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-Great Cultural Revolution
Collaborating With the Enemy: The Leaders of Vichy France
2023-08-30
[HISTORY HIT] After 9 months of fighting, including heavy, sustained losses, the Third French Republic signed an armistice with Nazi Germany. The new regime, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, was known as Vichy France.

Noted for its authoritarian, anti-Semitic and xenophobic tendencies, the new regime worked in collaboration with the Nazis and oversaw the rounding up and deportation of French Jews, bolstered the Nazis with forced labour, foodstuffs and raw materials and persecuted other ’undesirables’.

Debates have raged amongst historians about whether Vichy France was simply a puppet state of the Germans, whether it had its own agenda and how Vichy France can be viewed in relation to the French Republic. Only 4 senior Vichy officials were tried for crimes against humanity: a tiny number compared to how many were involved in upholding the new regime. Here are 5 of the most important figures in Vichy France.
Posted by:Besoeker

#6   "After the fall of the government, Pétain was tried for treason by the new provisional government, led by Charles de Gaulle. He was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to death, although due to his advanced age, this was commuted to life imprisonment. " It was the promises of "others" that Vichy kept that prompted this famous scene from Casablanca I suspect...
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2023-08-30 11:46  

#5  Mitterand was a Nazi sympathizer.
Posted by: Jerens Black9355   2023-08-30 10:29  

#4  /\ Sorry HT, have we learned nothing from doddering old men seeking renewed relevance? No Gaullist here, but perhaps we should pick another French hero ?

May I suggest Mme Odette Brailly? There are many others of course.
Posted by: Besoeker   2023-08-30 10:26  

#3  Petain was a hero who stepped up to be the leader his country needed when the alternative was mass chaos. He knew he'd be villainized and accepted it.

The government that left Paris was still France's legitimate government. Degaulle, you say? You mean a colonel? A colonel who deserted his men and his nation to become a tool of foreigners? Petain isn't the only one who needs re-thinking.
Posted by: Harcourt Tholuse6841   2023-08-30 10:20  

#2  Petain was a senile puppet, Laval a malevolent sociopath, and the others arrogant, anti-semitic opportunists.

"Lemme know if that sounds familiar."

Yes.
Posted by: Skidmark   2023-08-30 06:40  

#1  ...Read William Shirer's The Fall Of The Third Republic. Seventy years old but probably still the best single volume account of why and how things went so horribly wrong. Petain was a senile puppet, Laval a malevolent sociopath, and the others arrogant, anti-semitic opportunists.

One thing they all had in common: they (with the qualified exception of Petain) were perfectly willing to see France go down to brutal, grinding defeat just so they could be in charge.

Lemme know if that sounds familiar.

Mike
Posted by: MikeKozlowski   2023-08-30 06:09  

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