Immediately after the fall of Paris in 1940, the Nazi leadership began a widespread campaign to pillage French wine, which they viewed as one of the country's most valuable national assets.
: The Reich dispatched official German wine merchants, known as weinführers , to every major wine region (such as Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Champagne) to coordinate the massive collection and resale of fine vintages at a profit. Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Ba...
: Many producers built fake walls to conceal their most precious bottles or buried them underground. The owners of Paris's famed La Tour d'Argent restaurant, for instance, rushed to build a wall to hide 20,000 bottles before the Germans arrived. Immediately after the fall of Paris in 1940,
The book also addresses the sensitive reality of collaboration during the occupation. known as weinführers