The burgomaster faced with requisitions

At the local level, it was the burgomaster who found himself on the front line facing the occupier. The German military administration demanded all manner of services from the municipalities: requisitions of lodgings, foodstuffs, vehicles and labour, the provision of lists, the posting of ordinances. The burgomaster was the obligatory intermediary between the occupier and his administered population.

For you, the burgomaster, each demand posed a matter of conscience. To cooperate fully so as to spare your municipality reprisals and keep control of the local administration. To resist passively, by dragging your feet, minimising, "not understanding" the orders, at the risk of sanctions. Or to resign so as not to compromise yourself, leaving the place to a possibly more zealous collaborator.

The stakes were delicate: too much zeal, and one became an accomplice; too much resistance, and one exposed the population to the harshness of the occupier or to one's replacement by a figurehead. Like the secretaries-general at the national level, the burgomaster embodied the daily dilemma of the administrative "lesser evil".