Nazi Paris: The History Of An Occupation, 1940-1944 - Plot & Excerpts
Because of German personnel shortages, the fate of French Jews depended importantly on the collaboration of the French police with the armed forces of the Occupation. A police reform in late 1942 essentially returned oversight of Jewish affairs to the Prefecture of Police at the Quai des Orfèvres by abolishing a separate unit that had been detached for that purpose. Now a new Service des Questions Juives there was directed by Commissar Permilleux, who reported to the Prefect of Police in Paris, to the Ministry of the Interior in Vichy, and ultimately to the German Gestapo. Theodor Dannecker's successor, Heinz Röthke, was the man primarily in charge, and he repeatedly made clear that he would “very closely” monitor the implementation of Nazi racial policies. Thus, if the grudging complicity of the French police was beyond question, so too was the attentiveness of the Gestapo in supervising it.1 During the immediate post–Operation Torch phase of the Occupation, there was little friction between French and German law enforcement authorities for the simple reason that the police generally did as they were told.
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