“An essay punctuated with never-before-seen photos that will be of interest to fans of military history.” — Nouvel Obs

“These previously unpublished photos illustrate a fascinating book by Stéphane Simonnet.” — C à Vous

June 6th 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy. August 25th, Paris was liberated. April 1945, the battle ended in the East of France. This sequence of events is anchored in our collective memory.

But in the West, some territories remain firmly in German hands, preventing the complete liberation of the country. These were the “pockets” of the Atlantic: Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, La Rochelle, Royan, the Pointe de Grave and, on the North Sea, Dunkirk.

For eight months, 70,000 guerrilla and FFI fighters laid siege to these strongholds held by 90,000 German soldiers. The 60,000 trapped civilians waited for their liberation until the start of the Atlantic campaign on April 14th 1945, during which the pockets were reduced one by one.

In this book, the history of these German fortresses is told through the photographs, as seen from both sides of the war, from the German war reporters and from the French Army’s Photography Department. Comparing two points of view on the same event, this book contains almost 130 previously unpublished photos.

We will discover the fierce resistance of the Germans, the heroic battles of French troops working alongside Allied military units, and the suffering of thousands of “pocketed” civilians.

As we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Liberation, this illustrated history sheds light on this overshadowed period of the Second World War, this additional period of war, and the German occupation.