The establishment of the commission was stipulated in Article 22: "The implementation of the Armistice Treaty shall be regulated and supervised by a German Armistice Commission, which shall carry out its activities in accordance with the instructions of the German High Command. The task of the Armistice Commission is also to ensure the necessary conformity of this treaty with the Italian-French Armistice Treaty.

The French government shall send a delegation to the headquarters of the German Armistice Commission to represent French wishes and to receive the implementation orders of the German Armistice Commission." The chairman of the committee was initially General of Infantry Karl Heinrich von Stülpnagel (1886 to 1944), who was given command of the 17th Army on February 15, 1941 and then became military commander in France on February 13, 1942, later General of Artillery Vogl. The president of the French delegation was initially Army General Charles Huntziger (1880 to 1941) until his appointment as Minister of War in the Vichy government on September 6, 1940, then General Doyen, later General Beynet. The meeting was held in the ballroom of the Hotel Nassauer Hof; the French delegation was accommodated in the Hotel Rose.

Incidentally, the Italian Armistice Commission was based in Turin; liaison delegations had been exchanged between Wiesbaden and Turin. Control inspections in occupied and unoccupied France and in its North African colonial territory monitored the implementation of the conditions dictated to France. A branch of the Commission, the Armistice Delegation for the Economy, was based in Paris.

Its remit included monitoring the demobilization and disarmament of the French army, the control of the French "transitional military force", its armament and accommodation, the arms industry and disarmament, general economic issues, the extradition of prisoners of war and civilian prisoners and other matters. The actual negotiations were conducted in "sub-commissions" (in particular the Sub-Commission for Army Affairs, the Sub-Commission for Naval Affairs, the Sub-Commission for Air Force Affairs and the Sub-Commission for the Armaments Industry).