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Both collective and academic memories have for a long time perpetuated the image of a military administration that practiced a ‘proper’ policy of occupation in France. This image has to be reconsidered. A study of the ‘maintenance of order and security’ by the divisions of the MBF at the local level leads to a re-evaluation of their role in Nazi-violence during the four stages marking the escalation of the German policy of repression in occupied France. The conflicts of competences and supposed conflicts of resources between the higher levels of the MBF and of the Sipo-SD in matters of repressive policies most often disappeared at the local level for a close and even harmonious cooperation between the Feldkommandanturen and the KdS (Regional Commander of the Sipo-SD). Despite the transfer of police powers to an HSSPF in occupied France in the spring of 1942, the local services of the MBF will continue to participate in the control of both public life and the French administrative apparatus, in 'police-cum-military' operations led against zones reputed to be ‘infested by terrorist groups’, as well as in the judicial repression of all opposition. The responsibility of the MBF and its territorial services in the escalation of German violence committed in France during the Occupation must thus be reconsidered.