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‘Rivals and scavengers' introduces Herman Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, and their respective bureaucratic satrapies. All four Nazi paladins tried to carve out positions in occupied France with mixed results. Although vested with formidable economic and diplomatic responsibilities, Hermann Göring preferred to augment his own art collection with works confiscated from French Jews and exercised an erratic influence on French affairs. Without little enthusiasm for diplomacy after the start of World War II, Hitler refused to countenance serious negotiations with the Vichy regime and forced the German foreign office to play a secondary role in the Occupation. By highlighting the danger of an alleged Jewish menace, first Rosenberg and later Himmler accrued considerable authority and established independent positions in occupied France.

‘Setting the precedent’ examines efforts by first the German embassy in Paris and later the Einsatzstab Rosenberg to confiscate works of art owned by Jews. Allegedly acting on instructions from Hitler, Ambassador Otto Abetz and diplomats attached to the German embassy in Paris began to confiscate objets d'art from wealthy French Jews immediately after the end of military operations. Citing international law that prohibited such actions, Franz Graf Wolff Metternich and the military administration complained to superiors and blocked diplomatic confiscations. With support from Himmler and Göring, the Einsatzstab Rosenberg (Special Action Staff Rosenberg) picked up where the German embassy in Paris left off, secured the right to confiscate Jewish property, and ransacked museums throughout occupied France. Distraught by the loss of France's artistic patrimony, leaders of the Vichy regime complained to Otto Abetz and the Military Commander in France to no avail. In March of 1942, Hitler ignored French protests, described attacks against Jews as an essential part of the war effort, and revealed his role in the confiscation of Jewish property.

At the start of the Occupation, both French and German agencies accepted the fundamental legitimacy of the so‐called Jewish Question (Judenfrage) and adopted anti‐Semitic policies of defamation, discrimination, and despoliation with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Perceiving Jews as a security threat, the military administration evicted Jews from a security zone along the Channel coast and played a major role in the ‘Aryanization’ of the French economy, but the MBF condemned ‘Aryanization’ on legal grounds and did not believe that Jews stood behind all resistance activity. The Vichy regime defamed and discriminated against Jews on its own accord, created the General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs to despoil Jews, and ordered French police to incarcerate specific categories of Jews, but Pierre Laval objected to the arrest of assimilated French Jews because the roundups undermined support for his government. The SS and German embassy in Paris both championed the entire defamation, discrimination, despoliation, and deportation process, but they lacked the manpower and a legal mandate to act on their own before the summer of 1942. As the fortunes of war turned against the Reich, Hitler championed increasingly ruthless anti‐Semitic measures that culminated in the Final Solution.

During the final years of the Occupation, Hitler championed increasingly radical measures such as the Commando Order against real and imagined enemies of the Nazi regime. Alienated by the Führer's criminal policies, Carl‐Heinrich von Stülpnagel and leading figures within the military administration in Paris conspired with Claus von Stauffenberg and prepared to overthrow the Nazi regime. On the evening of 20 July 1944, Carl‐Heinrich von Stülpnagel ordered subordinates to arrest the SS and tried to enlist colleagues from the regular field army in the plot. Once news of Hitler's survival reached Paris, the conspirators orchestrated an elaborate cover‐up in conjunction with Otto Abetz and Carl Oberg. The German embassy in Paris, SS, and military administration embraced a common agenda of survival, accommodated one another, and concealed the scope of the anti‐Nazi conspiracy in Paris. Veterans of the 20 July conspiracy helped General Dietrich von Choltitz, the last military commander in France, disobey a direct order from Hitler that called for the complete destruction of Paris.