After bowing to each other the delegations resumed their seats. Keitel then read out the preamble to the armistice conditions as Hitler left the wagon, saluting the French delegation as they rose. I gave the honour company a signal, commands were barked out and at once the band struck up ‘Deutschland über alles’. Hitler left the wood and returned to FHQ. He who had enjoyed the hour of satisfaction had set out the procedure in detail himself. He wanted to bring home to the French by his haughty demeanour the humiliation which in his view they had made him and the German people suffer in 1918.
