Jean-Paul Sartre both Gide and Malraux were undecided, and this may have been the cause of Sartre's disappointment and discouragement. "Socialisme et liberté" soon dissolved and Sartre decided to write instead of being involved in active resistance. He then wrote "Being and Nothingness", "The Flies", and "No Exit", none of which were censored by the Germans, and also contributed to both legal and illegal literary magazines. In his essay "Paris under the Occupation", Sartre wrote about the "correct" behavior of the Germans had entrapped too many Parisians into complicity with the occupation, accepting what was unnatural as natural, writing: The Germans did
Jean-Paul Sartre spent nine months as a prisoner of war—in Nancy and finally in , Trier, where he wrote his first theatrical piece, "Barionà, fils du tonnerre", a drama concerning Christmas. It was during this period of confinement that Sartre read Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time", later to become a major influence on his own essay on phenomenological ontology. Because of poor health (he claimed that his poor eyesight and exotropia affected his balance) Sartre was released in April 1941. According to other sources, he escaped after a medical visit to the ophthalmologist. Given civilian status, he recovered his teaching position at