

02:02.275 --> 02:03.515
I mean, I stumbled on this case.

02:03.615 --> 02:05.635
It was really, it was really an accident.

02:05.715 --> 02:06.915
I was, I was in, in Paris

02:06.975 --> 02:09.915
and in working in, in the archives,

02:09.915 --> 02:11.955
looking at post-war trial records.

02:12.895 --> 02:14.835
Uh, and then all of a sudden there was this,

02:14.845 --> 02:16.955
there was these fat dossiers

02:17.195 --> 02:20.035
with all this stuff about Ford SAF

02:20.035 --> 02:21.435
and this claim to under production.

02:21.455 --> 02:24.755
And, and so I, I kind of fell into that rabbit hole,

02:24.875 --> 02:28.315
I suppose in a way it was a bit of, peace work,

02:28.505 --> 02:30.355
because in one of the things I found,

02:30.435 --> 02:31.955
I quickly found out was there's almost no records

02:32.095 --> 02:33.155
for the company itself.

02:33.375 --> 02:36.875
Uh, the company was eventually sold,

02:37.015 --> 02:38.635
and it's peo the French company

02:38.665 --> 02:40.035
that has, that owns its records.

02:40.855 --> 02:43.355
And I went to the PEO archives, which are just outside

02:43.415 --> 02:44.555
of, Stanburg.

02:45.095 --> 02:48.195
And they've clearly been picked, gone through.

02:48.395 --> 02:50.195
I mean, after all the, the, there's,

02:50.345 --> 02:52.195
there's interesting stuff for the 1930s.

02:52.195 --> 02:53.715
There's almost nothing for the war.

02:53.715 --> 02:56.275
And then it picks up again after 1945.

02:56.295 --> 02:58.155
So clearly, clearly the company

02:58.255 --> 02:59.660
or company went through them.

02:59.905 --> 03:01.325
Uh, and so there's almost nothing.

03:01.465 --> 03:02.925
So, so then you have to then,

03:02.925 --> 03:04.325
then it was, okay, well, what do I do?

03:04.485 --> 03:07.685
I meant, so then I just started working on the

03:07.685 --> 03:09.005
German and French side.

03:09.545 --> 03:11.245
Uh, there were the German occupation records.

03:11.625 --> 03:13.485
Uh, they had various economic agencies

03:13.485 --> 03:15.805
that were involved in France,

03:16.385 --> 03:19.245
German automobile companies that were working in France.

03:19.565 --> 03:21.685
Mercedes-Benz has a very good archive.

03:21.715 --> 03:23.205
That was, that was interesting.

03:23.505 --> 03:26.395
And on the French side, basically the same thing.

03:26.575 --> 03:31.115
Uh, the, VHI archives, less,

03:31.495 --> 03:34.875
some the, renos archives are open.

03:35.255 --> 03:36.915
Uh, and there was some interesting stuff.

03:37.335 --> 03:41.875
And then what was really, I found really rich were the post.

03:42.045 --> 03:45.275
There was a postwar Fran, who was the head

03:45.275 --> 03:47.795
of the French automobile in industry during the war,

03:48.295 --> 03:50.955
was arrested in 1944, late 1944,

03:50.975 --> 03:52.115
and charged with collaboration.

03:53.295 --> 03:55.995
And he eventually, he will be, he'll be released.

03:56.495 --> 03:59.515
But the, the, the, the state, the French state,

03:59.815 --> 04:03.275
put together this immense dossier with the view to,

04:03.335 --> 04:04.875
trying him,

04:04.975 --> 04:07.595
and his defense was, I, his defense was that I,

04:07.715 --> 04:11.275
I was actually a resistor and Ford SAF is my Ford.

04:11.275 --> 04:13.195
France is my, is my, is my case.

04:13.895 --> 04:18.555
Uh, so the, the French prosecution put a huge, huge,

04:18.665 --> 04:20.715
huge doce together to try to figure this out.

04:20.715 --> 04:22.035
How were we gonna actually try him?

04:22.505 --> 04:25.355
They ended up not trying him, in part

04:25.355 --> 04:27.155
because the situation was so complicated, and

04:27.155 --> 04:30.875
because it took so long by 19 46, 47,

04:30.975 --> 04:32.395
as a different political situation.

04:32.455 --> 04:34.475
And, and so he gets, he gets released,

04:34.475 --> 04:35.715
but all the trial records are there.

04:36.255 --> 04:38.075
So I had to, I had to, I had to get permission.

04:38.075 --> 04:39.555
It wasn't that hard because,

04:39.695 --> 04:41.755
and so I, I asked, I, I got permission

04:41.815 --> 04:43.555
and I started piecing,

04:43.555 --> 04:45.955
piecing together the different, the story.

04:46.115 --> 04:49.315
I suppose. It's, and it's, it's especially

04:49.345 --> 04:52.715
because I think the underproduction to try to prove,

04:52.755 --> 04:55.675
disprove or understand under, under production, in the end,

04:55.675 --> 04:56.915
it's a circumstantial case.

04:57.015 --> 04:59.275
By its nature. There's no smoking gun.

04:59.545 --> 05:01.515
They're not gonna say, this is what we're doing.

05:02.215 --> 05:04.955
Uh, so you have to kind of look in diff you have to, yeah,

05:04.955 --> 05:06.795
there's, there's, you have to look in different places.

05:07.455 --> 05:10.475
Uh, and fortunately, I mean,

05:10.715 --> 05:12.995
although wartime records on the French

05:13.055 --> 05:15.875
and German, side are spotty in some areas,

05:16.335 --> 05:17.915
in other areas, they're very rich.

05:18.825 --> 05:21.485
Uh, for instance, the, the what, the German,

05:21.505 --> 05:24.845
the Germans had these armaments teams all across France,

05:24.905 --> 05:29.245
and they had their, their, their job essentially was to try

05:29.245 --> 05:31.085
to get some understanding of

05:31.085 --> 05:32.885
what French companies were doing, who were working

05:32.885 --> 05:34.525
for the Germans, who had German contracts.

05:35.105 --> 05:37.405
And so they could go into companies, they could look around.

05:37.865 --> 05:40.365
And those records are, are they exist?

05:40.365 --> 05:41.765
They're, they're, they're massive. Uh,

05:41.985 --> 05:44.085
and so you can get a kind of a bird's eye view

05:44.085 --> 05:45.325
or a grounds eye view

05:45.325 --> 05:46.965
of what's going on through these records.

05:47.065 --> 05:48.165
So it's just, that's one of the things.

05:48.165 --> 05:51.125
But it's fun to, you have to, yeah, for me it was kind

05:51.125 --> 05:52.285
of a voyage of discovery.

05:52.385 --> 05:53.525
You know, what is actually there.

05:53.745 --> 05:54.925
So you've got, you've got a question

05:55.745 --> 05:57.885
and you don't really know how to answer it.

05:58.065 --> 05:59.525
So you start kind of poking around

05:59.665 --> 06:01.925
and, you know, it's a bit like detective work, I suppose.

06:01.945 --> 06:03.525
You, you know, one thing leads to another

06:03.585 --> 06:04.645
and leads to another.

06:05.305 --> 06:07.765
Um, that said, there were financial limits.

06:07.965 --> 06:11.365
I mean, I, we, I had a, a fairly limited financial budget.

06:11.405 --> 06:14.725
I mean, I could've spent 20 years going, kind of poking

06:14.725 --> 06:18.125
around, but, that was not gonna be financially feasible.

06:18.145 --> 06:19.445
And at some point, you have to stop.

06:19.675 --> 06:21.565
Ford is, Ford France, or Ford.

06:21.725 --> 06:23.965
SAF is is Ford's subsidiary Ford.

06:24.105 --> 06:25.405
Um, Ford, Dearborn Ford,

06:25.405 --> 06:27.245
the United States has basically a world empire.

06:27.245 --> 06:28.845
It has an a, a European empire.

06:28.845 --> 06:29.925
There's Fords in Germany

06:30.185 --> 06:34.205
and in, in the uk, in Belgium, et cetera, et cetera.

06:34.705 --> 06:39.005
Uh, the two on the continent, the two biggest,

06:39.005 --> 06:43.085
subsidiaries were the German Ford veca and the French Ford.

06:43.825 --> 06:46.045
So, Ford

06:46.305 --> 06:49.125
and Ford, like Ford gets involved.

06:49.275 --> 06:51.125
Ford establishes itself in the 1920s,

06:51.675 --> 06:54.165
gets involved in French re armament work.

06:54.405 --> 06:55.845
'cause that's in, in the late 1930s,

06:55.845 --> 06:56.925
because that's where the money is.

06:57.185 --> 07:00.245
The French state is, is, is, is, is throwing out contracts,

07:01.025 --> 07:02.965
and decides to build this,

07:03.115 --> 07:07.245
this spanking new production facility in which is just,

07:07.245 --> 07:11.495
west of Paris, with, you know, the,

07:11.495 --> 07:13.415
the latest in machine tools,

07:14.155 --> 07:17.295
and basically this, this, this huge plant

07:17.995 --> 07:19.295
is finished more

07:19.295 --> 07:22.135
or less at the time of the, the French defeat.

07:23.195 --> 07:25.735
So, immediately the Germans are interested in this.

07:25.955 --> 07:27.615
Uh, the, the, the Germans want

07:27.615 --> 07:28.695
to mobilize the French economy.

07:29.235 --> 07:30.895
Uh, Ford's got this, this,

07:30.965 --> 07:33.735
this excellent production capacity, or at least potential.

07:34.515 --> 07:37.855
And they want, they want, they want Ford to work for them,

07:38.035 --> 07:39.255
and Ford wants to work for them.

07:39.615 --> 07:40.815
I mean, there's no, you know, French,

07:40.885 --> 07:42.935
whether American companies, French companies,

07:43.045 --> 07:44.775
there's no other, there's no other,

07:44.775 --> 07:47.055
there's no choice in 19 40, 19 41.

07:47.175 --> 07:48.735
I mean, if, if you're a French company, you're,

07:49.015 --> 07:49.895
if you're not working for the

07:49.895 --> 07:51.295
Germans, you're not, you're not working.

07:51.555 --> 07:53.895
Uh, there's just, there's, so, there's no domestic market.

07:53.895 --> 07:56.775
There's no Ford happily works for the Germans.

07:56.985 --> 07:59.975
Where it gets complicated in the Ford case is that Ford,

07:59.975 --> 08:04.535
Germany basically uses the war, tries

08:04.535 --> 08:07.255
to use the war to take over Ford's European empire,

08:07.635 --> 08:10.095
you a way to, to kind of mirroring the, the kind

08:10.095 --> 08:13.175
of the Nazi Germany's own empire for Germany.

08:14.115 --> 08:16.415
Uh, and so Ford, France doesn't want

08:16.415 --> 08:17.975
to be take taken over by Ford, Germany.

08:18.795 --> 08:21.535
Uh, so what it needs to do is it needs to find allies.

08:22.195 --> 08:24.135
And that's kind of where it gets interesting,

08:25.005 --> 08:26.375
because neither of the French

08:26.395 --> 08:28.535
nor the Germans are single actors.

08:28.735 --> 08:31.845
I mean, the German, there's different German agencies,

08:31.845 --> 08:33.285
and there's different French agencies.

08:33.425 --> 08:36.245
And what Ford, France is able to do is it's able

08:36.245 --> 08:40.045
to mobilize, the organizing committee

08:40.065 --> 08:43.045
for the automobile industry, basically Xi the, the French,

08:43.045 --> 08:46.205
the new French regime creates these,

08:46.815 --> 08:50.525
organizing committees, which are basically industry run,

08:50.575 --> 08:54.725
committees to kind of lend a certain direction to industries

08:54.725 --> 08:56.045
And sub industries in France.

08:56.625 --> 08:58.405
And one of the most important ones is the, the one

08:58.405 --> 09:00.525
for the automobile industry, which is headed by this,

09:00.755 --> 09:04.845
this guy who's from, who used to work for aut.

09:05.545 --> 09:08.805
And he decides for a variety of reasons that he's going

09:08.805 --> 09:10.325
to s he's gonna support Ford.

09:10.355 --> 09:13.885
He's gonna, he's gonna resist, the takeover of Ford,

09:13.885 --> 09:14.965
France by Ford, Germany,

09:14.965 --> 09:18.525
because Ludus larger project is to

09:19.445 --> 09:22.405
safeguard the French automobile industry in a larger German

09:22.635 --> 09:25.245
dominated Europe, 19 40, 41.

09:25.805 --> 09:27.325
Everyone thinks the war Germany has won the war.

09:27.325 --> 09:31.065
So the question is, how, how can we kind of,

09:31.405 --> 09:32.545
how can we integrate that

09:32.545 --> 09:35.425
and how can we, we kind of find our place in that?

09:36.045 --> 09:40.145
So he supports, he supports, he supports Ford.

09:41.165 --> 09:42.945
And that it gets even more interesting

09:42.945 --> 09:45.625
because, the comm, the, the organizing community

09:45.625 --> 09:49.735
for the automobile industry basically works out

09:49.805 --> 09:53.975
with the German, occupiers, a position

09:53.975 --> 09:56.335
where it's going to direct the collaboration

09:56.335 --> 09:58.255
between the French automobile industry

09:58.435 --> 09:59.975
and the German occupiers.

10:00.645 --> 10:02.735
It's so basically lit.

10:02.835 --> 10:05.215
You is trying to get this bargain where we will work

10:05.215 --> 10:07.615
for you, but you will leave us independent.

10:07.665 --> 10:09.175
We'll be able to, and we'll use

10:09.415 --> 10:12.015
that independence in the long run to carve out a place

10:12.015 --> 10:15.015
for us in, in a German occupy in Europe,

10:15.065 --> 10:17.255
where the German industry would be the most important.

10:18.275 --> 10:21.495
So basically that's, that's, that's what happens.

10:21.915 --> 10:25.335
Uh, Ford, Ford France is able to count on

10:26.765 --> 10:30.225
the fact that it has the support of this, of the,

10:30.445 --> 10:31.665
the committee that's running the,

10:31.665 --> 10:34.145
basically running the French automobile industry.

10:35.485 --> 10:40.065
And the Germans desperately need the goodwill

10:40.165 --> 10:41.705
of the French automobile industry.

10:42.045 --> 10:45.345
But the Germans are, are, are in a difficult position

10:45.345 --> 10:47.585
to a certain extent, increase during the war.

10:47.585 --> 10:51.435
They increasingly need French production, is,

10:51.635 --> 10:53.435
I mean, they just, they, they, they, they need

10:53.435 --> 10:56.035
to mobilize the economies of Western Europe,

10:56.035 --> 10:59.035
during a kind of a global war against the uk

10:59.335 --> 11:00.475
the US and the Soviet Union.

11:00.535 --> 11:02.715
So they, they, but at the same time,

11:03.745 --> 11:05.515
they can't run this themselves.

11:05.515 --> 11:07.315
They can't take over these industries themselves.

11:07.315 --> 11:09.395
They don't have the manpower. They don't have the expertise.

11:09.895 --> 11:11.515
So they need, they need, they need,

11:11.515 --> 11:12.955
they need the, they need collaboration.

11:13.775 --> 11:16.875
Um, and so basically kind of, you know,

11:16.875 --> 11:19.955
make a long story short, they have to kind

11:19.955 --> 11:22.075
of count on the goodwill,

11:22.535 --> 11:24.475
of the French automobile industry.

11:25.195 --> 11:26.675
I mean, they'll, they'll kind of fuel

11:26.675 --> 11:27.995
that goodwill with incentives.

11:28.085 --> 11:29.715
We'll give you plenty of money, we'll do,

11:29.735 --> 11:32.835
but basically they need the French to work for them,

11:33.615 --> 11:36.435
and they need to convince the French to work

11:36.435 --> 11:37.675
as hard as they can for them.

11:37.855 --> 11:38.995
And that's the kind of the German

11:38.995 --> 11:40.515
challenge, the German dilemma.

11:40.655 --> 11:43.155
How do you actually do that? I use Ford as a case

11:43.495 --> 11:46.435
for showing how that becomes difficult initially.

11:46.435 --> 11:49.875
There's no problem in 19 40, 41, 42, Ford

11:49.895 --> 11:51.555
and other French companies are,

11:51.695 --> 11:52.995
are happy to work for the Germans.

11:53.190 --> 11:54.770
I mean, as I said, there's, there's no one else.

11:54.995 --> 11:58.045
Germany's won the war will, but is,

11:58.265 --> 12:02.085
but be in 19 42, 19 43, things began to shift.

12:02.085 --> 12:03.285
There's good reasons to think

12:03.285 --> 12:04.885
that maybe Germany won't win the war,

12:05.185 --> 12:06.845
or at least the war will end in some,

12:06.905 --> 12:09.165
in some other way than simply a German victory.

12:10.305 --> 12:12.645
Uh, need to think about the post-war.

12:12.865 --> 12:15.125
Uh, we need to position ourselves for the post-war.

12:15.795 --> 12:18.245
Perhaps we need to scale back collaboration

12:18.245 --> 12:22.365
because, we'll, at the end of the war, we might be charged

12:22.435 --> 12:23.725
with, it might,

12:23.795 --> 12:25.405
what looks good in 1941 might

12:25.425 --> 12:26.565
not look good at the end of the war.

12:26.985 --> 12:29.325
So interests, the interest

12:29.325 --> 12:31.045
of the French automobile companies

12:31.265 --> 12:32.765
change, or some of them change.

12:33.385 --> 12:37.745
Uh, and so it's this kind of relationship between interest

12:37.745 --> 12:41.465
and incentives against a changing backdrop of the war that

12:42.065 --> 12:43.225
I think Ford, the,

12:43.325 --> 12:45.665
the Ford Ford is a way to tell that story.

12:45.925 --> 12:47.985
You basically, you, you have two things that

12:48.645 --> 12:49.705
as French companies

12:50.115 --> 12:53.705
after the war are charged with collaboration, they're,

12:53.705 --> 12:55.425
you know, they're accused of collaborating with the Germans.

12:55.425 --> 12:57.305
They work for the Germans. They can't deny that.

12:57.425 --> 12:58.705
I mean, the 85%

12:58.705 --> 13:00.905
of French automobile production went to the Germans.

13:01.405 --> 13:03.825
In other industries, it's, it's similar figures.

13:03.895 --> 13:05.945
They vary a bit. What do they, what do they do?

13:06.005 --> 13:08.065
So, so they're one of the, one of the arguments

13:08.065 --> 13:09.625
and one of the principal arguments become, well, we,

13:09.645 --> 13:11.985
we didn't actually, yes, we worked for the Germans.

13:12.045 --> 13:15.385
Yes, we did that. But we, what we did is we, we tried

13:15.765 --> 13:17.105
to work as little as possible.

13:17.165 --> 13:18.745
We deliberately under produced.

13:19.375 --> 13:20.745
This is, so this is the argument,

13:20.765 --> 13:23.185
and you can, this is an argument that begins in 1944,

13:23.485 --> 13:26.185
and we deliberation almost immediately French,

13:26.185 --> 13:28.185
French companies who know that they're going to, you know,

13:28.185 --> 13:29.265
they're, they're going to be asked,

13:29.265 --> 13:30.385
what did you do during the war?

13:30.845 --> 13:33.185
Uh, so they need to, they need to justify themselves.

13:34.205 --> 13:37.105
What's interesting is that this claim is, French,

13:37.205 --> 13:38.985
French historians are now kind

13:38.985 --> 13:40.825
of basically echoing this claim.

13:41.565 --> 13:43.825
Uh, so the, the, they're basically, you know, the, we,

13:43.885 --> 13:46.625
we should stop thinking of, these companies

13:46.625 --> 13:48.785
as collaborators, and we should see them more as resistors

13:48.785 --> 13:50.465
that they, that they deliberately under produce.

13:51.205 --> 13:54.825
And the principle argument, aside from the, the, the,

13:54.925 --> 13:56.985
the kind of, the, the affirmations of the, the,

13:56.985 --> 13:59.705
the companies is to compare wartime and,

14:00.005 --> 14:01.705
and pre-war production figures.

14:01.965 --> 14:05.665
So basically, the French automobile industry was producing

14:05.765 --> 14:09.425
so much in 19 38, 39, let's say, or maybe up to 1940.

14:09.965 --> 14:13.585
And during 19 40, 19 44, 19 45,

14:14.045 --> 14:16.985
it produced considerably less, which is undeniable.

14:17.245 --> 14:21.745
Um, and so, ergo the problem with that argument,

14:21.905 --> 14:23.825
I think obviously it's the French economy's shrinking.

14:24.185 --> 14:25.825
I mean, the, there's, there's no, it,

14:25.825 --> 14:27.025
it is massively shrinking.

14:27.125 --> 14:30.025
So there's no way the French automobile in industry could

14:30.025 --> 14:34.865
have produced as much, as much as it did before the war.

14:34.865 --> 14:36.545
It's just, it's just not, so you can't,

14:36.545 --> 14:38.305
that it itself can't be an argument.

14:38.965 --> 14:41.465
So what do you do? I mean, do you dismiss the argument

14:41.465 --> 14:43.745
because it's self-serving, which it is,

14:44.215 --> 14:45.505
it's, you know, there's, there's there.

14:46.365 --> 14:51.025
Or do you, do you kind of, okay, how would we actually,

14:51.025 --> 14:52.345
actually, how would we actually do this?

14:52.885 --> 14:55.145
Now, an economist might say, well,

14:55.145 --> 14:56.265
what we're gonna do is we're gonna try

14:56.265 --> 14:57.465
to fix what could have been done.

14:58.765 --> 15:01.265
Uh, we're gonna kind of in, in, you know,

15:01.365 --> 15:03.025
hypothetically we're, we're going to,

15:03.525 --> 15:05.505
but you can't, that's practically impossible.

15:05.655 --> 15:07.545
It's practically, it's practically impossible to say what,

15:07.775 --> 15:09.745
because that would be the easiest way, kind

15:09.745 --> 15:11.065
of you would say, okay, bef

15:11.065 --> 15:13.345
before the war, we did this, this is what we could have done

15:13.345 --> 15:15.425
during the war, and this is what we did.

15:15.445 --> 15:17.425
So was it above, below or above?

15:17.845 --> 15:21.345
But it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just too complicated.

15:21.345 --> 15:23.785
There's too many factors. Uh, the French,

15:23.965 --> 15:28.105
the French economies in crisis from 19 40, 40 to 45

15:29.525 --> 15:33.105
to, to try to artificially fix what could have been done,

15:33.605 --> 15:35.945
doesn't seem to me possible.

15:36.005 --> 15:38.385
And it would be, anyway, any figure would be contentious.

15:39.045 --> 15:42.705
So you have to think, I think you have to look at elsewhere.

15:42.725 --> 15:46.245
You have to, you have to see what, how to put it, how,

15:46.445 --> 15:48.365
I guess for me, I, I was thinking, I was thinking

15:48.365 --> 15:51.395
of incentives and interests,

15:52.655 --> 15:54.875
and what struck me, one of the things

15:54.875 --> 15:56.715
that struck me early on is

15:56.715 --> 15:58.995
that the Germans really didn't know what was going on.

15:59.695 --> 16:01.755
And I think this is at a macro level and a micro level.

16:02.255 --> 16:05.195
The German occupiers didn't really understand

16:05.195 --> 16:06.515
what was going on in the French economy.

16:06.545 --> 16:07.915
They, they, they felt that they were,

16:07.985 --> 16:09.195
they were, they didn't know.

16:09.195 --> 16:11.035
There, there's this constant, in, in the German records,

16:11.035 --> 16:12.195
there's this constant complaint

16:12.195 --> 16:13.275
that we just don't know what's going on.

16:13.275 --> 16:14.435
We don't have the information.

16:15.775 --> 16:20.595
And, this got me thinking about information

16:20.705 --> 16:22.915
asymmetries, which are what economists like that.

16:22.915 --> 16:24.635
But basically it's just that, it's,

16:24.955 --> 16:26.875
it's an actor agent model.

16:27.195 --> 16:30.485
I mean, I, you know, if, if I hire a plumber,

16:30.765 --> 16:32.805
I hire a plumber because he knows he has a skill

16:32.805 --> 16:35.805
that I don't, because he can fix my, he can fix my sink.

16:36.705 --> 16:38.605
Now, I, I don't, he,

16:38.705 --> 16:41.525
and that skill gives him an principle, a certain leverage.

16:41.865 --> 16:44.685
He knows, you know, he can, he can, he can exploit me.

16:45.225 --> 16:46.965
Uh, how do I prevent that?

16:46.965 --> 16:48.805
Or how do I limit the possibility of that?

16:49.585 --> 16:52.965
Uh, so normally in peace time, there's a variety of ways.

16:52.965 --> 16:56.405
There's contracts, there's quality checks, guarantees,

16:57.105 --> 17:00.285
but none of that really works in war time,

17:00.285 --> 17:03.285
especially in a condition in a, in a situation of crisis.

17:03.785 --> 17:05.845
And you think about the French economy, which is in,

17:06.025 --> 17:09.285
in crisis and just crisis defined by a lack

17:09.285 --> 17:10.325
of almost everything.

17:10.645 --> 17:12.365
I mean, the lack of all factors of production.

17:12.985 --> 17:17.565
Uh, so what happens is, I think in that situation is that

17:18.975 --> 17:21.755
the asym, the information asymmetry widens

17:22.185 --> 17:26.155
because more, the ability to get anything done depends more

17:26.155 --> 17:29.755
and more on local contextual knowledge.

17:30.615 --> 17:35.415
Uh, so if, basically what happens is that the, the Ford

17:35.415 --> 17:38.975
and the other companies, they have the ability to,

17:40.165 --> 17:42.775
they have the ability to deal with the crisis

17:42.775 --> 17:45.485
because it basically takes resourcefulness.

17:46.105 --> 17:49.205
You have to kind of, you have to, you have, you know how

17:49.205 --> 17:51.325
to get things done, you know, where to find suppliers

17:51.325 --> 17:55.885
and sub-suppliers, you know, how to lobby,

17:55.885 --> 17:57.685
certain departments, certain agencies,

17:58.185 --> 18:01.165
and all that type of expertise in the situation

18:01.165 --> 18:02.725
of crisis becomes more and more important.

18:03.625 --> 18:06.045
Uh, so, and that's the kind of expertise

18:06.045 --> 18:07.645
that the Germans absolutely don't have.

18:08.265 --> 18:12.405
And as the, as the crisis deepens, the ju that, that, that,

18:12.675 --> 18:16.445
that, that information asymmetry widens, which means

18:16.445 --> 18:19.125
that the French have a French company like Ford has

18:19.235 --> 18:20.525
greater room for maneuver.

18:21.765 --> 18:24.285
Uh, it can do less

18:24.795 --> 18:27.525
because not only has it the ability to,

18:27.545 --> 18:31.285
but the Germans can't really assess what it's doing.

18:32.105 --> 18:34.965
So the ar, so this is why, this is why, so

18:35.545 --> 18:38.605
my argument about Underproduction was that the,

18:39.125 --> 18:41.605
a company like Ford, SAF can, has the ability

18:41.625 --> 18:43.485
to, to do less.

18:43.905 --> 18:47.325
Uh, the Germans can't really figure out what it's doing.

18:49.135 --> 18:51.825
Plus it has increasingly an interest to do less

18:52.325 --> 18:54.105
for a variety of reasons that I explained in the books.

18:54.125 --> 18:56.425
The fact that it's, it's, it's looking to the postwar,

18:56.845 --> 19:00.025
the fact that the Germans are increasingly desperate

19:00.205 --> 19:03.545
and working for the Germans means to a certain extent

19:04.115 --> 19:06.945
mortgaging your post-war for the war time, which

19:07.565 --> 19:09.105
French company doesn't want to do.

19:09.645 --> 19:12.265
Uh, so you have a combination of interest

19:12.645 --> 19:16.125
and interest, incentive and possibility.

19:17.315 --> 19:18.375
And plus, I mean, I try

19:18.375 --> 19:20.135
to make a circumstantial case in the book, what, what,

19:20.135 --> 19:22.975
what essentially what foreign does is that it just delays,

19:23.315 --> 19:24.455
it constantly delays,

19:24.455 --> 19:26.735
it argues about everything, everything.

19:26.835 --> 19:30.775
It, it try and so it just drags it out, drags it out.

19:30.955 --> 19:33.535
And that's not a bad strategy in late, you know, kind

19:33.535 --> 19:37.335
of from mid 1943 on to kind of just push, keep, push,

19:37.335 --> 19:39.735
kicking the ball, kicking the can down the road.

19:40.555 --> 19:41.735
Uh, and,

19:42.115 --> 19:44.375
but what's important, I think to,

19:44.395 --> 19:46.575
to emphasize is it's not a political decision.

19:46.645 --> 19:47.655
This is not resistant.

19:47.655 --> 19:50.855
They're not, Ford is not, in principle, opposed

19:50.875 --> 19:51.975
to working for the Germans.

19:51.975 --> 19:55.375
It was in 19 40, 41, it was very happy to, it's just

19:55.375 --> 19:56.695
that 1942,

19:56.995 --> 20:00.935
and especially 19 43, 19 44, it's no longer in its interests

20:01.355 --> 20:05.295
how it, to do so, and it can slow down.

20:05.915 --> 20:10.175
So in a way, the argument becomes, if you argue

20:10.175 --> 20:13.335
that Ford did everything it could, then you have to argue

20:13.335 --> 20:14.935
that it went against its own,

20:16.255 --> 20:17.755
its own sense of its interests.

20:18.185 --> 20:21.155
When everything it did up to them suggests that

20:21.585 --> 20:22.875
what it does, it's, it's a very

20:22.875 --> 20:24.555
self-interested, rational actor.

20:25.015 --> 20:27.555
So that was in a way, so that, and I,

20:28.135 --> 20:29.955
and I don't think Ford was, I mean,

20:30.015 --> 20:31.875
Ford's case is a little more complicated

20:31.875 --> 20:34.075
because it's an American owned company,

20:34.075 --> 20:35.715
because it's part of a, a, an empire,

20:35.795 --> 20:37.235
a Ford empire that's European.

20:37.895 --> 20:41.715
But the same dynamics seem to me, I mean, there's,

20:41.715 --> 20:44.155
there's a case to be made that the same dynamics are, are,

20:44.465 --> 20:45.595
there's no reason to believe

20:45.595 --> 20:47.115
that they're not reproducible elsewhere.

20:47.485 --> 20:49.805
I would, I say, I think that,

20:50.805 --> 20:53.725
Xi is much more interventionist, partly

20:53.725 --> 20:54.725
because it's politic.

20:54.835 --> 20:58.005
It's, it's, it's p it's a, it's politically oriented to do

20:58.005 --> 20:59.045
so, but also

20:59.045 --> 21:00.925
because of the nature of the fact

21:00.925 --> 21:02.405
that the French economies in crisis

21:02.585 --> 21:04.245
and they need to manage the Germans.

21:04.985 --> 21:09.725
Uh, so VII is much more, is much more interventionist.

21:09.905 --> 21:12.445
Uh, there's a sense of planning, the,

21:12.445 --> 21:15.885
the French economy, what changes, between the wartime

21:16.065 --> 21:20.085
and the post-war is that VII is a much more kind

21:20.085 --> 21:23.165
of in self industry planning model.

21:23.755 --> 21:27.285
Basically, what we want to do is, is make it,

21:27.515 --> 21:29.125
prod the industry itself.

21:29.195 --> 21:30.525
That usually means that the biggest,

21:30.545 --> 21:35.085
the most important companies to plan, to, to, to plan,

21:35.105 --> 21:38.045
to organize, their industry or sub-industry

21:38.375 --> 21:40.365
after the war, the state is gonna be,

21:40.505 --> 21:42.565
is gonna take a much more important role in that.

21:42.675 --> 21:44.645
With its, with its plan, it's, it's, it's,

21:44.645 --> 21:45.845
its various five year plans.

21:46.505 --> 21:51.045
But that's not so much a function of negotiations,

21:51.045 --> 21:54.125
wartime negotiations with the Germans as a kind

21:54.125 --> 21:55.365
of wartime experience.

21:55.825 --> 21:59.765
Uh, I meant the Vichy is a, among other things,

21:59.865 --> 22:03.365
is an exercise in planning and economic planning.

22:03.585 --> 22:05.885
And there's much, there's a great deal of continuity,

22:05.885 --> 22:09.685
both in terms of, of, of thinking, in terms of personnel

22:09.685 --> 22:11.525
between VII and the Fourth Republic.

22:12.265 --> 22:15.725
Uh, and basically with some tweaking,

22:15.725 --> 22:18.045
the fourth Republic kind of picks up where VII left off.

22:18.165 --> 22:19.885
I mean, there's, there's not break.

22:20.185 --> 22:22.435
Uh, so that, that's what I would say.

22:22.455 --> 22:23.635
So it, it does change,

22:23.655 --> 22:26.155
but I don't think it's, it's the kind of the urgency of war.

22:26.235 --> 22:30.355
I mean, the, the, you have, if there's one thing

22:30.355 --> 22:31.515
that's important to understand is

22:31.515 --> 22:33.395
that France is just in an economic crisis.

22:33.835 --> 22:36.555
I mean, it's, the situation is just dire

22:36.555 --> 22:40.915
and getting dire, throughout the occupation.

22:41.215 --> 22:43.955
So the, this, in a way, the, the, the state can't,

22:44.805 --> 22:46.305
hold back.

22:46.485 --> 22:47.905
It has to, it has to come in,

22:47.905 --> 22:49.785
and then you've got the Germans,

22:49.965 --> 22:50.985
and they need to, you know,

22:51.095 --> 22:52.905
what the French state doesn't want to do is

22:52.905 --> 22:55.185
to let the companies alone deal

22:55.185 --> 22:57.025
with the Germans for a variety of reasons.

22:57.205 --> 22:58.945
That's, I, I imagine that was a tough question.

22:59.985 --> 23:03.545
I, I, I, I don't, I mean, I, you know, I mean, there's,

23:03.545 --> 23:04.545
there's the history of it.

23:04.585 --> 23:07.305
I mean, I find, I, I I kind of find kind of

23:08.255 --> 23:09.425
political economics

23:09.425 --> 23:11.545
and the dynamics of political economics fascinating.

23:11.545 --> 23:14.385
And to think about, to think about how they work in wartime

23:14.685 --> 23:17.185
and, and not necessarily war time.

23:17.405 --> 23:20.185
But I, I think it, for me, it would be the, the,

23:20.245 --> 23:22.185
and this is because I'm an academic probably,

23:22.185 --> 23:24.345
and I work in a kind of a heavily bureaucratized

23:24.575 --> 23:28.465
environment, but I think it's the, the relationship

23:28.465 --> 23:30.865
between incentive structures and interests.

23:31.225 --> 23:35.825
I think we, we tend, I think we tend, I do probably to think

23:35.825 --> 23:39.305
that we have much more kind of free choice than we do,

23:39.675 --> 23:42.225
where in fact we're embedded, I think con in, in,

23:42.245 --> 23:44.585
in incentive structures, in a variety of systems,

23:44.585 --> 23:47.205
instructions, you know, economically, politically, socially.

23:47.285 --> 23:48.925
I mean, there's, there's all kinds of them at work,

23:49.025 --> 23:50.085
elsewhere.

23:50.945 --> 23:54.805
And those shape how we assess our interests.

23:54.805 --> 23:56.725
And I think, I think it's fascinating to think about that

23:57.465 --> 24:00.005
at the same time we're, it's not like we're just automatons.

24:00.005 --> 24:02.205
We're just not, you know, we're, we're we, we,

24:02.385 --> 24:03.885
we can challenge those

24:03.885 --> 24:06.725
and we can oppose them, we can resist, we can push them.

24:07.265 --> 24:08.765
And that, and people do that.

24:09.005 --> 24:11.685
I think actors do that in various ways, which is,

24:11.685 --> 24:13.605
which is kind of interesting and important to,

24:13.745 --> 24:18.125
but I also think that incentive structures have a built in

24:18.915 --> 24:22.205
self undermining, element,

24:22.855 --> 24:24.605
which comes from the fact that,

24:24.795 --> 24:26.525
that we are strategic actors.

24:27.275 --> 24:30.125
When you have an incentive structure, our,

24:30.405 --> 24:33.005
I think the tendency to try to game it, to try

24:33.005 --> 24:35.245
to gain advantage, because, you know, we, so we try,

24:35.465 --> 24:38.325
and in doing that, you kind of push the incentive structure

24:38.905 --> 24:42.205
in different ways, and you, you change you

24:42.225 --> 24:44.325
or you modify your se your interests.

24:44.385 --> 24:46.485
And I see this constantly in academ.

24:46.845 --> 24:49.605
I mean, if, if you tell people to do something, you have

24:49.605 --> 24:51.365
to do this, they'll do it,

24:51.365 --> 24:52.565
but they'll do it in their own way.

24:52.865 --> 24:55.445
Uh, and they'll try to kind of, they'll, they'll,

24:55.445 --> 24:57.445
they'll try to, they kind of do it in the way

24:57.445 --> 24:59.165
that best serve their interests.

24:59.635 --> 25:01.885
What you have is what economists call perverse effects,

25:02.735 --> 25:05.925
where the initial, the initial aim

25:05.925 --> 25:07.925
of the incentive structure no longer holds.

25:08.105 --> 25:12.105
And for me, the, the Ford case shows that very well.

25:12.225 --> 25:14.025
I mean, you have the Germans

25:14.025 --> 25:15.145
think they know what they're doing.

25:15.565 --> 25:17.265
Uh, they have, they, they think they can

25:17.945 --> 25:19.945
convince the French companies to do what they want.

25:20.645 --> 25:23.745
And yet, in the end, French companies end up doing

25:23.745 --> 25:24.745
what they want, partly

25:24.745 --> 25:26.945
because of the perverse effects of the incentive structures.

25:26.945 --> 25:28.305
I mean, the Germans throw a lot of money,

25:28.725 --> 25:29.985
and you would think, well, you know,

25:30.465 --> 25:31.945
everyone profit mode it, that's gonna work.

25:31.945 --> 25:33.385
We're getting, we've got lots of money, but at a certain

25:33.385 --> 25:35.225
point, that becomes a negative incentive

25:35.225 --> 25:36.465
because you have too much money,

25:36.485 --> 25:37.705
and so you don't need anymore.

25:38.245 --> 25:40.185
And so you can, it allows you to do other things.

25:40.525 --> 25:43.025
So I think this, this kind of interaction between,

25:43.125 --> 25:45.385
and then incentive structures and interests

25:45.805 --> 25:48.745
and how that, that shapes what we do,

25:48.905 --> 25:50.305
I think I find that fascinating.

25:50.345 --> 25:52.785
I find it, I find in general, I find it,

25:52.825 --> 25:53.825
I find it fascinating.

25:53.845 --> 25:56.425
And, and so, yeah, you know, the old, what, you know,

25:56.425 --> 25:58.425
you know, marks about we make our lives or whatever,

25:58.425 --> 26:00.825
and make our choices, but not in the way we, we think we do.

26:01.025 --> 26:03.105
I think there's something, there's a lot

26:03.105 --> 26:04.345
to be said, said about that.

26:04.805 --> 26:09.585
Uh, but I'm probably, you know, in French, they, this idea

26:09.585 --> 26:11.545
that I, I've been in ade too long,

26:11.605 --> 26:15.225
and so, you know, I've just, I just, you know,

26:15.415 --> 26:18.025
bureaucracy is, you know, bureaucracy is my life.

26:18.125 --> 26:20.825
So I, I, and bureaucracies are great

26:20.825 --> 26:21.945
for incentive structures

26:21.945 --> 26:24.265
and how people kind of try to treat, tweak them

26:24.405 --> 26:25.785
and, and gain advantage.

26:26.245 --> 26:29.625
Uh, so I, yeah, I would say maybe, maybe that in general.

00:00 - I started as a, as a kind of a general project to look at, French bus American businesses in occupied France across various industries. And, it soon, I soon realized that was just too big. It would take a lifetime of work. There's too many companies, too many industries.

00:15 - So I decided to narrow it down and I was attracted to two industries, basically. 'cause they were both heavily involved with, German war production. there was the aircraft industry in the automobile industry. And basically, I chose the automobile industry for two reasons. One is that there was a lot of good French work on the aircraft industry,

00:36 - and I thought less on the automobile industry. And also because I stumbled on the, on this Ford SAF case, almost really by accident. and, what got me really kind of excited about it, and I suppose was this whole notion of under production. How do you, how do you, I mean, what does that mean? I mean, the claim, there's this claim that's now, I mean, French historians, make the claim or they repeat the claim that was made by, French auto producers immediately

01:04 - after the war, that we weren't collaborating. We, we didn't collaborate with the Germans. We were actually resistors. So, and we were resistors because we deliberately under produced, which is a kind of a fascinating argument, really, because most, when you think of most of the, the kind of the polemics around collaboration and resistance, it's about what was done is how, how do we characterize some type of activity

01:28 - or comportment, does this constitute resistance? Does this constitute collaboration? or is there some kind of gray area between them? But now we're in a, in a different type of world where we're, I'm, resistance is not what I did or didn't do, or resistance is not what I did, but it's what I could have done, but decided not to. And I find that's interest. I find it interesting. It's interesting kind of claim. And it's also interesting to think about

01:54 - how would you actually demonstrate that? And how do you, you know, how do you, how do you prove or disprove it? And can you, so that was the motivation basically for the book. I mean, I stumbled on this case. It was really, it was really an accident. I was, I was in, in Paris and in working in, in the archives, looking at post-war trial records.

02:12 - and then all of a sudden there was this, there was these fat dossiers with all this stuff about Ford SAF and this claim to under production. And, and so I, I kind of fell into that rabbit hole, I suppose in a way it was a bit of, peace work, because in one of the things I found, I quickly found out was there's almost no records for the company itself. the company was eventually sold,

02:37 - and it's peo the French company that has, that owns its records. And I went to the PEO archives, which are just outside of, Stanburg. And they've clearly been picked, gone through. I mean, after all the, the, there's, there's interesting stuff for the 1930s. There's almost nothing for the war. And then it picks up again after 1945. So clearly, clearly the company

02:58 - or company went through them. and so there's almost nothing. So, so then you have to then, then it was, okay, well, what do I do? I meant, so then I just started working on the German and French side. there were the German occupation records. they had various economic agencies that were involved in France, German automobile companies that were working in France.

03:19 - Mercedes-Benz has a very good archive. That was, that was interesting. And on the French side, basically the same thing. the, VHI archives, less, some the, renos archives are open. and there was some interesting stuff. And then what was really, I found really rich were the post. There was a postwar Fran, who was the head of the French automobile in industry during the war, was arrested in 1944, late 1944,

03:50 - and charged with collaboration. And he eventually, he will be, he'll be released. But the, the, the, the state, the French state, put together this immense dossier with the view to, trying him, and his defense was, I, his defense was that I, I was actually a resistor and Ford SAF is my Ford. France is my, is my, is my case. so the, the French prosecution put a huge, huge, huge doce together to try to figure this out.

04:20 - How were we gonna actually try him? They ended up not trying him, in part because the situation was so complicated, and because it took so long by 19 46, 47, as a different political situation. And, and so he gets, he gets released, but all the trial records are there. So I had to, I had to, I had to get permission. It wasn't that hard because, and so I, I asked, I, I got permission

04:41 - and I started piecing, piecing together the different, the story. I suppose. It's, and it's, it's especially because I think the underproduction to try to prove, disprove or understand under, under production, in the end, it's a circumstantial case. By its nature. There's no smoking gun. They're not gonna say, this is what we're doing. so you have to kind of look in diff you have to, yeah, there's, there's, you have to look in different places.

05:07 - and fortunately, I mean, although wartime records on the French and German, side are spotty in some areas, in other areas, they're very rich. for instance, the, the what, the German, the Germans had these armaments teams all across France, and they had their, their, their job essentially was to try to get some understanding of what French companies were doing, who were working for the Germans, who had German contracts.

05:35 - And so they could go into companies, they could look around. And those records are, are they exist? They're, they're, they're massive. and so you can get a kind of a bird's eye view or a grounds eye view of what's going on through these records. So it's just, that's one of the things. But it's fun to, you have to, yeah, for me it was kind of a voyage of discovery. You know, what is actually there.

05:53 - So you've got, you've got a question and you don't really know how to answer it. So you start kind of poking around and, you know, it's a bit like detective work, I suppose. You, you know, one thing leads to another and leads to another. that said, there were financial limits. I mean, I, we, I had a, a fairly limited financial budget. I mean, I could've spent 20 years going, kind of poking around, but, that was not gonna be financially feasible.

06:18 - And at some point, you have to stop. Ford is, Ford France, or Ford. SAF is is Ford's subsidiary Ford. Ford, Dearborn Ford, the United States has basically a world empire. It has an a, a European empire. There's Fords in Germany and in, in the uk, in Belgium, et cetera, et cetera. the two on the continent, the two biggest, subsidiaries were the German Ford veca and the French Ford.

06:43 - So, Ford and Ford, like Ford gets involved. Ford establishes itself in the 1920s, gets involved in French re armament work. 'cause that's in, in the late 1930s, because that's where the money is. The French state is, is, is, is, is throwing out contracts, and decides to build this, this spanking new production facility in which is just, west of Paris, with, you know, the,

07:11 - the latest in machine tools, and basically this, this, this huge plant is finished more or less at the time of the, the French defeat. So, immediately the Germans are interested in this. the, the, the Germans want to mobilize the French economy. Ford's got this, this, this excellent production capacity, or at least potential. And they want, they want, they want Ford to work for them,

07:38 - and Ford wants to work for them. I mean, there's no, you know, French, whether American companies, French companies, there's no other, there's no other, there's no choice in 19 40, 19 41. I mean, if, if you're a French company, you're, if you're not working for the Germans, you're not, you're not working. there's just, there's, so, there's no domestic market. There's no Ford happily works for the Germans.

07:56 - Where it gets complicated in the Ford case is that Ford, Germany basically uses the war, tries to use the war to take over Ford's European empire, you a way to, to kind of mirroring the, the kind of the Nazi Germany's own empire for Germany. and so Ford, France doesn't want to be take taken over by Ford, Germany. so what it needs to do is it needs to find allies. And that's kind of where it gets interesting, because neither of the French

08:26 - nor the Germans are single actors. I mean, the German, there's different German agencies, and there's different French agencies. And what Ford, France is able to do is it's able to mobilize, the organizing committee for the automobile industry, basically Xi the, the French, the new French regime creates these, organizing committees, which are basically industry run, committees to kind of lend a certain direction to industries And sub industries in France.

08:56 - And one of the most important ones is the, the one for the automobile industry, which is headed by this, this guy who's from, who used to work for aut. And he decides for a variety of reasons that he's going to s he's gonna support Ford. He's gonna, he's gonna resist, the takeover of Ford, France by Ford, Germany, because Ludus larger project is to safeguard the French automobile industry in a larger German dominated Europe, 19 40, 41.

09:25 - Everyone thinks the war Germany has won the war. So the question is, how, how can we kind of, how can we integrate that and how can we, we kind of find our place in that? So he supports, he supports, he supports Ford. And that it gets even more interesting because, the comm, the, the organizing community for the automobile industry basically works out with the German, occupiers, a position where it's going to direct the collaboration

09:56 - between the French automobile industry and the German occupiers. It's so basically lit. You is trying to get this bargain where we will work for you, but you will leave us independent. We'll be able to, and we'll use that independence in the long run to carve out a place for us in, in a German occupy in Europe, where the German industry would be the most important. So basically that's, that's, that's what happens.

10:21 - Ford, Ford France is able to count on the fact that it has the support of this, of the, the committee that's running the, basically running the French automobile industry. And the Germans desperately need the goodwill of the French automobile industry. But the Germans are, are, are in a difficult position to a certain extent, increase during the war. They increasingly need French production, is, I mean, they just, they, they, they, they need

10:53 - to mobilize the economies of Western Europe, during a kind of a global war against the uk the US and the Soviet Union. So they, they, but at the same time, they can't run this themselves. They can't take over these industries themselves. They don't have the manpower. They don't have the expertise. So they need, they need, they need, they need the, they need collaboration. and so basically kind of, you know,

11:16 - make a long story short, they have to kind of count on the goodwill, of the French automobile industry. I mean, they'll, they'll kind of fuel that goodwill with incentives. We'll give you plenty of money, we'll do, but basically they need the French to work for them, and they need to convince the French to work as hard as they can for them. And that's the kind of the German

11:38 - challenge, the German dilemma. How do you actually do that? I use Ford as a case for showing how that becomes difficult initially. There's no problem in 19 40, 41, 42, Ford and other French companies are, are happy to work for the Germans. I mean, as I said, there's, there's no one else. Germany's won the war will, but is, but be in 19 42, 19 43, things began to shift. There's good reasons to think

12:03 - that maybe Germany won't win the war, or at least the war will end in some, in some other way than simply a German victory. need to think about the post-war. we need to position ourselves for the post-war. Perhaps we need to scale back collaboration because, we'll, at the end of the war, we might be charged with, it might, what looks good in 1941 might not look good at the end of the war.

12:26 - So interests, the interest of the French automobile companies change, or some of them change. and so it's this kind of relationship between interest and incentives against a changing backdrop of the war that I think Ford, the, the Ford Ford is a way to tell that story. You basically, you, you have two things that as French companies after the war are charged with collaboration, they're,

12:53 - you know, they're accused of collaborating with the Germans. They work for the Germans. They can't deny that. I mean, the 85% of French automobile production went to the Germans. In other industries, it's, it's similar figures. They vary a bit. What do they, what do they do? So, so they're one of the, one of the arguments and one of the principal arguments become, well, we, we didn't actually, yes, we worked for the Germans. Yes, we did that. But we, what we did is we, we tried

13:15 - to work as little as possible. We deliberately under produced. This is, so this is the argument, and you can, this is an argument that begins in 1944, and we deliberation almost immediately French, French companies who know that they're going to, you know, they're, they're going to be asked, what did you do during the war? so they need to, they need to justify themselves. What's interesting is that this claim is, French,

13:37 - French historians are now kind of basically echoing this claim. so the, the, they're basically, you know, the, we, we should stop thinking of, these companies as collaborators, and we should see them more as resistors that they, that they deliberately under produce. And the principle argument, aside from the, the, the, the kind of, the, the affirmations of the, the, the companies is to compare wartime and, and pre-war production figures.

14:01 - So basically, the French automobile industry was producing so much in 19 38, 39, let's say, or maybe up to 1940. And during 19 40, 19 44, 19 45, it produced considerably less, which is undeniable. and so, ergo the problem with that argument, I think obviously it's the French economy's shrinking. I mean, the, there's, there's no, it, it is massively shrinking. So there's no way the French automobile in industry could have produced as much, as much as it did before the war.

14:34 - It's just, it's just not, so you can't, that it itself can't be an argument. So what do you do? I mean, do you dismiss the argument because it's self-serving, which it is, it's, you know, there's, there's there. Or do you, do you kind of, okay, how would we actually, actually, how would we actually do this? Now, an economist might say, well, what we're gonna do is we're gonna try to fix what could have been done.

14:58 - we're gonna kind of in, in, you know, hypothetically we're, we're going to, but you can't, that's practically impossible. It's practically, it's practically impossible to say what, because that would be the easiest way, kind of you would say, okay, bef before the war, we did this, this is what we could have done during the war, and this is what we did. So was it above, below or above? But it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just too complicated.

15:21 - There's too many factors. the French, the French economies in crisis from 19 40, 40 to 45 to, to try to artificially fix what could have been done, doesn't seem to me possible. And it would be, anyway, any figure would be contentious. So you have to think, I think you have to look at elsewhere. You have to, you have to see what, how to put it, how, I guess for me, I, I was thinking, I was thinking of incentives and interests, and what struck me, one of the things

15:54 - that struck me early on is that the Germans really didn't know what was going on. And I think this is at a macro level and a micro level. The German occupiers didn't really understand what was going on in the French economy. They, they, they felt that they were, they were, they didn't know. There, there's this constant, in, in the German records, there's this constant complaint that we just don't know what's going on.

16:13 - We don't have the information. And, this got me thinking about information asymmetries, which are what economists like that. But basically it's just that, it's, it's an actor agent model. I mean, I, you know, if, if I hire a plumber, I hire a plumber because he knows he has a skill that I don't, because he can fix my, he can fix my sink. Now, I, I don't, he, and that skill gives him an principle, a certain leverage.

16:41 - He knows, you know, he can, he can, he can exploit me. how do I prevent that? Or how do I limit the possibility of that? so normally in peace time, there's a variety of ways. There's contracts, there's quality checks, guarantees, but none of that really works in war time, especially in a condition in a, in a situation of crisis. And you think about the French economy, which is in, in crisis and just crisis defined by a lack of almost everything.

17:10 - I mean, the lack of all factors of production. so what happens is, I think in that situation is that the asym, the information asymmetry widens because more, the ability to get anything done depends more and more on local contextual knowledge. so if, basically what happens is that the, the Ford and the other companies, they have the ability to, they have the ability to deal with the crisis because it basically takes resourcefulness. You have to kind of, you have to, you have, you know how

17:49 - to get things done, you know, where to find suppliers and sub-suppliers, you know, how to lobby, certain departments, certain agencies, and all that type of expertise in the situation of crisis becomes more and more important. so, and that's the kind of expertise that the Germans absolutely don't have. And as the, as the crisis deepens, the ju that, that, that, that, that information asymmetry widens, which means that the French have a French company like Ford has

18:19 - greater room for maneuver. it can do less because not only has it the ability to, but the Germans can't really assess what it's doing. So the ar, so this is why, this is why, so my argument about Underproduction was that the, a company like Ford, SAF can, has the ability to, to do less. the Germans can't really figure out what it's doing. Plus it has increasingly an interest to do less

18:52 - for a variety of reasons that I explained in the books. The fact that it's, it's, it's looking to the postwar, the fact that the Germans are increasingly desperate and working for the Germans means to a certain extent mortgaging your post-war for the war time, which French company doesn't want to do. so you have a combination of interest and interest, incentive and possibility. And plus, I mean, I try to make a circumstantial case in the book, what, what,

19:20 - what essentially what foreign does is that it just delays, it constantly delays, it argues about everything, everything. It, it try and so it just drags it out, drags it out. And that's not a bad strategy in late, you know, kind of from mid 1943 on to kind of just push, keep, push, kicking the ball, kicking the can down the road. and, but what's important, I think to, to emphasize is it's not a political decision.

19:46 - This is not resistant. They're not, Ford is not, in principle, opposed to working for the Germans. It was in 19 40, 41, it was very happy to, it's just that 1942, and especially 19 43, 19 44, it's no longer in its interests how it, to do so, and it can slow down. So in a way, the argument becomes, if you argue that Ford did everything it could, then you have to argue that it went against its own,

20:16 - its own sense of its interests. When everything it did up to them suggests that what it does, it's, it's a very self-interested, rational actor. So that was in a way, so that, and I, and I don't think Ford was, I mean, Ford's case is a little more complicated because it's an American owned company, because it's part of a, a, an empire, a Ford empire that's European.

20:37 - But the same dynamics seem to me, I mean, there's, there's a case to be made that the same dynamics are, are, there's no reason to believe that they're not reproducible elsewhere. I would, I say, I think that, Xi is much more interventionist, partly because it's politic. It's, it's, it's p it's a, it's politically oriented to do so, but also because of the nature of the fact

21:00 - that the French economies in crisis and they need to manage the Germans. so VII is much more, is much more interventionist. there's a sense of planning, the, the French economy, what changes, between the wartime and the post-war is that VII is a much more kind of in self industry planning model. Basically, what we want to do is, is make it, prod the industry itself. That usually means that the biggest,

21:30 - the most important companies to plan, to, to, to plan, to organize, their industry or sub-industry after the war, the state is gonna be, is gonna take a much more important role in that. With its, with its plan, it's, it's, it's, its various five year plans. But that's not so much a function of negotiations, wartime negotiations with the Germans as a kind of wartime experience. I meant the Vichy is a, among other things,

21:59 - is an exercise in planning and economic planning. And there's much, there's a great deal of continuity, both in terms of, of, of thinking, in terms of personnel between VII and the Fourth Republic. and basically with some tweaking, the fourth Republic kind of picks up where VII left off. I mean, there's, there's not break. so that, that's what I would say. So it, it does change, but I don't think it's, it's the kind of the urgency of war.

22:26 - I mean, the, the, you have, if there's one thing that's important to understand is that France is just in an economic crisis. I mean, it's, the situation is just dire and getting dire, throughout the occupation. So the, this, in a way, the, the, the state can't, hold back. It has to, it has to come in, and then you've got the Germans, and they need to, you know,

22:51 - what the French state doesn't want to do is to let the companies alone deal with the Germans for a variety of reasons. That's, I, I imagine that was a tough question. I, I, I, I don't, I mean, I, you know, I mean, there's, there's the history of it. I mean, I find, I, I I kind of find kind of political economics and the dynamics of political economics fascinating. And to think about, to think about how they work in wartime

23:14 - and, and not necessarily war time. But I, I think it, for me, it would be the, the, and this is because I'm an academic probably, and I work in a kind of a heavily bureaucratized environment, but I think it's the, the relationship between incentive structures and interests. I think we, we tend, I think we tend, I do probably to think that we have much more kind of free choice than we do, where in fact we're embedded, I think con in, in, in incentive structures, in a variety of systems,

23:44 - instructions, you know, economically, politically, socially. I mean, there's, there's all kinds of them at work, elsewhere. And those shape how we assess our interests. And I think, I think it's fascinating to think about that at the same time we're, it's not like we're just automatons. We're just not, you know, we're, we're we, we, we can challenge those and we can oppose them, we can resist, we can push them. And that, and people do that.

24:09 - I think actors do that in various ways, which is, which is kind of interesting and important to, but I also think that incentive structures have a built in self undermining, element, which comes from the fact that, that we are strategic actors. When you have an incentive structure, our, I think the tendency to try to game it, to try to gain advantage, because, you know, we, so we try, and in doing that, you kind of push the incentive structure

24:38 - in different ways, and you, you change you or you modify your se your interests. And I see this constantly in academ. I mean, if, if you tell people to do something, you have to do this, they'll do it, but they'll do it in their own way. and they'll try to kind of, they'll, they'll, they'll try to, they kind of do it in the way that best serve their interests. What you have is what economists call perverse effects,

25:02 - where the initial, the initial aim of the incentive structure no longer holds. And for me, the, the Ford case shows that very well. I mean, you have the Germans think they know what they're doing. they have, they, they think they can convince the French companies to do what they want. And yet, in the end, French companies end up doing what they want, partly because of the perverse effects of the incentive structures.

25:26 - I mean, the Germans throw a lot of money, and you would think, well, you know, everyone profit mode it, that's gonna work. We're getting, we've got lots of money, but at a certain point, that becomes a negative incentive because you have too much money, and so you don't need anymore. And so you can, it allows you to do other things. So I think this, this kind of interaction between, and then incentive structures and interests

25:45 - and how that, that shapes what we do, I think I find that fascinating. I find it, I find in general, I find it, I find it fascinating. And, and so, yeah, you know, the old, what, you know, you know, marks about we make our lives or whatever, and make our choices, but not in the way we, we think we do. I think there's something, there's a lot to be said, said about that. but I'm probably, you know, in French, they, this idea

26:09 - that I, I've been in ade too long, and so, you know, I've just, I just, you know, bureaucracy is, you know, bureaucracy is my life. So I, I, and bureaucracies are great for incentive structures and how people kind of try to treat, tweak them and, and gain advantage. so I, yeah, I would say maybe, maybe that in general.

Faculti AI can make mistakes