nonconformist
Miserable
Author's introduction:
This is a translation of an essay I wrote for a French qualfication a few years back. I decided to incorporate one of my interests, and being fluent in French, this was much more an exercise in researching and writing a historical dissertation than it was a French one.
I have also added the French original for those who are Francophones and who are inclined to read it.
I have translated this personally; the name sof organisations and such are given first in French and then as an English translation to help those less Francophile inclined. The translations range from quite literal to me taking a bit of liberty, to convey more of the subcontexts and meanings which are evident in French, but do not translate well in English, so I hope you will forgive me.
I have also taken the liberty of expanding in certain places for the English speaking audience; this is because it would be assumed that any Frenchman would have a decent idea of the facts or circumstances described, while a foreign audience probably would not have as much of a grounding. Again, I hope you will forgive me.
Also, blah blah copyrights belong to me, please cotnact me if you want to reproduce or anything blah
This is a translation of an essay I wrote for a French qualfication a few years back. I decided to incorporate one of my interests, and being fluent in French, this was much more an exercise in researching and writing a historical dissertation than it was a French one.
I have also added the French original for those who are Francophones and who are inclined to read it.
I have translated this personally; the name sof organisations and such are given first in French and then as an English translation to help those less Francophile inclined. The translations range from quite literal to me taking a bit of liberty, to convey more of the subcontexts and meanings which are evident in French, but do not translate well in English, so I hope you will forgive me.
I have also taken the liberty of expanding in certain places for the English speaking audience; this is because it would be assumed that any Frenchman would have a decent idea of the facts or circumstances described, while a foreign audience probably would not have as much of a grounding. Again, I hope you will forgive me.
Also, blah blah copyrights belong to me, please cotnact me if you want to reproduce or anything blah
In May 1940, the forces of the Third Reich stormed over the French border. The French fought with courage and ferocity, but the forces of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS are much too powerful, and under the onslaught of Blitzkrieg, they conquer France.
Paris declared itself an Open City, in the hope that it would be spare the slaughter which laid Rotterdam to ruins. Paris thus fell without a shot being fired.
On June 22nd, 1940, General Huntzinger signs the armistice in Compiégne forest, a site undoubtedly chosen to humiliate France, since this was the very spot in which Germany surrendered to Maréchal Foch in 1918.
By surrendering, France, under the leadership of Maréchal Philippe Pétain, the hero who had saved France during the Great War, launches into collaboration.
Petain himself declared during a radio transmission on 30th October 1940:
"I enter today the way of collaboration".
His government, wiht the directorship of Prime Minister Pierre Laval, thus collaborates for the four years of German occupation, going so far as to adopt their racialist politics, targetting in particular the Jews, of which there were 330,000 in France.
Laval was staunchly proud of serving his masters in Berlin; during a 1942 speech he expressed his "hope for a German victory".
Less than a month after the capitulation, in July 1940, the Vichy government begins to persecute the Jews, and to help the Nazis to locate and take action against them, through the process of stripping them of the French citizenships.
The Conseil des Ministres passed the first Jewish Statute in October 1940, denying them the right of employment as civil servants, teachers, or members of the armed forces, and which forbade them the right to work as "managers, directors, newspaper editors".
It also put in place a "numerus clausus", limiting the number of Jews in university studies to 3%.
The German powers asked André Tulard, a police inspector, to do a comprehensive census of all Jews located in the northern Occuped zone of France, and in November 1940, he created a central database of all Jews which had identified themselves as such, and passed the data to the Gestapo.
This database became a key tool for Theodor Dannecker, the man who became the mastermind behind the genocide of French Jews.
Though there is much blame to be laid at the feet of those in power, it is important to remember that the genocide of French Jews would have been much harder without the power held by ordinary people; the populace, and those who reinforced the racist ideas and laws.
One shining example of how ordinary Frenchmen provided more than a helping hand shows in the Milice Francaise.
The Milice was a paramilitary organisation, founded under Nazi ideals, and which was therefore comprised almost exclusively of Fascist sympathisers, some of which had fought with the Nazis and Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War.
The Milice's own 21 point programme shows its dedication to Nazi and racialist ideals:
"Against Bolshevism, for Nationalism"
"Against the Jewish leprosy, for French purity"
Their viciousness is seen when we consider that of 90,000 Jews deported from France, the Milice were responsible for 25,000.
The reason the Milice were so efficient in their dealings, despite there being 30,000 in France, was the very fact that they were French, and very often local, which gave them an edge in that they were already aware of the Jews and Communists in small French villages and communes, and they could also spy much more easily on their fellow citizens.
It would surprise few then that con cequent to the liberation, many of them were victims of reprisals ranging from summary murders to technically ex-judicial public firing squads (the latter whic, bu all accounts, were very well attended by the public).
The Gendarmerie Nationale also had blood on its hands, but what made the Gendarmerie's collaboration so much more damaging was while the Milice and the Germans never really held much authority in terms of respect, the Gendarmerie was a fundemental pillar of the Third French Republic.
It is pretty incontestible that the Gendarmerie was a big cog in the mechanism of genocide; what is are the numbers of the guilty.
The force was responsible for up to 80% of all the interceptions and arrests of "undesirables" in France, and not just Jews.
In fact, on many occasions, the Germans were never even involved in the persecution, save on a political level.
The Rafle du Vel'd'Hiv (the Winter Velodrome Purge) is a glaring example.
For the Nazi operation "Vent Printanier" (Spring Breeze), a purge of all European Jews, thousands of policemen and Gendarmes were mobilised to do the dirty work, of which 9,000 in Paris alone.
A surviving deportee later described the scene:
"The operation is launched; the Parisian police arrests, in every Parisian district, 13,000 foreign Jews....men, women, children, they break down doors, carry off sick children, forays into schools".
Concequently, the task of arresting and concentrating the Jews, prior to presenting them to the Germans for inevitable deportation to extermination camps was extremely efficient.
12,884 Jews were arrested, of which 4,051 were children; no mercy was given.
These numbers are a damning indictment of those guilty; of 42,000 French Jews sent to Auschwitz, this purge was responsible for over a quarter.
The numbers are not the most shocking.The fact is no German had a hand in it, nor the Milice; the work was conducted exclusively by the Gendarmerie Nationale; not a single German had to get his hands dirty.
France also holds the dubious honour of administrating the concentration camps within its own borders. Drancy, in Paris, is well known, but what is less well known is the Commandant was a police officer, and the camp, despite existing under standing German orders, was under the authority of the police Prefecture.
Just to reinforce the Gendarmerie's guilt, subsequent to France's liberation, the survivors of Drancy lodged a legal motion against the Gendarmerie, of which ten members were found guilty in a court of law.
However, to characterise France as a nation of collaborators does a great injustice to the french people, considering the resistance against occupation, all the way up to paramiltitary resistance, of which the FFI, the Forces Francaises de L'Interieure (French Forces of the Interior) was to became the most notorious illegalm organisation.
That the French government became extremely close to the Germans, if not completely subservient is hardly in question. However, it would be a terrible fallacy to characterise all French politicians as lickspittles and "collabos".
On June 10th, 1940, for example, the Assemblé Nationale held a vote dissolving the Third French Republic. Out of 846 deputies and senators, 80, the majority of whom were communists, socialist, and trade-unionists, had the courage and fortitude to vote "No", to stop Pétain being given unbridled power in the Republic.
These deputies became known in France as "Les Quatre-vingts" ("The Eighty") for their courage and strength. One amongst them, Vincent Badie, upon the vote closing, was observed shouting "Long live the Republic, for goodness's sake!"
A government-in-exile was also formed in order to give the resistance against the Germans a structure, under the command of Général Charles de Gaulle, who encouraged the French to resist the Germans, and the French who had surrendered themselves to the Germans, who had "Forgotten honour, and handed this country over to servitude".
De Gaulle formed such an important figurehead for the Resistance that Petain condemned him to death in absentia, for high treason!
De Gaulle therefore becameleader of the FFL, the Forces Francaises Libres (Free French Forces), which continued their struggle agaist the Germans during the war.
The FFL formed an organic part of Allied forces, and were responsible for the formidable victory at Bir Hakeim (which today has a brige in Paris named for it), and were part of the forces which finally made Rommel turn tail from North Africa, along with English and American forces.
These soldiers also made a name for themselves during Operation Overlord and the concequence Battle for Normandy, where French Commandos, under the command of Phillipe Keifer, and under British administration invaded their own country, and these soldiers remained a significant force right until the capitulation of Berlin.
Even Paris was liberated by the French (depending on the nationalaity of the person asked, this ranges from a token move with a nominal force to an actual liberation), the tanks of the famous Deuxiéme Division Blindée (2DB) under the command of Philippe LeClerc, parading down the Champs Elysée forming an iconic image for Parisians.
Though this essay has already disparaged the Gendarmerie and police for their collaboration with the Germans, it would be a naive mistake to think they were completely at the Germans' service.
the Bureau Centale des Resignements et d'Action (The Central Beureau for Information and Action), the French secret service, reported in 1941 that "the higher echelons of the civil service, of which many replaced their origina counterparts, have a tendancy to execute the orders of Vichy, but there is a spirit of non-conformity amongst the middle and lower echelons" and added "some are even willing to resign to join the FFL".
Actually, it turns out that a majority of French policing forces remained opposed to the Germans; a secret document produced by the resistance mentions that the police forces "are composed in great part by elements hostile to collaboration. We can even attest that 65% of police officers are quite frankly Gaullist, or somewhat Anglophillic, and that 30% desire an Anglo-American victory, without having any real love for the British".
However, one shouldn't take this statistic as granted; resistant Claude Bourdet one said that despite resistance documents maintaining that only 2% of the police were collaborators, whenever he had dealing with the police, it always happened to be with that 2%!
The police were also active in the resistant movement; three resistant movement, one of which was openly communist, were formed amongst the police forces; Police et Patrie (Police and Motherland), Front Nationale ded la Police (Police National Front; note that in this case 'national front' does not denote the more contemporary meaning of racist nationalism), and Honneur de la Police (the Honour of the Police).
These organisations became prominant during the Liberation of Paris, as can be seen in the film Paris Brûle-t-il? (Is Paris Burning, the alleged phone call that Hitler sent to General Dietricht von Choltitz, Governor of Paris, tasked with destroying the city to prevent it falling into Allied hands. Von Choltitz disobeyed, and even took steps in cotnact with the resistance and enemy forces to ensure Paris was damaged as little as possible. It is said Hitler phoned him in a rage, and scremed "Brennt Paris?").
On August 13th, 1944, the Gendarmerie began strike action, and on the 15th, the Police not only blocks any attempt by the Germans to control the French, and lets the resistance carry out sabotage action and direct miltiary confrontation with the Germans, but is also ordered to execute any collaborators they come across.
15,000 Policemen and Gendarmes engaged in massive strike action, effectively paralysing Paris until the 25th, the Liberation.
Though the police forces felt the need to pay for the blood on their hands, French civilians formed an incredible network of resistance movements, of which membership or contact with them carried a sentence of death.
This resistance took on a number of different guises; civilians, in particular Catholic Priests, hid Jews from German forces, or rather, the French Police.
The reluctance of the French Youth to submit themselves to the German Service de Travaille Obligatoire (Mandatory Labour Service), where youths would be sent to Germany for war-work or other indentured labour pushed many of them to join the Maquis. The statistics speak for themselves; in the Cotes du Nord, less than 5% of youths and adolescents who were demanded actually went to work in Germany.
That France maintained one of the most famous resistance networks of the war is no coincidence.
Many diverse groups to resist the German occupation were founded (not all fighting towards the same goal, however, and sometimes they found themselves in ideological conflict with each other, especially between Gaullists and Communists).
For example, there were hundreds of local, decentralised Maquis networks, operating in the forests and mountains; the Franc-Tireurs et Partisans, possibly the largest resistant group, of communist persuasion; the Front National (National Front), composed of socialists, Ceux de La Libération (Those of the Liberation) and Ceux de la Résistance (Those of the Resistance), both broadly Gaullist.
It's evident that these groups had a strong left-wing presence; it wasn't unusual to find amongst their numbers veterans of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.
These organisations fought the Germans either with violence (assasinations of soldiers, officers, collaborators, traitors, sabotage, providing aid to the British Special Operations Executive, skirmishing with German troops), or rather more passively (espionnage, disinformation campaigns).
However, let there be no mistake; whether violent or passive, the price for being a resistant was torture by the Gestapo, and summary execution.
The Germand were infamous for the brutality of the reprisal actions; children and women were shot by firing squad in "revenge" for violence, which maybe goes a way to explain why violent actions against the Germans never reached the ferocity it did on the Eastern Front, where resistance was a method of survival.
The tragic case of Ouradour-Sur-Glane is a glaring example of Nazi barbarity, where in revenge for the assassination of a German officer, the SS razed the town to the ground, massacring every inhabitant.
There is much contention amongst historians as to whetehr or not the French Resistance was a truly effective network in the strategic sense; whether the human cost caused the Germans enough troubles as to have any impact on the war.
But one must bear in mind that the Bataille du Rail (the Battle of the Railways) was surely the battle best won, and certainly the most effective during the struggle against the occupier, once its potential had been truly discovered.
In 1941, the first quarter saw a mere 22 succesful sabotages against railway engines. By the second quarter, this figure had risen to 158!
Then numbers speak more about the bravery and determination of the Cheminots than any long description:
In Nancy, a single cheminot (railway employee) cut the brakes to 159 wagons in a single night.
In 1943, 2009 total derailings were achieved, and between the 1st of April and 30th of September the same year, a 6 month period, 110 locomotives, 1688 wagons, and 5 railway cranes were destroyed.
However, this battle was not won with a cost; between May 1943 and February 1944, 1,614 cheminots were arrested, their fate undoubtedly torture, and death.
These figures don't, however, mean that millions of French did not have the courage or inclination to risk their necks.
At D-day. June 1944, figures show 200,000 active members of the rsistance, of which 30,000, the same number of members as the Milice, belonged solely to the FTP (now part of the FFI). Those who had a significant role in the resistance the same year was estimated at 500,000.
It's very telling that the number of resistance rose substantially once it became evident the Germans were losing; the number of FTP members rose to 220,000!
It is difficult to gauge whether the resistance was truely enough to repay France's guilt. The numbers show both that there was a dedicated collaboration, but also a complete inefficiency and inability that can only be explained by the resistance; while it is true that 80% of Jews deported from France were arrested by the French, it is also true that "only" (if you'll pardon the term) 26% of French Jews were deported, compared to countries such as the Netherlands (75%), Greece (77%), Belgium (60%), which is unusual considering that these countries collaborated less than France.
What is true, and remains a black stain upon the nation's history, is that the French Government gave themselves to the service of the Nazis, along with all the institutions comprising the Third Republic, and they collaborated with a vigour that no other Western country did.
In January 2005, Jaques Chirac gave a speech to formally open the Holocaust Memorial in Paris:
"The 16th of July, 1995, during the memorial service for the Great Purge of 16th and 17th July 1942, I reminded us all, in the name of France, that the criminal insanity of the occupier was well and truly supported by Frenchmen and the French State. France should recognise its reponsibility. She must at all costs stay loyal to the humanistic heritage she betrayed. We must do everything to assure everyone, on our soil, a dignified existance, free, no matter their convictions, no matter their beliefs".
The greatest testament to the guilt of Vichy; criminal insanity which betrayed everything for which the French Republic stood for, and worse, she betrayed her very own Citizens.
Bibliography:
Magazines. .:
-Les Années 40. .: La vie des français de l’occupation a la libération
Tallandier/Hachette, 1980.
Numéros 56, 62.
Internet. .:
-fr.wikipeida.com
-artsweb.bham.ac.uk/vichy
-hypo.ge-dip.etat-ge.ch/www/cliotexte/html/collaboration.resistance.html
-http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/francais/interventions/discours_et_declarations/2005/janvier
/discours_du_president_de_la_republique_lors_de_l_inauguration_du_memorial_de_la_shoah.27546.html
Films/ Documentaries:
-«. .Le Chagrin et la Pitié. .», Marcel Öphuls, 1971
-«. .La Bataille du Rail. .», Réné Clément, 1946
-«. .Paris Brûle-t-il. .?. .», Réné Clément, 1966
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