When Men Fell from the Sky - Claire Andrieu

Date: 
28/11/2023

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, 320 p.

Between 1940 and 1945, more than 100,000 airmen were shot down over Europe, a few thousand of whom survived and avoided being arrested. When Men Fell from the Sky is a comparative history of the treatment of these airmen by civilians in France, Germany and Britain. By studying the situation on the ground, Claire Andrieu shows how these encounters reshaped societies at a local level. She reveals how the fall of France in 1940 may have concealed an insurrection nipped in the bud, that the 'People's War' in Britain was not merely a myth, and that in Germany, the 'racial community of the people' had in fact become a social reality with Allied airmen increasingly subjected to lynching from 1943 onwards. By considering why the treatment of these airmen contrasted so strongly in these countries, Andrieu sheds new light on how civilians reacted when confronted with the war 'at home'.

Autour de la publication

Entretiens du CERI
05 July 2021
Sociétés comparées en temps de guerre: Le choc des cultures politiques
Entretien avec Claire Andrieu à l'occasion de la parution de son ouvrage, par Miriam Périer

Comparing Societies in Wartime: The Clash of Political Cultures
Interview with Claire Andrieu by Miriam Périer

Media
28 May 2021
HShow 414 - Pandémies, pilotes et Pie XII
Entretien avec Claire Andieu, par Jean-Christophe Buisson, Histoire TV (à partir de 14'14)

Podcast
21 November 2023
War and Memory Compared Civilians and Downed Airmen in WW2 Europe
Audio recording of the seminar held at CERI on 21 November 2023

19 April 2021
Le sort des aviateurs abattus dans la Seconde Guerre mondiale
Entretien avec Claire Andrieu, par André Loez, Paroles d'histoire

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