During World War II, France was under German occupation. Immediately after the invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, the German military administration changed its tactics and methods of occupation. The escalation of terror had already been planned for a long time by this point. Assassinations by resistance movements against members of the Wehrmacht served as a pretext to now practice the ideological war in the West as well. With hostage-taking and mass executions of the civilian population, it took on a new dimension. The Wehrmacht leadership stationed in France ultimately proposed embedding the fight against resistance into the ideologically justified program for the extermination of European Jewry. The first two years of German occupation, and not just the period after the appointment of a Higher SS and Police Leader in 1942, are today in France synonymous with a reign of terror associated with unlawful collective measures. This edition presents, for the first time, sources of both German and French provenance regarding this aspect of German occupation policy during World War II. The documentation is intended as a contribution to the debate in Germany about the Wehrmacht's involvement in crimes against the civilian population in the context of the war of extermination. It sheds light on both a snapshot of everyday life under occupation and the extent of the political willingness to collaborate of the Vichy regime, which was disastrously involved in the selection of hostages.