After the armistice of 1940, France was divided into several zones, in which the German presence took different forms. In Alsace and Moselle, which had been annexed to the Third Reich, determined policies were pursued to transform towns - such as Strasbourg, where an ambitious expansion plan was put out to tender - and to create new types of agricultural buildings.
Action in the occupied zone, on the other hand, was more indirect, using the networks of the Propagandastaffel in Paris and those of the embassy to influence the policy of professional institutions, lectures and the press.
Once the "free" zone was overrun, in November 1943, the Nazis carried out an operation in Marseille that was unique in occupied Europe: the cold destruction of the Old Port districts for ideological reasons, using as justification the renovation plan drawn up by Eugène Beaudouin for the Vichy authorities.
