Vichy France in WWII: Pro-Fascist, Pro-Catholic, Pro-Life, Anti-Semitic

Today we will learn and reflect on how Christians and Frenchmen
survived the fascist collaborationist regime in Vichy France.
Many Christians view abortion as the only moral issue that matters,
that they do not care what other political stands a party take, if a party
is against abortion, that is the party Christians should support. The
danger of such a narrow view is apparent when we review the history
of the only anti-abortion, pro-Catholic regime in France after the French
Revolution, the fascist regime of Vichy France that collaborated with the
conquering Nazis. The leaders of this pro-Catholic Vichy regime were
also deeply anti-Semitic, and cooperated with the Germans to
persecute the Jews from the earliest days of the regime. The Vichy
regime was also deeply xenophobic in its immigration policies.

Communism was the mortal enemy of the Christian faith, most
Catholics saw fascists as allies in their struggles against
communism.
And we have a video on a thoughtful consideration of abortion
from a Christian perspective.
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources used for this
video, and my blogs that also cover this topic. Please, we
welcome interesting questions in the comments. Let us learn
and reflect together!

YouTube Video:
Christians Resisting in Fascist Vichy France
https://youtu.be/cjkz6Z-lykw
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Was the reputation of the Catholic Church harmed by the collaboration of the Vichy
regime? There is no single clear-cut answer to this question. The study of the Vichy
regime is most valuable when used as a study on how Christians should live their
lives under an ungodly regime.
Most of the bishops were compromised in their dealings with the Nazis and the
Vichy regime, only one Vichy bishop spoke out against collaboration, many bishops
were forced to resign at the war’s end. However, many Catholic clergy and laymen
opposed the anti-Semitism of the war years. Communists and Catholics jointly
fought against the Nazis in the French Resistance, and some pro-Catholic legislation
introduced by the Vichy regime was retained after the war. We can be cautiously
optimistic in our views, many Catholics and priests lived out their faith in difficult
times, although many Catholics and priests collaborated with the Nazis.

Vichy Cabinet, 1940 left to right, Pierre Caziot, François Darlan, Paul Baudouin, Raphaël Alibert, Pierre Laval, Adrien Marquet, Yves
Bouthillier, Philippe Pétain, Émile Mireaux, Maxime Weygand, Jean Ybarnégaray, Henry Lémery, François Piétri, Louis Colson.

We need to start with the backstories to the fascism of Vichy
France and the persecution of the Jews in World War II. Hitler
did not invent anti-Semitism, the Jews were hated in all of
Europe, including France, and many Catholics despised the
Jews. We can see this most clearly in the Dreyfus affair that
deeply divided French politics for decades.

Dreyfus Affair Timeline
1894: Alfred Dreyfus convicted of
treason, sentenced to Devil’s Island in
French Guiana.
1896: New evidence points to
someone else, but is suppressed,
army does not want to be
embarrassed.
Zola pens J’Accuse, creating an
uproar in the media.
1899: Dreyfus retried, loses.
Pardoned and released.
1906: Dreyfus reinstated in the
military, serves in WWI, retires.
France splits into pro-republican
Dreyfusards, and pro-Catholic, pro-
Army anti-Dreyfusards.

You can sense how this case brought out emotions in both
France and all of Europe in these political cartoons.
You can see the anti-Semitic caricatures of Dreyfus, including
one where he is depicted as Jewish monkey, and an English
cartoon with the caption:

Puck (to French Justice), So far, so good, Madame! You
have vindicated Dreyfus; but you must punish those
criminals who persecuted him, before your work is done.

Emile Zola was also vilified by defending the Jew Dreyfus in
J’Accuse, even though he established his innocence beyond
any shadow of doubt. We see him depicted as the king of the
pigs, and being pursued by an angry mob.

The political backstory of World War II is that it grew out of the
unresolved conflicts of World War I.
When World War I broke out the German armies marched through
Belgium and in a month’s time raced to within 43 miles of Paris, a few
precious weeks behind schedule. But the German army was stopped at
the Battle of the Marne, the Germans and the Allies tried to outflank
each other, eventually digging trenches that reached to the sea and the
mountains, and both sides dug in for years and years of brutal trench
warfare. Millions and millions perished in trench warfare, soldiers
periodically storming through no-man’s land into machine gun fire.
Often single battles had tens of thousands of casualties.

France, Western Front in World War I

Finally, the Germans were
forced to retreat, but before the
war crossed into Germany the
Germans asked for an
armistice. Millions and millions
died on French soil, none on
German soil. The Germans on
the home front thought they
were winning the war. The
common man in the streets of
Berlin asked, Who stabbed us in
the back? Who stole sure
victory from us?
An illustration from a 1919 Austrian postcard showing a
caricatured Jew stabbing a personified German Army in
the back with a dagger. The capitulation of the Central
Powers was blamed upon Socialists, Bolsheviks, the
Weimar Republic, and especially the Jews.
Stab in the back myth

The allies insisted that Germany admit her war guilt, and when
Germany was forced to pay exorbitant reparations, she inflated her
currency. Hyperinflation wiped out the savings of ordinary Germans
and shattered the German economy, one German mark in 1918 had
inflated to a trillion marks by 1923. People used banknotes as
wallpaper. In 1923 coffee would double in price in the time it took to
drink it. Then the Depression hit. Far right-wing parties sprung up,
the fascists and the communists battled in the streets. Out of this
chaos rose Hitler.

Hyper Inflation
Weimar Republic
of Germany
1920’s

When World War II broke out the German armies marched and drove their new
state-of-the art tanks through the supposedly impassible Ardennes Forest. This
time Paris fell in less than a month. This time the newly improved tanks and
German Stuka dive bombers ensured that this Blitzkrieg war would not be
fought in the trenches.
The incredible speed of the German Blitzkrieg invasion and the memories and
the traumas of the last world war were still so overwhelming to the French that
the French leaders lost all will to fight. Winston Churchill flew repeatedly to
France to try to rally their leaders and their troops, begging them to fight to the
bitter end, but the French were truly defeated, possibly before the battle began,
the French longed for peace at any price. Yet the French were resentful that the
British would not commit their RAF fighters to France, those precious fighters
that they needed to horde to fight the Luftwaffe dive bombers in the upcoming
Battle for Britain.

Blitzkrieg, Invasion of France

Nobody in Europe expected that the Nazi Blitzkrieg army would sweep
across France and reach the Pyrenees in six weeks. Winston Churchill
stood alone in his opposition to Hitler in Europe, and he also stood
somewhat alone in his own government, many other leading British
politicians wanted to negotiate a peace with Hitler. The Nazi hold on
the European continent was seen as impregnable, General Charles de
Gaulle wanted to fight on as a guerilla force, but the hero of France and
World War I, General Petain, and most of the other French leaders,
thought that they were forced to sign an armistice with the
Germans. The French longed for peace, their fighting spirit was
crushed by the Blitzkrieg and the memories of the trench warfare in the
last war, the French longed for order. At the end of the war
collaboration was seen as treasonous, and many collaborators were
executed, but at the beginning of the war collaboration was seen as a
necessity.

When the Germans invaded France the government and military
leaders debated among themselves. Should the government flee to the
French colonies in North Africa with the French fleet and continue the
war? Should they stay and share the misfortunes of the French
people? This debate continued as the German army advanced, the
government had to relocate several times, and those in favor of an
armistice, including Marshal Petain and General Weygand, won the
debate.
The war in France seemed over in 1940, with Germany in control of the
continent, the French were asking, how would it be possible for England
to fight back? Hitler was quite willing to accept a lenient armistice,
lenient on his terms, Hitler did not want the French government to flee
to continue the war from Algeria.

Marshall Petain announced over the
radio, “With a heavy heart, I tell you
that it is necessary to stop the
fighting.” Charles de Gaulle
remembered bitterly, “Not a single
public figure raised his voice to
condemn the armistice.” In hindsight
we all know the Nazis lost the war, but
in 1940 most French expected a final
peace conference in a matter of
months. Marshal Petain won the
gratitude of most French who
thought he had saved them from the
abyss of another war in the trenches
of France.

VICHY FRANCE
Free Zone, Southern France
The Nazis occupied the
northeast two-thirds of
France, including Paris, but
left the French Vichy regime
to govern the rest France in
relative autonomy.

Soon the borders hardened between the occupied France and Vichy
France. Although the Vichy leaders technically had jurisdiction over all
of France, they were not even allowed to travel to Paris. Although
some were eventually released, two million French POW’s were held
in prison camps in Germany throughout the war, and the French had
to pay most of their taxes to Germany as reparations to pay for the
occupation forces. The German speaking provinces of Alsace-Lorraine
were annexed by Germany.
The French were eager to negotiate a permanent peace, but Hitler
was not so eager. Again and again, Hitler would tell the Vichy leaders
that they needed to wait for the end of the war to end for a
settlement.

There was very little, if any, active Resistance to the Nazi occupiers soon after the conquest of
France. But another video we discovered discussed a form of passive resistance against the Nazis
that developed very early in the war.
When the Nazis initially conquered France, they assumed that England would immediately buckle
and that the war would be over in a matter of months. The Nazis did not exercise best
management practices over France, instead they only sought to loot everything in France,
including private citizens, stores, businesses, and the factories, which were immediately
shuttered, and all the workers fired.
But England held on, neutralizing the Luftwaffe fighter planes and winning the Battle of Britain.
Then the Germans realized that the war would last a lot longer than they expected, and they
needed to reopen the factories and rehire the workers they fired. But the Nazis treated the
workers like slaves, with low pay and terrible working and living conditions, and in time the
French workers became slaves. The French workers in the factories slowed down the pace of
production, and sabotaged what goods their factories did produce, so many of their
manufactured railcars, trucks, and other vehicles broke down a few months after they were
shipped to the front.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H89Simz_OQ

What was the first priority of Vichy France? Politics, of course. The Third Republic
was known for its gridlock, its inability to govern, and many leading French decided
that their defeat was due to the moral failings of this hated republic.
Hitler shrewdly allowed the rump Vichy regime nominal autonomy in the third of
France that was unoccupied by German troops. Marshal Petain and the Vichy
regime had moral legitimacy in the early years of the war.
Since the church teaches that the political authorities should be respected, the
regime had the support of the elderly bishops throughout the war. The British
were urging the French to fight on, from North Africa if necessary, but the Church
Hierarchy felt that an attitude of repentance and acceptance was more
appropriate. The humiliation of the German conquest was seen as an opportunity
for moral and religious transformation.

Vichy French propaganda posters share themes with KKK:
The cross & chivalrous knights
Vichy Fascists fights Communism, or Bolshevism:

Paxton observes that “the defeated republic, so
substantial in its inertia only a few days before,
evaporated like the dew.” The time was ripe for
change. “In their excitement, Frenchmen
committed the most elementary imprudence. In
their impatience to avenge old wrongs and
transform the conditions that led to defeat, they
made major structural changes during an enemy
occupation.” Vichy France would replace the
French Revolutionary slogan of “Liberty, Equality,
and Fraternity” with “work, family, and
fatherland.” The French under the Vichy regime
would definitely be far less free and have to work
far harder, either as prisoners or for far less pay.

France at the start of the war was becoming more and more secular,
although 80 per cent were nominally Catholic, only one in three attended
Mass at Easter. Mostly women and children attended Mass regularly. In
1940 the clergy was aging; forty percent were over sixty, although many
younger priests answered the call to the priesthood during the war. The
French state became more hostile to religion, religious property was
seized, religious orders had their schools closed and had to be approved
by the state, and the state no longer paid the clergy.
The Protestant pastors tended to be younger and more active in the
Resistance, in part due to the fact that they were more numerous in the
mountainous Vichy regions of France. The Vichy regime reversed some of
this anti-clerical legislation, and some of this legislation survived when
France was liberated.
Christianity in Vichy France

Forcible closure of
the Grande
Chartreuse
monastery in 1903

The chess
players,
Giulio Rosati,
before 1917

Like the general population, some of the clergy were collaborators, some
aided the Resistance. At the beginning of the war the godless Communists
were seen as the enemy, and as the fascists in the recently concluded
Spanish Civil War sided with the Catholics in opposing the Communists,
many Catholics initially supported the fascists. Also, many Catholics were
anti-Semitic. Many Catholics did not turn away from fascism even in the
face of the continuing brutality of the German occupation, many of the
French who joined the Milice, the French version of the Gestapo with an
even worse reputation, considered themselves hard core Catholics. Many
Catholics volunteered to fight in the French Volunteer Legion, or LVF, who
fought the Communists on the Eastern Front. They saw themselves a
participating in a Christian Crusade against Bolshevism, delivering France
from the clutches of the Jews. Both of these organizations had Catholic
chaplains.

LVF soldiers
pictured in
contemporary
propaganda
posing with the
French flag in
November 1941.
These Vichy
French soldiers
fought with the
Nazis on the
Eastern Front.

Many of the leading liberals in Parliament had fled France, those
ministers remaining in the National Assembly voted to suspend
the Constitution of 1875 and grant full powers to Marshal Petain,
instructing him to draft a new constitution. Elections were out of
the question since the Germans occupied most of France. The
government agencies were now led by professional bureaucrats.
Old age pensions, so long fought over, were now enacted by
decree. The government fought against moral decadence,
waging a campaign against alcoholism, reestablishing religious
instruction in the schools, and church properties that had been
seized in 1905 were now restored. Divorce was now forbidden
in the first three years of marriage.

Propaganda poster for the
Vichy Regime's 'Revolution
Nationale' program.

Pierre Laval, who had been in and out of power in France for decades,
became Minister of State and handled the day to day administration of
the Vichy government. He was a true fascist politically, and was eager to
meet Goering and work with the German ambassador Abetz. He was
eager for France to join the war on Germany’s side, in the early days of
the war the French even attacked the English fortress at Gibraltar. If only
Hitler could see France as an equal, a peace treaty could be negotiated,
the French POW’s could be quickly released, the occupation costs could
be reduced, and the government could return to Paris and govern the
whole country. Such dreams! Laval was eager to show the Vichy’s plans
for antiparliamentary and anti-Jewish legislation. Alas, Hitler was not
interested. The armistice had France where he wanted her. She needed
to wait until the end of the war for any improvements.

Marshal Petain And Pierre Laval, 1942

The Vichy government was friendly to Catholics, but was not friendly to
Jews. In 1940, long before the Germans began to apply pressure, the
Vichy government implement anti-Semitic policies and legislation,
although Jewish veterans and long-established French families were
exempted from some of the harsher policies. Jews were excluded from
prestigious governmental and military jobs, and from teaching and jobs in
the media. Foreign Jews were interned in concentration camps. Petain
himself may have even consulted with the Vatican on the permissible
limits of anti-Semitism. In the next year in the Occupied Zone Jewish
properties and artwork were seized.

German persecution of the Jews in France

Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp

The abhorrent treatment of the Jews was what turned much of the clergy and the
faithful against the regime. Several bishops protested against the treatment of the
Jews while they continued to support Petain. Many Catholics and Protestants clergy
and faithful actively resisted the Nazi persecution of the Jews.
Many seminaries, convents and churches hid Jews, often with secret cooperation
from bishops and other church administrators, many of the faithful helped Jews
escape to Spain and Switzerland. Nuns in Lyons became specialists in forging
identity papers to help Jews escape. Laval once had ordered the deporting of
Jewish children, they were snatched from a train station and hidden in seminaries
and convents. The Germans were furious at clerical intervention in their plans to
exterminate the Jews.
We are showing pictures of the Milice, the French police, who helped round up the
Jews to send them to the concentration camps, and who sometimes were more
brutal than the Gestapo.

Deportation
of the Jews
at Marseille,
1943

The historian Paxton
speculates on Hitler’s
arrogance, “one can only
speculate on what would
have happened if Hitler
had been less vengeful,
less wedded to forceful
solutions (i.e., had not
been such a bully),
quicker to sense other’s
needs and aspirations.”
But if Hitler had not been
Hitler, he would not have
invaded France in the first
place.
Philippe Pétain meeting Hitler in October 1940

Pierre Laval was sacked by Petain in December 1940, greatly
damaging French-German relations, as Laval was the Germans’
favored collaborator. History is uncertain exactly why, Petain left
no clues as to his state of mind. Laval was replaced by Darlan,
who deepened the Vichy collaboration with the Nazis. Two years
later Laval would be rehabilitated, the Germans preferred Laval to
Darlan. But Laval would be restored to the head of the Vichy
government when it was becoming more and more a mere
puppet government. At the end of the war Laval was tried and
executed as a collaborator. The elderly Petain was sentenced to
be executed as a collaborator, but de Gaulle pardoned him, he
would die in prison.

Negotiations at Algiers, November
1942. General Eisenhower,
Admiral Darlan, Maj. Gen. Mark
W. Clark, and Robert Murphy
of State Department

The Tide Turns, Resistance and Collaboration
When the events of the war made eventual German defeat more and more likely,
the Vichy regime became less and less powerful and more and more desperate. In
the beginning collaboration was merely seen as making the best of a bad situation,
over time collaboration was seen more and more to be treasonous.

June 1941: Germany invades
Russia in Operation
Barbarossa.
Initially Germany enjoyed the
same quick and swift victory in
Russia that she enjoyed in
France, but Russia is so
incredibly vast that no matter
how successful the Nazis were
on the battlefield, they would
always be outnumbered by the
Russians who remained.
The Tide Turns, Resistance and Collaboration

Now that Russia was again an enemy of Germany, the
Communists in France faced greater pressure, causing more
Communists to join the Resistance which actively opposed the
Germans and the Vichy French, and also prompted greater
cooperation between Catholics and Communists in France that
would last into the post-war years. Terrorism and assassinations
of German officials increased, and the Vichy officials were drawn
into the struggle against the Resistance, which was now a civil
war.
Now the Vichy officials heard a new excuse when they urged the
Germans to see them as partners rather than as conquered, the
Germans were now far too busy on the Eastern front to attend to
matters in Europe, the French would have to wait until the end of
the war to negotiate a permanent peace.

Jan Saudek, FLICKR.
The French Resistance
blew up railroad
tracks and repeatedly
attacked German
Army equipment and
garrison trains on
their way to the
Atlantic coast. As
Allied troops
advanced, the French
Resistance rose
against the Nazi
occupation forces and
their garrisons en
masse.

The German persecution of the Jews in France increased in 1942,
Jews were required to wear yellow stars, and Himmler ordered
that 100,000 Jews from all of France be deported to the
Auschwitz death camps, foreign born Jews first. The Vichy
officials offered token resistance. This persecution extended to
clergy who assisted the Jews, many French priests would be
murdered in the Dachau concentration camp, many of the faithful
would become martyrs in their defense of the Jews. One nun
commented as she sent to the death camp in Ravensbruk, “I am
leaving for Heaven.”

December 1941: Japan
attacks America at
Pearl Harbor
Hitler then declares
war on America, which
Churchill predicted
would make eventual
victory certain, as now
America could enter
the war in Europe
directly.
Japan Attacks Pear Harbor, Hitler Declares War

November 1942: The
Allies invade French
North Africa in
Operation Torch.
There were multiple
landings in French
Morocco and Algeria,
there was no
preliminary
bombardments, but
the Vichy French
troops offer resistance.
Operation Torch, Invasion of North Africa

After Darlan had been deposed by Laval, Darlan was appointed
commander of the armed forces. Luckily, he was visiting his son
in the hospital in Algiers when the Resistance seized control of
Algiers and also Darlan. When the Allies recognized Darlan as
the commander of the French forces, he ordered the Vichy troops
in North Africa to join the Allied forces, and they obeyed.
Darlan’s surrender of Vichy French troops made Hitler furious, he
thought he could no longer trust the French.
Hitler ordered German troops to seize control of the rump Vichy
provinces, after that all France would be occupied.

Negotiations at Algiers, November 1942. General
Eisenhower, Admiral Darlan, Maj. Gen. Mark W. Clark,
and Robert Murphy of State Department

Paxton concludes, “The fact that Petain did not
renounce the armistice in November 1942,
upon the total occupation of France, and there
is no contemporary evidence that this was
ever considered, proved to the Germans (and
to Hitler) that Petain would never resign.” This
Darlan deal was highly controversial since
Darlan had been a high-level collaborator with
the Nazis. Churchill reminded the House of
Commons, “I am sorry to have to mention a
point like this, but it makes a lot of difference
to a soldier whether a man fires his gun at
him, or at an enemy.” The Germans attempted
to seize the French fleet in North Africa, the
Vichy ordered that the French fleet be scuttled
to keep it out of the hands of the Germans.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill and
General Charles De Gaulle review French
soldiers during their meeting in Marrakesh,
Morocco, January 1944.

Germany finally put its economy on a war footing, French food rations
were reduced to help feed Germany. Deportations of French Jews
increased. The Nazis needed French workers for their factories since so
many Poles and Russian laborers had been worked to death. Laval struck
a pathetic deal with the Nazis, for every three skilled workers who
volunteered to work in German factories, one French POW would be
released. But when not enough French volunteered, this was turned into
a draft of French workers to labor in German factories. Now many young
French were offered a choice, join the Resistance or be drafted.

November 1942: in the Battle of
Stalingrad the German General
Paulus surrendered what was left
of the Sixth Army, twenty-two
divisions, when the Russians
trapped them in Stalingrad.
Millions died in Stalingrad. After
Stalingrad the Germans were in
full retreat on the Eastern front.
Now the French would worry
that eventually the German
occupation would be replaced by
a Russian occupation of France,
which was a factor in the Vichy
regime’s choice to continue their
collaboration with the Nazis.
Battle of Stalingrad

The civil war deepened. The Vichy regime was drawn into
greater collaboration with the Germans as the Vichy officials
naively sought to restore French sovereignty by increasing French
participation in the police and military. French police helped
round up and deport the Jews to their deaths. Professor
Merriman points out that the Resistance was strongest in the
south of France where there were mountains and forests where
the resisters could hide.

June 1944: The Allies
invade through
Normandy beaches in
France on D-Day.
Petain issued a
proclamation urging all
Frenchmen to remain
neutral in the
upcoming struggle,
French blood was too
precious to waste.
D-Day, Allied Invasion of France

When the Allies
occupy Paris, the
Germans compel
Petain, Laval, and the
Vichy government to
move to the
Sigmaringen enclave
in Germany. Finally,
Petain and Laval
refused to participate
in the charade of an
obvious puppet
government.
Puppet Vichy Government
at Sigmaringen Enclave

In the end the Church gained little from the efforts of the Vichy regime,
upon its liberation France reverted back to a secular state, and the constant
battle between clericalism and anti-clericalism was resumed. The authority
of the bishops, who were so closed tied to Marshal Petain and the Vichy
regime, was undermined, most bishops were forced into retirement. Much
of the Vichy legislation was declared null and void, although the Vichy
bureaucracy was allowed to continue governing. Some measures were
retained, the religious orders continued to be teachers, the subsidies paid
to Catholic schools were not revoked. The experience of the Resistance
may have helped the new worker-priest movement to grow, younger
priests wanted to be closer to the working class. The adversity of the war
had encouraged a revival among many faithful.
Christianity in Vichy France

Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, France

How did the experience of the faithful affect the sessions of the second
Vatican Council? The war years brought more denominational mixing, the
Dachau prison camp was an ecumenical brotherhood, where French
priests and protestant pastors and Jews all suffered together for their
faith. The experience of Yves Congar in a French POW camp influenced his
later ecumenical theology. Likewise, Catholics and Protestants cooperated
in the Resistance movements. Definitely after the war and the Holocaust
purged anti-Semitism from the hearts of the truly faithful, and the Vatican II
decrees on ecumenicism peaceful coexistence with Jews were directly
influenced by these wartime experiences.

The greatest effect of the war experiences was the realization that
Democracy was the most desirable political system for not only tolerating
but encouraging the faithful in their desire to live a godly life, bringing up
their children in the faith. The Vichy government may have been seen as
the defender of ancient virtue in the early years of the occupation, but it
was all too eager to collaborate with the evil Nazi occupiers in the vain
and futile hope that order would be maintained. All who survived the
war realized that totalitarian governments would in the end be inimical
to the Christian faith, freedom was seen as a Christian virtue. The
greatest lesson was that the Catholic Church needed to be on the side of
virtue on issues that affect social justice.

SOURCES: Our main source on Vichy France, this book by Robert
Paxton was so influential that it influenced the post-war history
of how the history of Vichy France was remembered.
The trauma of the Nazi occupation, living through yet another
World War fought on French soil, and the civil war in France
fought between the Resistance and the Vichy collaborators was
so deep that the French constructed the Charles de Gaulle
myth that most French were part of the Resistance from the
very beginning. This amnesia was assisted by the French
policy to keep the state archives confidential for fifty years.

The truth is that the French police happily collaborated with the Germans when the
rounded up the Jews to send them to the death camps. Pictures of these French
gendarmes were air-brushed out of the pictures in this period.
There was not any public discussion or study of the realities of the extent of the
collaboration during the Vichy regime until the seventies. The view that
collaboration with the Nazis was widespread was considered heretical and
unthinkable until the ice was broken by the 1970 French film, The Sorrow and the
Pity which was not shown on French television until 1981.
Robert Paxton’s book on Vichy France used mostly German archives to provide a
more balanced view of this painful history. This book is a joy to read, and was a
runaway best-seller in France, and it was a topic of intense national discussion in
the media and in French Society, and changed how the French remembered the
painful history of Vichy France.

YouTube Video:
Christians Resisting in Fascist Vichy France
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on the slides, and the blog may differ somewhat in
content.
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We originally ordered Paxton’s book because it was repeated mentioned in the
footnotes of our other book, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France. When
reviewing this book, we realized that the reactions by French Christians to the
calamity of the German invasion are a reflection of the reactions of the French people
as a whole. In the early years the war seemed to be over soon after it started,
nobody could imagine that the German army could be dislodged from Europe proper,
everybody supported Marshal Petain and the Vichy regime, everyone wanted to
blame the success of the German invasion on the moral weakness of the old French
Republic, nobody was eager to fight a guerilla war on French soil where the Nazis
could bring vengeance on their wives and children.

Professor John Merriman of Yale University is another important source,
he discusses how the French viewed the history of the Vichy regime. He
lived in a village in France for many years several decades ago when
memories of Vichy France were still fresh and when many were alive
who lived through the German occupation. He has stories of people
who every day see directing traffic the gendarme who sent their friends
and neighbors to the death camps. His lectures are interesting because
he expects his students to study the material on their own, and his
lectures mainly focus on what life was actually like for ordinary people
during these historic times.

Professor John Merriman of Yale University

This is John Merriman’s discussion of Vichy France in his European History class
(23. Collaboration and Resistance in World War II):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3G0O3nMB1k&list=PL3A8E6CE294860A2
4&index=23
This is John Merriman’s discussion of Vichy France in his French History class
(18. The Dark Years: Vichy France):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4-
BGTJDBY8&index=18&list=PLMptTpi3a4bdqk56cdO-6q_siFAhESUWp
In the next lecture he discusses the French Resistance (19. Resistance):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5NNaMiXQ-
4&index=19&list=PLMptTpi3a4bdqk56cdO-6q_siFAhESUWp

Fascism has different forms reflecting the culture in which its seeds take root, this
is our planned series of videos. The first totalitarian fascist regime was that of
Mussolini in Italy, who was a friend of the Catholic Church and the Pope in the
beginning, until he started persecuting the Jews on the eve of World War II.
Hitler feigned friendship with the church in the very beginning of his rule, but the
Nazis quickly started harassing and persecuting both Catholics and Protestants,
sending many to the death camps.
The Fascists and General Franco in the Spanish Civil War were the friend of the
Catholic Church. Although both the Nationalist Fascists and the Republican
Communists were both brutal, and both committed atrocities and massacres, the
Communists massacred priests and monks and nuns by the thousands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YtC9qGWPI&list=PLJVlY2bjK8ljmWA9WwFz3IeRonyUNxRKO

And we have the Vichy French government, who collaborated with the
invading Nazi powers. The Vichy government was pro-Catholic, pro-
life, and anti-Semitic, and Vichy officials openly sent Jews to their
deaths in the Nazi death camps.

Viktor Frankl’s message in his book, In Man’s Search For Meaning, is
that no matter what challenges life throws at you, even the challenges
of the Nazi concentration work camps, you can find the strength to
persevere if your life has meaning.
The stoicism of Nelson Mandela of South Africa, who went from prison
to the Presidency, who was imprisoned for challenging apartheid,
shows how we can persevere and defeat racial hatred in our lives and
society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxDnJ6sBoJc&list=PLJVlY2bjK8lgJZvnhM6Mte9kyUnmaW_ip

Many people are unaware that the Nazis used the Jim Crow
race laws as precedents when drafting their anti-Semitic Race
Laws that started the persecution of the Jews by the state
bureaucracy.
And finally, the spiritual danger of white evangelical Christian
Nationalism is that it can too easily morph into white
supremacy.

We challenge our white Christian listeners to sample our videos on Civil Rights so you can be
more compassionate towards the plight of our black brothers in Christ.
Frederick Douglass belongs to the first generation of black leaders. He escapes from slavery and
became a leading abolitionist orator before the Civil, and a leading Civil Rights leader during the
Reconstruction years after the Civil War.
Booker T Washington was a teenage when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation
freeing the slaves in the Deep South, and he was both an orator and a second-generation black
leader who focused educating the freed slaves so they could improve themselves.
WEB Dubois was born during Reconstruction, and was an orator, writer, and was a third-
generation activist black leader who helped found the NAACP.
We have another story of the lesser-known Father Tolton, who like Booker T Washington was
emancipated during the Civil War. He was invited to study in Rome for the priesthood; and was
the first former slave who was ordained as a priest.

The YouTube description links to the video script and our blog.
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Vichy France in WWII: Pro-Fascist, Pro-Catholic, Pro-Life, Anti-Semitic

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Vichy France in WWII: Pro-Fascist, Pro-Catholic, Pro-Life, Anti-Semitic