| Details for French Sign Reich Truce |
| Summary: | Covers the defeat of the Republic of France in World War 2 |
| Date: | June 22, 1940 |
| Location: | N/A |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
 |
Berlin, 22 June 1940 — Representatives of the French and German governments have agreed to an armistice in the Forest of Compiegne, France, at 6:50 P.M. German Summer time P.M. New York time. Col. Gen. Wilhelm Keitel, Chancellor Hitler's plenipotentiary, signed for Germany and General Charles Huntziger for France. The agreement was announced officially three hours later in Berlin and broadcast to the German people by radio. By that hour the French delegates, having placed on record their spokesman's protest against the "severity" of the German conditions, were already en route by German plane to Italy.
Under the terms of the agreement, the fighting will end six hours after France reaches an armistice agreement with German ally Italy, a step which is considered a mere formality. The same French delegation who negotiated the surrender to Germany will now travel to Rome to meet with representatives of Prime Minister Mussolini. It is predicted that the war on the continent will end by early next week.
The armistice was signed in the same location, and aboard the same train car - now being transported to Berlin on Chancellor Hitler's orders - where Germany surrendered to the Allied Powers on 11 November 1918. In a moment of high drama, Chancellor Hitler took the same seat from which Marshal Ferdinand Foch had demanded the German surrender at the end of the Great War, before returning to his field headquarters and leaving negotiations to his representatives. The terms were agreed twenty-seven hours and twenty minutes later, General Huntzinger signing on orders from the French government that had relocated to Bordeaux.
Germany has given no indication that it intends to break off hostilities against the United Kingdom. On the same day as the peace talks were taking place in France, British bombers attacked the Krupp Works and Bremen.