Producing for the enemy. A preliminary look at the La Couture-Boussey manufacturing industry during the Occupation
Résumé
The village of La Couture-Boussey (Normandy), the main center for French woodwinds production,
was occupied by the German Army between 9 June 1940 and 21 August 1944. Many companies
had just reconquered a market heavily impacted by the Wall Street crisis started in 1929 and that
continued in the following years. Some, such as Robert Malerne, were founded during these years
(1931). In La Couture-Boussey and the neighboring villages (Ivry-la-Bataille- Ézy-sur-Eure, Garennessur-Eure) many companies (out of the almost thirty known) seems to have been active during
wartime: Leblanc, Martin Frères, Malerne, Thibouville-Cabart never ceased their activities. The loss
of the large majority of the local companies’ archives is a gap almost impossible to overcome:
nevertheless a few documents in the Departmental archives and the recent acquisition (2022)
of the archives of the Thibouville-Cabart company shed a light on the manufacturing activities
during the Occupation. The example of Thibouville-Cabart company, subject to forced labor, can be
representative of other manufacturing companies situation during the 1940-1944 period, including
perhaps other production centers in Europe. A few questions arise: how many instruments were
produced in the La Couture basin during the Occupation? What were the German needs of in terms of
woodwinds? How could a single country absorb the whole production (even if reduced) of the French
village? Where the instruments branded with the traditional company mark or with German army
marks? To answer to some of these questions, the paper will present the existing new documents
and discuss the spoliation approach for La Couture-Boussey produced instruments: not one or a few
easily traceable objects but hundreds or more mass-produced ones.
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