Three works revisit the collaboration, reminding us of the main elements
of support that a segment of the population, institutions, and press inFrance offered to Nazi Germany. The Dictionary of Collaboration is a
particularly useful tool, more akin to an encyclopedia than a
dictionary, given the sheer number of references and entries. The author
presents the actors, places, and events of collaboration in a concise
manner, providing an initial overview before delving into other works.
Collaboration was first and foremost a political act. As one might
imagine, many national leaders chose to cooperate with Germany (Pétain,
Laval, Darquier, etc.). The author outlines all the institutions created
by the occupation or placed at its service by the French state (police,
justice system, forced labor service, etc.). Next came the ideologues
who deliberately desired a Nazi victory (Doriot, Déat, Beugras, Maurras,
Blanc), engaging in purely ideological collaboration and subscribing to
Hitler's project. Following them were the literary collaborators, whose
work overlapped and sometimes merged with that of the former group
(Céline, Drieu La Rochelle, Brasillach, Brigneau), and the various
publications in which they disseminated their prose (Je suis partout,
L'Émancipation nationale, Germinal, Le Rouge et le Bleu...). The author
also includes those involved in economic collaboration (Bettencourt, for
a time, Louis Renault, Berliet). He also notes the recurring words and
themes of collaboration: anti-communism, anti-Semitism, anti-Masonry,
anti-Gaullism, anti-socialism, for example, and the exaltation of the
themes of work, family, fatherland, and the army. Another important
sub-theme is the break with tradition experienced by those who began in
collaboration, euphemistically called Pétainism, only to end up in the
Resistance (François Mitterrand, Gabriel Le Roy-Ladurie, Benouville,
Bettencourt-the list is long of those who changed sides or sensed the
shift in the political climate). Finally, he continues with the purge,
showing that while it was real, it sometimes whitewashed or chose to
ignore the actions of a number of Nazi sympathizers. The author also
mentions a fascinating theme: the memory of the Occupation, explored in
films like Lacombe Lucien and The Last Metro, as well as in literature.
The book, *German France and its Newspapers*, is dense (see also Francis
Pian's review:
https://monde-libertaire.net/?articlen=8616&article=Lesprit_se_delite_dans_le_chaos
).He meticulously recounts every episode of what could be called
collaboration in print. 1940: Paris, and more broadly, a large part of
France, became zones open to Nazi influence. The entire press was
subjected to the occupying authority. In a study as thorough as it is
meticulous, he takes as his starting point the investments of the
Hibbelen financial group, which, as the occupation progressed, exercised
tight control over the press and the activities of publishing houses.
Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat reviews all the literary, journalistic, and
publishing institutions that participated in one way or another in
supporting Nazi Germany by giving voice to the occupier through their
writing.
Newspaper and publishing house directors flocked to the German embassy
during the summer of 1940 to obtain the precious key: to continue
publishing. Some publishing houses were "Aryanized," like Calmann-Lévy,
which was replaced by Éditions Balzac. For some, the question didn't
even arise; they were already receiving payments from the German
Embassy. For others, it was necessary to prove their loyalty, accepting
censorship of their catalog, as was the case with Éditions Gallimard,
while simultaneously trying to smuggle in literature, often to aid
members of the Resistance like Albert Camus and Jean Paulhan. However,
this was not the case for Denoël, whose pre-war orientations clearly
demonstrated its ideological alignment. For the press, one of the common
denominators was not only to pledge allegiance to Nazism but also to
spread and cultivate antisemitism-Je suis partout, La Gerbe, and
Céline's writings published by Denoël bear witness to this. While titles
were symbolically banned after the Liberation, this was not the case for
many journalists who quickly found new positions. While the publishing
world as a whole has remained aloof from active collaboration, a
minority has deliberately chosen a side for ideological reasons, but
also sometimes because of what was called a few years earlier "the
abominable venality of the press".
Finally, Tristan Rouquet examines writers who collaborated with the
Nazis, but also how the contemporary era, in a sense, draws a line under
their past to reintegrate them into a kind of literary pantheon of great
writers, like Drieu La Rochelle, included in the Pléiade catalogue, or
Lucien Rebatet, some of whose works are being reprinted, not to mention
Céline, some of whose forgotten works are being published. To understand
this strange fate of writers who are not cursed at all, but who, on the
contrary, were leading figures in literature between the two world wars
until 1944 and who are now returning to the public domain, he offers a
three-part analysis. First, he emphasizes that in France during the
1930s and 1940s, these writers held sway over the literary
establishment. The sanctions imposed after the Liberation discredited
most of them; however, the stigma of collaboration was not the same for
everyone. Several were able to quickly regain their place in the
literary world, like the literary stalwarts such as Jacques Chardonne,
Paul Morand, and Roger Nimier. They are, in his words, kept within the
group of writers. The second group consists of writers stigmatized for
their attitude toward the occupiers. For a time, they had to remain
apart from the literary world, either because they had been condemned or
because they were in forced exile. For many, their careers were over;
these second-rate writers remained what they had been before the war.
The emblematic case of those who managed to portray themselves as
victims when they had actually sided with the perpetrators remains a
prime example; Céline's case is worth noting. While he had dipped his
pen in the mud, he managed to turn reality on its head and present
himself as a writer cursed by the system (implying that occult forces
were manipulating said system) while still collecting handsome royalties
from his publisher. Ostracism then became a means of reintegration...
This tactic has been at work since the 1950s and is now at its peak. Sad
times indeed...
François Broche,
*Dictionary of Collaboration*
, Nouveau Monde éditions, 2025, 1136 pp., EUR35;
Pierre-Marie Dioudonnat
, *German France and its Newspapers*
, Les Belles Lettres, 2025, 788 pp., EUR45;
Tristan Rouquet,
*Collaborationist Writers*
, CNRS éditions, 2025, 446 pp. EUR26
https://monde-libertaire.net/?articlen=8654
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