![]() Versailles had fallen to the Third Reich, and the Palace’s future looked uncertain.ĭuring the Occupation, the German authorities deplored the way in which the Palace had been stripped and ordered it to be restored. ![]() Over the ensuing weeks, German soldiers and officers flooded into the Palace, exploring the site and causing damage along the way. The next morning, the Nazi flag could be seen fluttering from the Palace’s rooftops. In the morning of 14 June 1940, the Germans erupted into Versailles and seized possession of the premises. Pierre Ladoué, the museum’s head curator, describing the protective measures rolled out at the Palace to his predecessor, Gaston Brière. ![]() On 13 June 1940 on the eve of the German troops’ arrival, a mere four men stood watch over a now unrecognisable Versailles. On 25 August 1939, along with the rest of the country’s museums, the Palace closed its doors to the public and dispatched some of its works to the Château de Brissac and Château de Chambord. Its “passive defence” plan was under-way. By the end of the 1930s, conflict seemed inevitable and the Palace of Versailles arranged for its treasures to be covertly evacuated to a series of secret depot sites. From 1933 on, the Palace’s deputy curator, Charles Mauricheau-Beaupré, drew up a first plan for evacuating Versailles’ collections. ![]() If the Germans succeeded in pushing through to Versailles, would they make the Palace pay for its past?Įpisode 1: “May Louis XIV keep watch over Versailles”īy the 1930s, France’s museums were readying themselves for the possibility of a new war. As the 1930s drew to a close, tensions were mounting in Europe as the threat of a new war loomed ever larger over the continent. A French monument at the heart of European turmoilĪ symbol of the Franco-German rivalry that began brewing in the 19th century, the Palace of Versailles was witness to the dawning of the German Empire in 1871, and fuelled Adolf Hitler’s thirst for revenge following the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. ![]()
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