Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News is a daily edited review of WWII news, providing thought- provoking collection of hand-picked WW2 information.

Category: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany  -- See latest WWII news here. See also 'French Resistance', 'British Royal Nazis', 'D-Day 1944', 'WWII Collectors'.

Nazi occupation of France advanced the sexual liberation of women
A book which suggests that the Nazi occupation promoted the sexual liberation of French women has outraged a country failing to come to terms with its collaboration with the Nazis. "The reality is that people adapted to occupation," said Patrick Buisson, author of 1940-1945 Années Erotiques (erotic years). With their husbands in prison camps, many women slept not only with German soldiers (the young "blond barbarians" were irresistible to French women) but also had affairs with anyone else who could help them through hard times: "In times of rationing, the body is the only renewable, inexhaustible currency."     [ timesonline :: 2008-05-26 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

Color photos of nazi-occupied Paris reveal the happy life and collaboration
"Parisians under the Occupation" -exhibition of rare color photos of occupied Paris has created a controversy, as it shows too happy a picture of life under the Nazis. Paris deputy mayor Christophe Girard has proposed shutting down the show by French photographer Andre Zucca. Photography was not allowed in WWII Paris, but Zucca got permits from his employer, the Nazi propaganda magazine Signal. The happy-go-lucky shots show a grande dame on a shopping promenade, sunbathers along Seine, chic youths flirting and families spending a day at the races - life going on as normal in a city valued by the Nazis.     [ reuters :: 2008-04-22 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France
During the German occupation of France, Suzanne Desseigne started contact with the Nazis. She became the mistress of a German soldier who enrolled her to conduct espionage missions against the Vichy regime. Her mother described the Nazi spy as "a young French girl who, from the age of 15... felt the danger of Bolshevism and of the Jewish conspiracy." She remained, even after her captivity, a earnest traitor, attacking other inmates who did not share her loyalty to the Nazi cause. --- Historian Simon Kitson's research of the French counterintelligence service's pursuit of German spies is precise, but maybe not aimed to appeal to a mass market.     [ nysun :: 2008-01-02 ]

Catherine Deneuve's father accused of collaborating with Nazis
The father of the French film star Catherine Deneuve was a Nazi collaborator during World War II, sayd biography Deneuve, L'Affranchie (Deneuve, the free woman). Mme Deneuve emerges from the bio, which she tried to block, as a calculating person. The actress, described as the most beautiful woman in the world, is usually presented as a warm person, beneath an icy exterior. But the author Bernard Violet claims that this image is a "legend" constructed by Deneuve. The book's main revelation is on Deneuve's father Maurice Dorléac, who made 72 appearances in radio plays for the pro-Nazi radio station and appeared in several propaganda films.     [ independent :: 2007-10-18 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

Picasso was no collaborator, supported the French Resistance
He stayed in Paris when the Nazis invaded, keeping his head down and prompting claims that he must have collaborated with Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. But covertly Picasso - denounced as a "degenerate" artist by Hitler - played a role in supporting the French Resistance, according to previously unpublished letters. Professor Peter Read has gained access to a collection of letters proving that Picasso actively supported the Resistance activist Robert Desnos, who was arrested by the Gestapo on 22 Feb 1944. "He was never involved in overt Resistance activity, but his friends were anti-fascists and he used to help them by giving them art they could sell..."     [ independent :: 2007-09-25 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

Alsace-Moselle veterans fight to be recognized as victims of Nazism
World War II veterans stood proud in front of the memorial cross that looms over the town of Obernai. The gathering was to mark the 65th anniversary of the forced conscription into the German army for the French population of Alsace-Moselle. Tainted by their service to the enemy, the malgré nous ("despite ourselves") are demanding a statement from President of France, saying that they were victims of Nazism. And they want a committee to establish that they were neither traitors nor collaborators. 160,000 were forced into the abattoir that was the Eastern Front. Many ended up in the Soviet prison camps - and returned to a country that questioned their loyalty.     [ theglobeandmail :: 2007-08-28 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

Historian Henri Amouroux dies, documented Nazi occupation of France
Henri Amouroux, a French historian who testified on behalf of Maurice Papon at his war crimes trial and wrote several books on the Nazi occupation, has died at 87. Born July 1, 1920 in Perigueux, he started as a journalist during the Second World War. He later worked for radio and tv, and wrote several books on daily life under the German occupation. Many historians accused him of being an apologist for the Vichy regime. At the Papon trial, he countered American historian Robert O. Paxton's version of the Vichy period.     [ iht :: 2007-08-07 :: Historians, Authors of World War II ]

Wine and War - French winemakers during Nazi occupation
War was never more strongly present than during World War II in France. Wine and War by Don and Petie Kladstrup tells this story: As France surrendered, as occupation by the Germans became inevitable, French winemakers hurried to save their their acclaimed wines. The Kladstrups interviewed surviving winegrowers to learn how they survived the occupation, how they hid Jewish and other hunted refugees and partisans, and how they hid their wines. Into this mix went traitors as well-vignerons who for their own reasons valued their vineyards above the lives of friends and sometimes their own families.     [ northdenvernews :: 2007-05-10 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

French railways win World War II appeal
A French court has overturned a ruling that ordered the state railway to compensate the family of World War II deportees - ruling said SNCF was an entity in its own right. Last June a court ruled SNCF must pay 61,000 euros to the Lipietz family, whose members were taken to a camp near Paris in 1944. SNCF, which had received 1,800 compensation requests since June's ruling, earlier argued it had no choice but to do as it was ordered by the Vichy govt in collaboration with the German occupying army - Those who refused faced being shot. 76,000 Jews were deported from France 1942-1944.     [ bbc :: 2007-03-28 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

Collaborator Papon's burial with Legion d'Honneur medal resisted
The French collaborator Maurice Papon asked to be buried wearing his Legion d'Honneur medal, causing a controversy. "I will personally ensure that he will be accompanied in his grave by the Order of Commander of the Legion of Honour," his lawyer Francis Vuillemin said. Bernard Accoyer called the statement "shocking." He was sure that Jacques Chirac, as grand chancellor of the order, would "make sure that on the one hand the law will be respected and that on the other nothing will sully this award, which is very emblematic for the republic." Papon was not allowed to wear the medal after he was convicted.     [ iht :: 2007-02-19 :: WWII Medals & Most decorated Soldiers ]

Maurice Papon: Nazi-era collaborator of pro-Nazi Vichy regime dies
Maurice Papon, a former Cabinet minister who became a symbol of France's collaboration with the Nazis, has died at 96. Papon, an official in the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, was the highest-ranking Frenchman convicted. The April 2, 1998, guilty verdict throttled the nation backward in time, offering a painful look at one of the darkest periods in modern French history. Papon, who never showed remorse, lived out his final years a free man, released because of failing health. Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld said the decision showed that "part of the French establishment does not admit that a man like Papon can die in prison."     [ usatoday :: 2007-02-18 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

WWII deportees to sue pro-Nazi Vichy regime rail operator
Some 200 families whose relatives were deported by France's pro-Nazi Vichy regime during World War II are to sue the rail operator SNCF for millions. The case follows a landmark ruling in June, in which the state and the rail firm were fined 62,000 euros for the wartime deportation of two men. Previous, similar cases had been dismissed on the grounds that the SNCF was commandeered by the German army, while the Vichy government was an aberration for which the post-war French state was not responsible. But 1995 Jacques Chirac recognised France's role in the oppression, and 1997 Maurice Papon case proved the participation of the government in the deportations.     [ dw-world :: 2006-08-29 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

The Forgotten WWII Children of German-Occupied France
Some 200,000 children of French mothers and occupying German soldiers are still a taboo topic. Josiane Kruger has broken the silence with her new book. While growing up Josiane Kruger always felt a bit different. Finally she was told the truth: her father had been a German soldier. He was transferred from France to the Russian front and had not been heard from since. After the war ended, anger grew in France over the occupation. Collaborators became targets of revenge, including those French women who had had relationships with Germans. They were bullied, their hair was shorn, they were driven naked through villages and forced to turn their children over to orphanages.     [ dw-world :: 2006-08-28 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

French state fined: Not Gestapo but French state took action
In the first case of its kind, the French state and the SNCF national rail operator were fined 62,000 euros for their role in the deportation of two Jewish men in Second World War. Previous attempts to condemn the SNCF in criminal and civil courts have failed, and the current case rested on claims that the French state authorities, the police and the SNCF failed in their duty to provide services to citizens. Lawyer said that "in the round-ups, it was not the Gestapo but the French authorities who took action".     [ news-au :: 2006-06-07 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

A haven from Hitler - The only Righteous place in France
The French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon played a courageous role in the second world war, providing sanctuary for thousands. Yad Vashem hailed the wartime population of Le Chambon as among the "Righteous". It is the only place in France to have such an honour. Historians generally agree that fewer than 5% of French people took part in even the most mild form of resistance. "Quite the contrary: it was the exception in a country that overwhelmingly submitted to the Nazi regime," says Sauvage.     [ timesonline :: 2006-06-04 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

French State May Face Condemnation For WWII Deportations
The French state and the SNCF rail operator may face a fine of 60,000 euros for their role in the deportation of Jews during WW2. If the case succeeds it will be the first-ever conviction of this kind before a French court. In the past they have ruled that the SNCF was commandeered by the occupying German army, while the Vichy government was an aberration for which the post-war French state was not responsible. But Lipietz said the jurispridence had changed since President Chirac in 1995 recognised France's role in the oppression, and the 1997 trial of Vichy official Maurice Papon proved the government participation in the deportations.     [ ttc :: 2006-05-17 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

France to Shine a Light on Its Notorious Camp
A memorial marking the role of France's Vichy government in shipping Jews and others to Nazi death camps will be created at Rivesaltes, an internment facility near France's border with Spain. It will be the first official Holocaust memorial in Southern France, the stronghold of the Vichy government, which collaborated with the Nazis from 1940 to 1944. Rivesaltes was the most active way station for persecuted Jews and political opponents. In 1941, the height of its operation, Rivesaltes had a population of 8,000, an estimated 3,000 of whom were children.     [ washingtonpost :: 2006-05-02 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

In Occupied France, Heroic Silence Amid the Fog of War
For six decades now, the French have cherished the myth of the Resistance, the insurgency that undermined, a little, the repressive authority of their Nazi occupiers and preserved - at least in memory - the honor of their otherwise humiliated nation. Heroic futility is romantic stuff, and the apparatus of clandestine operations is, besides, imperishably cool: the false names, the passwords, the dead-of-night rendezvous. But, perhaps because in their national imagination the ethos of the Resistance slides so easily into the comfort zone of Musketeer-like fraternal gallantry.     [ nytimes :: 2006-04-30 :: French Resistance ]

Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Fame and France
By 1938 Louis Darquier was the head of the Anti-Jewish Union, the most prominent anti-Semitic organisation in France. Obsessed by racial purity, he was in eager agreement with the Nazis, whose influence he cultivated assiduously. For some years, the Third Reich supported many of his activities from a distance. In 1942, after the fall of France, he became head of the Vichy CGQJ, devoting less time to his administrative duties than to tracking down and seizing Jewish assets, a process known as "economic Aryanisation". When the Final Solution gathered pace, he helped send 32,000 Jews to Auschwitz.     [ smh :: 2006-04-25 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

The Unfree French and Bad Faith - Two Books
The novelty of The Unfree French is to discuss those forgotten people, dismissed as "collabos", who had to make impossible choices: the ones, for example, who voluntarily went off to Germany as workers, or the women whose heads were famously shaved (les tontes) for sleeping with the enemy, or black market "profiteers". Vinen suggests that sheer survival was frequently a factor, particularly for those escaping histories of abuse or poverty, not sufficiently privileged through contacts, wealth or class.     [ guardian :: 2006-04-22 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

"French Eichmann" Louis Darquier - Villain of Vichy France
By focusing on Louis Darquier, an overlooked villain of the Vichy regime who acted as Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, biographer Carmen Callil says she used the "underbelly of history" to expose the truth. In 1978, Darquier gave an interview to "L'Express" in which he called the Holocaust a "Jewish invention" and said the reason for the gas chambers was to get rid of lice. In the end the Vichy state deported 75,000 Jews. Of 70,000 sent to Auschwitz only 2,500 survivors returned to France.     [ redorbit :: 2006-03-28 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

Former P.O.W. reveals nasty side of the French Resistance
Canadian Jack Fairweather temporary worked with the French Resistance, earning one of France's highest honors. He was part of the June 6 D-day landing in Normandy. On the second day he was taken as a POW. Train transfering him was bombed by the Allies, he wasn't hurt, but the explosion allowed him to escape. He was picked up by French resistance fighters after the escape. "The leader of the group was an outlaw of sorts named Lecoz. The guy was pretty much out for himself. Anyone that got in his way he'd have them either executed or beaten to death." While with the group, Fairweather helped to liberate the small French town of Loshes. Once the town was liberated, Lecoz rounded up many of the residents and executed them for no reason other than he found them undesirables.     [ aiipowmia :: 2006-03-05 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

Georges Guingouin - A Communist maquisard
Georges Guingouin was a legendary figure of the French Resistance who was awarded the title of Compagnon de la Liberation by General de Gaulle in 1944. Of 1,053 recipients Guingouin was one of only 12 Communists. -- Because Hitler and Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact, the Communist party refused to take sides in the imperialist war. After the fall of France in 1940, this meant that the party did not directly condemn the German occupation. Guingouin drafted a manifesto in August 1940, denouncing the occupation. Later his activities became more ambitious: sabotaging a railway and blowing up a rubber factory near Limoges.     [ guardian :: 2005-12-04 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

Gendarmes' role in Nazi rule revealed as Vichy era archives open
Gendarmes were used by the Nazis to round up Jews and guard transit camps. 60 years after World War II ended, the gendarmerie has finally agreed to open its archives. The extracts give an insight into how the 36,000 gendarmes in service during the Nazi occupation were torn between obedience to the Vichy government, collaboration with the Germans and sympathy for the French Resistance. For more than half a century, France failed to face up to this painful period in its history and it is only in recent years that attempts have been made to come to terms with the reality of French conduct during the Nazi occupation.     [ scotsman.com :: 2005-10-07 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

V-E Day has special place in ex-Army nurse's heart
Young Army nurse Isabelle Cook worked in the operating room of a hospital in southern France, when the long-awaited word came. Nazi Germany had surrendered. The flow of casualties to the 3rd General Hospital would end. Her patients were going home - not back to the front. Whoops of joy erupted, and relief washed over soldiers, doctors and nurses. She put on her dress uniform and joined others to march through streets lined with cheering townspeople. Her elation quickly turned to horror. Hanging from a lamppost was a man. Then another. And another. Each wore a sign that read, "Collaborateur."     [ signonsandiego :: 2005-05-08 :: Nurses in World War II ]

A nation shamed - Extent of French collaboration with the Nazis
The Sorrow and the Pity is one of the greatest films about the Nazi occupation of France. But when director Marcel Ophüls submitted the completed over 4-hour documentary in 1969, the station refused to screen it. Not because of its length, but because of its disturbing content. Network head told a government committee that the film "destroys myths that the people of France still need". The documentary painfully showed the extent of French collaboration with the Nazis.     [ guardian :: 2004-01-24 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

US banks named in Holocaust suit
Lawyers acting on behalf of victims of the Jewish holocaust and their families have accused two US banks of seizing their wealth during the Nazi occupation of France. The families filed a class-action lawsuit against two leading banks, Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan, alleging that they were complicit in the seizure of wealth stolen from Jews as they were transported to death camps. Lawyers claim that Chase Manhattan's Paris operation was closely allied with the Nazi regime and thrived on its patronage. They also allege that JP Morgan openly boasted of its anti-Jewish record and policies.     [ bbc :: 2000-03-10 :: French Collaboration with Nazi Germany ]

See also

'French Resistance'

'British Royal Nazis'

'D-Day 1944'

'WWII Collectors'.

Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2008. All rights reserved.