IIIrd Reich: collaboration in the vineyards

Legend has it that during the Occupation, France's great wine-growing regions were pillaged by Nazi Germany. Recent work by specialized historians, prove that the reality is quite different.

Unbridled affairism, the active collaboration of many major merchants, the German occupation enabled many to amass considerable fortunes. This film reveals a number of surprising episodes, such as the sale of French wine alcohol to be used as fuel for the famous V2 rockets! But winegrowing has also had its opponents, we also tell their story. For beyond this exploration of a little-known facet of economic collaboration and the France of terroirs, the film retraces a universal story, that of the struggle between cynical partisans of greed and defenders of human solidarity.

In search of a memory that has been deliberately concealed, the documentary blends archive footages with experts’ interviews and actual winemakers’ interventions.