Homepage > History > Citroën in the history > 1940 - 1949 > 1940

1940 - 1949

The Company in 1940

  • June the 3rd, the Quai de Javel plant is bombed.

  • In the Rue du Théâtre in Paris, Citroën's ingineers hide the 2CV prototype parts that escape the bombing.

  • Citroën's Belgian plant is partially destroyed.

  • Production gradually falls, owing to circumstances and the opposition of the management to the demands of the occupying power.

  • Annual production : 32 284 vehicles.

The models in 1940

  • Type 11-T U Series van, an 11 bhp version of the Type 7-T U series.

  • Among the saloon cars, only the Traction is produced up to 1941.

  • To alleviate the shortage of petrol, many industrial vehicles are converted to run on gas.

  • Citroën offers a gas-fuelled Type 45G, with a 6 cylinder 5,138 cm3 engine developing 60 bhp, and a payload of 3,500 kg.


In the news in 1940


  • France surrenders. Marshal Pétain is named French Head of State at Vichy. General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French in London, makes a radio appeal on 18 June.
  • France signs an armistice with Germans at Rethondes, transferring the government to Pétain at Vichy and abolishing the constitution of 1875 (the Third Republic).
  • Across the channel, the RAF wins the Battle of Britain and Germany is forced to shelve its planned invasion of Britain indefinitely.
  • Graham Greene writes The Power and the Glory and Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bells Toll.