CABINET PAPERS
Complete classes from the CAB & PREM series in the Public Record Office
Series One: PREM 3 - Papers concerning Defence & Operational Subjects, 1940-1945 Winston Churchill, Minister of Defence, Secretariat Papers

Part 4: PREM 3/170-198 (Subject files cover Finland, Fleet Air Arm, France,
Germany - Air Force, Germany - Army, Germany - Fleet and Germany)

This Part is dominated by Churchill’s subject files on France and Germany. There are also important papers on the Fleet Air Arm (including its role during Operation Overlord - the invasion of Normandy), on the Meetings of Foreign Secretaries in Moscow and on post war planning.

The material on France is wide ranging and includes all the following topics:
- Military operations prior to the French capitulation in 1940
- Relations with the French Committee of National Liberation
- Discussions with General Giraud and General Charles de Gaulle
- the future of the French Fleet
- the future of the French Colonies
- the Vichy Government
- the Free French fighting forces and their participation in the liberation of Western Europe

As might be expected the material on Germany is extensive; it covers:
- the German Air Force (see PREM 3/189)
- the German Army (see PREM 3/190)
- the German Fleet ( see PREM 3/191) including papers on the battleship Tirpitz and the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
- Plans to undermine German morale
- Surveys on the internal political situation in Germany
- the Occupation of Germany; zones of occupation; control machinery; the appointment of Sir William Strang as Political Adviser (see PREM 3/194)
- Reparations
- Submarines/ U-boats (see PREM 3/196)
- Surrender (including "Crossword" files on surrender negotiations; see PREM 3/197-198)