Wine And War: The French, The Nazis, And The Ba... < TOP – SECRETS >

In the 2001 bestseller , authors Don and Petie Kladstrup explore a little-known front of World War II: the fight to protect France's vineyards and cellars from German plunder. The Systematic Plunder of French Wine

: Beyond protecting bottles, some vignerons used their vast cellar networks to hide Jewish refugees and smuggle members of the Resistance across the Demarcation Line inside wine barrels. The Moral Complexity: Collaboration Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Ba...

: The Reich dispatched official German wine merchants, known as weinführers , to every major wine region (such as Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Champagne) to coordinate the massive collection and resale of fine vintages at a profit. In the 2001 bestseller , authors Don and

Immediately after the fall of Paris in 1940, the Nazi leadership began a widespread campaign to pillage French wine, which they viewed as one of the country's most valuable national assets. Immediately after the fall of Paris in 1940,

: Winemakers sometimes mislabeled their worst wines as "Grand Cru" to fool German buyers, while others joined the active Resistance to attack trains transporting wine back to Germany.

: The collaborationist government sometimes acted to keep France's vineyards in French hands, even preventing the Nazis from seizing Jewish-owned estates like Châteaux Mouton-Rothschild and Lafite-Rothschild to preserve the nation's economic interests. Key Perspectives and Regions Covered