Sartre Prisoner — Stalag XII D

Jean-Paul Sartre, 35, a philosophy professor, was mobilised in 1939 as a soldier assigned to the meteorological service of the artillery. Taken prisoner at Padoux (Vosges) on 21 June 1940 — the day before the armistice — with his unit, he is transferred in the summer to Stalag XII D, set up at Petrisberg, on the heights above Trier. France then counts nearly one and a half million prisoners of war held in Germany — a mass of men Vichy will try in vain to negotiate.

In the camp, Sartre joins the improvised intellectual life: he reads Heidegger, gives lectures, and for the Christmas vigil of 1940 writes a play, Bariona, or the Son of Thunder, performed on 24 December before his fellow prisoners — his very first theatrical work. But he seeks to regain his freedom. Several paths open up: attempt an escape, play for medical release — his strong squint could be presented as an unfitness — or wait.

Sartre then finds himself, like one and a half million French prisoners, forced to come to terms with captivity and to seek a way out.