Why French Resistance Enemies Were Executed JJ
They were one of the most fearsome resistance groups of World War II and they fought fiercely for the liberation of their country. The French resistance also took very few prisoners because they lived years under occupation and aris. If the resistance members were captured, then they would be executed themselves by either their domestic enemies by German occupation forces.
But when they were on the front foot, the French resistance ruthlessly executed their enemies in huge public executions. But specifically, how did this happen? As the allies landed in Normandy and pushed throughout France in 1944, they came across a huge amount of anger and also terror inside the country.
There were elements of the nation who were in uproar and an internal civil war between collaborators and the French resistance was in the midst of breaking out. The French resistance made many enemies during the war and they were hunted by those who collaborated with German occupation troops. But when the resistance were empowered and backed up by the allies, they went on the offensive and they rampaged and carried out huge amounts of executions of their enemies.
Many of these were conducted in public in front of the full view of thousands inside towns and cities. In particular, one set of executions in Grenobyl drew a massive crowd and members of the police, the collaborationist militia, were tied to stakes and then dispatched by a firing squad. But the executions that the French resistance carried out were widespread.
However, why were they so brutal? The executions carried out by members of the French resistance against captured German soldiers and members of the Malise, the French militia during the liberation were exceptionally brutal at times because they were driven by a combination of revenge, years of occupation, personal hatred, and the near collapse of legal authority.
While many prisoners were handed over to the allies or the French authorities, thousands of others were killed without trial in what became known as the operation savage, the wild purge. The brutality was particularly, as mentioned, directed at the mise because many French people regarded them not just as collaborators, but as distinct traitors who had hunted, tortured, and killed their fellow French citizens on behalf of the Third Reich and Nazi Germany.
But why was there so much hatred? By the summer of 1944, France had endured four years of German occupation. During that time, thousands of resistance fighters had been tortured as well as those who were suspected of resisting. Entire villages had also been massacred and persecuted people were rounded up with assistance from those who collaborated.
Hostages had also been executed in reprisal for resistance attacks upon the Germans, and families had been betrayed by their own neighbors. Many resistance members had lost friends, parents, spouses, or children, and some had personally witnessed torture carried out by the Gustapo or the Meliss. When German control suddenly collapsed following D-Day, many resistance groups felt justice could not wait.
The police were, in particular, the target of this. They were founded in 1943 by Prime Minister and collaborator Pierre Laval and they quickly became one of the resistance’s most feared enemies. They helped out with the German occupation and they were of course French. This made them even more despised. They were very noticeable by their uniforms and their black berets, but members often went on the rampage.
They arrested resistance fighters, identified targeted people who were in hiding. They guarded prisoners, helped the Gustapo to conduct interrogations, took part in torture, carried out executions, and informed on their own neighbors and even family. Many resistance fighters considered them worse than the Germans because they had willingly turned against their own countrymen, and because they had great knowledge of their local towns, cities, and villages.
For the resistance, they represented an enemy which was in fact more dangerous than the SS. But when captured and when the balance of power inside of France shifted, many police members never made it to a courtroom. Across France, resistance groups often executed captured Maician almost immediately. Methods included firing squads, shooting besides roads, executions in woods, machine gunning prisoners, and occasional beatings before execution.
Some were even forced to dig their own graves, and others were immediately shot when they were captured. In some areas, particularly where the police had committed notorious crimes and atrocities, they were denied any trial and were quickly dispatched. One example of this took place inside the town of Grenobyl.
And a witness claimed about this that, I quote, “It was like the crowd were rushing to watch a circus, laughing and greeting loudly and rushing to surround the execution site. At the site, people pushed past each other to find a good view. There was a lot of anger that day and people who had suffered under occupation wanted to see that justice was being carried out.
The six men were taken out to their sight of execution where wooden states had been sunk into the ground. The officers of the resistance approached the men and then tied them to the post around their arms and legs so they couldn’t move. A witness also claimed that, I quote, “The six dying men walked straight to the execution post without any begging or resistance, then turned around, leaned against the post, and obediently let Mache tie them up.
The youngest prisoner was only 19 years old, and the oldest was only 26. The two youngests were tied to the post at both ends. They were by no means heroes. They had opposed France, and some of them were still firing back on the day of liberation. But no one denied that they would also face death. They did not kneel, sigh, or avoid the muzzles of the firing squad.
Some claimed that those who had been shot that day were rather young and could have been teenagers. The witness also said, I quote, “I paid special attention to the 19-year-old boy.” He was looking up to the sky just above the firing squad. However, he would never feel the rain again, nor would he see the beautiful Alps above the town.
He stood there until the firing squad suddenly opened fire without any signal. The bullets seemed to have entered the chest and heart of the deceased, but I’m not sure. The shooting was carried out twice. The boy leaned forward and fell back against the pillar, never to look up at the sky again. Not every collaborator was killed.
Many suspected collaborators, in particular women, were accused of having relationships with German soldiers or having slept with them, and they suffered a more public form of humiliation, akin to torture. They had their heads forcibly shaved in front of large crowds, and this was very painful, and often they were beaten, too.
The resistance paraded them throughout towns and cities, and crowds threw stones, spat at them, shouted abuse, and some women were even beaten to death with crowds swept up in the full-blooded attacks. Although this treatment may appear severe, it was less than what happened to many armed collaborators. The treatment of German soldiers inside of France also varied significantly.
Large numbers of occupiers and soldiers surrendered peacefully to the allies and they were kept as prisoners of war and many were actually sent to other countries as prisoners of war to work. But those connected with atrocities and particularly nasty German troops such as the SS often found themselves dispatched by the French resistance very quickly.
Gustapo officers, antipartisan units, and members of the security police could find themselves facing summary execution. Resistance fighters frequently believed that at any point in the war, some of these men would escape any form of punishment or would escape to continue fighting and then cause more terror if they were spared.
Hence why the trigger was pulled. Now, one reason why executions became so violent was that the resistance members often recognized the very people who had tortured them. There are accounts of captured or Gustapo personnel being identified by former prisoners. Some had bones broken under interrogation. Others had seen their friends beaten to death.
For these survivors, capture sometimes became immediate vengeance. Most of the summary executions consisted of shootings. However, historians have documented cases in which captured Germans and police members were tortured before they executed. Some were kicked by crowds, struck with rifle butts, punched, and forced to run before being shot.
There are also documented incidents involving continuous torture by the French resistance, especially in areas where emotions were especially intense after recent massacres or torture. During liberation, there was also no functioning police force to keep control of things. Courts had not reopened and government officials had fled attempting to save their own skin.
Resistance groups effectively became the local authority overnight and many of them believed that immediate executions were necessary because prisoners were insecure. Collaborators might escape. German counterattacks were very much still possible and there was no established legal process. As shor’s provisional government reestablished control, it sought to end these summary killings and replace them with formal legal proceedings.
But how many people were actually killed in the manner before? Exact numbers remain debatable, but most historians estimate that around 8 to 10,000 people were killed during the Wild Purge between 1944 and 1945. And some estimate that this number may even be higher. Many of these were genuine collaborators. Others were executed on suspicion, and some even became victims of mistaken identity or were shot due to local feuds.
After the liberation of France, the French government organized what became known as the legal purge. Special courts tried tens of thousands of suspected collaborators and around 120,000 people were investigated. Thousands were given prison sentences, forced labor or other penalties, and several hundred people were actually legally executed after trial, including government officials and even a collaborating prime minister.
The aim was to replace revenge with due process and restore the rule of law. But the brutality of some French resistance executions reflected the extraordinary circumstances of occupied France. Four years of repression, torture, execution, deportation, and betrayal, created an atmosphere in which many resistance fighters viewed immediate vengeance as justice.
Members of the police were especially vulnerable because they were seen as fellow French citizens who had actively assisted Nazi oppression. Although many collaborators later faced legal trials, the chaotic weeks following liberation also saw thousands of summary executions, showing how quickly war can erode normal legal standards and how deeply personal the conflict and war had become for those who had lived under Nazi occupation.
On the 26th of April 1944, years into the German occupation of France during World War II, a well-known female French athlete was traveling down a country road. She was more than just an athlete, though. This lady was known as a hyena of the Casto, and she was known for being a brutal and ruthless collaborator who had hunted down resistance to the German occupation.
Many of the people she had helped to capture were then executed by the Germans and many were sent back to camps inside of the Reich and lots were tortured. There were even allegations that she had been involved in the torture herself. Violet Morris also ran a garage for the Luwaffer and she was seen very much in the eyes of the Nazis as someone who was favorable and helpful and even Adolf Hitler invited her to attend the 1936 Summer Olympics as an esteemed guest.
But on that fateful day when she was driving down that road, Violet Morris was cut down in a hail of bullets from members of the French resistance who made sure she would never again collaborate and work with their enemy. Her body was riddled with bullets and she was then later buried in an unmarked grave.
But why specifically was she targeted by the French resistance? And what made Violet Morris so dangerous? As a young woman, Violet Morris lived inside of Paris. And during the First World War, she learned how to drive and drove ambulances which helped evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefields. She also worked as a courier during a deadly battle of the Som and the Battle of Adun.
So, how did she go from this to becoming a traitor of her own people? She was very sporty and played football for the French women’s national team and even won gold medals. She was a participant in many other sports too. Was a keen avid boxer known for beating men and also participated in motorcycle racing, car racing, tennis, archery, and many other sports and disciplines including weightlifting and Greco Roman wrestling. in the 1924 women’s Olympiad.
She also won gold medals in discus and shotput. But one of her most successful sports was motor racing in which she competed and won many different races. Violet Morris was a very different woman for what would have been expected in the 1920s. She often dressed in men’s clothes, smoked heavily, and swore often.
This led to her actually being banned from participating in the 1928 summer Olympics as it was said she had a lack of morals. Her racing license was also later revoked too. This caused great upset to Violet and she later trial claimed that I quote, “We live in a country made rotten by money and scandals ruled by schemers and cowards.
This country of little people is not worthy of its elders, not worthy of survival. Someday it will decay. It will bring it to the level of a slave. But if I’m still here, I won’t be one of those slaves. Believe me, it’s not my temperament. It may have been the restrictions placed upon her which began to change her opinion of her nation and country, but in 1937, Violet became involved in a very high-profile murder case.
On Christmas Eve 1937, she was having dinner with friends and encountered a drunk and aggressive man named Joseph Liam. He argued with one of Violet’s friends and she managed to calm him down. But then the next night, Liam went to Morris’s houseboat and an argument between them took place. Lam pulled a knife on Violet and she pushed him back before he lunged at her with his weapon.
And Violet fired four shots at Lam and he died then in hospital. She was arrested and charged with murder, but was tried and acquitted when the court accepted her plea of self-defense. But during World War II, Violet Morris would become infamous for her betrayal of France. For some reason, she was invited to attend the 1936 Summer Olympics hosted in Berlin by the Nazis.
Hitler himself insisted that Morris was present and she was received as an honored guest. Now, one reason why this is strange is that she went against everything that the Nazis believed women should be, and Hitler may have invited her to try and spite the French, as they had very much turned their backs on Violet.
She watched many of the events and stayed inside fancy hotels, all paid for by the Nazis. Years later, following the outbreak of World War II, France would find itself invaded by the Germans and quickly placed under occupation. The German tanks and military vehicles blitzcreed their way across the lands and this resulted in the country falling to the Nazis.
The Vichi regime was then established. One of the biggest actions she took part in was to try and hunt down special operations executive agents. These were British secret agents who operated in the shadows and helped to coordinate French resistance actions and also helped to ensure the resistance were wellarmed.
Many of these British agents were dropped by parachute behind enemy lines and Violet Morris tried to track down many of these men and also women. She also allegedly spied on high value targets for the Nazis and may have been personally involved in some of the brutal torture sessions of the Gustapo. But alongside all of this, she also worked for the Luwaffa, the German Air Force.
She ran a garage for them and was involved in sourcing black market fuel for them. Of course, this fuel would then be used to bomb British towns and cities and bring death to the enemies of the Nazis. It was also said that she conducted much of this work before France had officially fell. Some historians believe that she may have been a scapegoat later on, but Violet Morris gained a fearsome reputation for being involved in matters involving the enemy, and she was also known to have enjoyed participating in torture.
For all of this, she gained the nickname the hyena of the Gustapo. But the resistance were hunting her down and all of this came to a head on the 26th of April 1944. Violet Morris was driving her Citroen car down a country road near EPR in Normandy. She was with another family who were also liked by the Nazis, but her car then broke down.
The engine coughed and this had been tampered with by resistance fighters. As she got out of the vehicle, resistance members came out from a hiding spot and they then shot their weapons directly into her and towards a car. Five people were killed in the attack, including two children. The resistance littered the body of Violet Morris with many bullets, and her body was then dragged towards a morg, and it was left unclaimed for many months.
It was a brutal end for a woman who had collaborated with the enemy, and it showed the intent the resistance had. But why was she executed or assassinated in such a public place? And why did it happen altogether? The French resistance had a habit of taking out high-value targets in public places to strike a significant blow and to send a message to their enemies that no one was safe.
Many high-V valueue German officers were cut down inside cities such as Paris in this manner, and most were killed by quick methods such as gunshot. Violet Morris was seen as one of the worst enemies of her country. She had betrayed France and was clearly a traitor and in the eyes of the resistance this was the worst crime one could commit.
She was ambushed in an attack which was carefully planned and it shows the harsh reality of the warfare that the resistance were carrying out. She was also in the eyes of the resistance a high value target. She was not someone who was obscure and was not known about. Her famous athletics and sports background had made her a celebrity and the notoriety of her amplified the impact of her collaboration.
Killing such a well-known collaborator sent a message to other French people that this would not be tolerated and that prominent figures were not untouchable. But it also sent another message specifically to the Germans that the resistance itself had intelligence capabilities and were capable of carrying out ruthless attacks.
It was also an attack which helped the resistance to deal with potential security risks. By taking her out, it led to fewer resistance members being captured and she was known to have possessed significant information about them. Her access within the Gustapo also made her very unpredictable and resistance groups often eliminated their targets who were seen as a future risk to them.
to defend themselves, especially in 1944 when the Allied invasion was very much expected and underground networks were expanding rapidly because of this. Many resistance members were also driven by local reports and information that they heard on the ground. Civilians would have known that she was collaborating and rival networks and informants were working also to bring her down.
Occupied France was full of suspicion once a person was denounced as a collaborator or traitor. there a number of times while they stood very much in the firing line. This doesn’t mean though that the resistance acted randomly, but often decisions were made to take someone out based upon unverified intelligence. Violet Morris was shot and killed by the resistance because in their eyes she was very much a dangerous and destructive traitor and collaborator.
France had suffered for many years under the occupation and she had allegedly even helped the German air force get fuel for their planes. She was a woman very much trusted by the Germans to help them, and she may have felt empowered by them. She was someone who was even invited as a personal guest of Hitler to witness the Berlin Olympics years before World War II broke out.
But on a very quiet French country road, her body was littered with the bullets from the guns of French resistance fighters. It is June 1944, days before the Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy and faced heavy resistance and millions of bullets which were fired at them from German forces who were told to dig in.
As some villages were liberated from where the German occupiers had once been, elements of the French resistance felt emboldened to round up those who had collaborated with their enemies. and also those who had betrayed their French neighbors. Collaborating was seen as treason and the French resistance did not waste any time in forcing their enemies against a wall and then pulling the trigger.
Across France, thousands of people would find themselves tied to stakes before they were confronted by their executioners. The Wild Purge, as it became known, raced throughout France and different towns and cities, and mob justice prevailed at times. Questions were asked later, long after the guns had been fired.
But why did the French resistance shoot traitors immediately, often without any trial at all? France had suffered a long and painful occupation and by the time that summer 1944 came around many people were suffering. They had hugely reduced food rations and inside the nation the underground resistance networks face threats not just from the Germans but from emboldened French militia known as the milit.
These men were tasked to hunt down resistance members and often they tortured and carried out executions with their own hands. But when the allies began to liberate the country following D-Day, the resistance fought alongside them and they were coordinated relatively well in certain regions. And when the German enemy was forced out of the towns and cities, huge mass celebrations took place.
But there was a bitterness and a thirst for revenge inside these places. Women who were accused of sleeping with the enemy were forcibly shaved in what became known as the ugly carnival and they were then beaten badly by the crowds. Collaboration was seen as treason in wartime France and under occupation it was not viewed as a form of political disagreement but it was seen as actively betraying the nation.
collaborators informed the Gustapo about resistance members, helped to arrest persecuted people and escaped prisoners of war, and they served also in pro-German militia groups such as the previously mentioned police. They also helped to enforce German authority at local level, too. Many resistance fighters had seen comrades tortured or even executed because, well, someone taught.
In this context, collaborators were viewed as directly responsible for deaths. And with this, well, they had to pay. The resistance saw this as a capital crime and as something that someone should pay for with their lives. There was also at the time of the liberation no functioning justice system.
So the resistance could in a sense well do what they wanted with their prisoners. France was existing in somewhat of a legal vacuum. The courts of the collaborationist Vishi regime were ignored and discredited. German authority also lay in tatters and the future French government had not yet taken control for resistance units operating inside towns, forests and cities.
There was no time or infrastructure for formal trials. Summary execution was often considered a necessity during the war. This led to what became known as the Wild Purge taking hold. And because of this, thousands of men, well, mostly men accused of collaborating or being enemies of the resistance, found themselves executed, most of them being shot.
Resistance cells were also rather fragile, and one single informant could destroy a whole network, leading to the deaths of many people. Carrying out executions served a practical purpose, as it helped during the war prevent betrayal and offered protection to these networks. executions silenced informants permanently and also warned others not to collaborate.
There was also less fear in the ranks of the resistance, meaning they were more likely to fight on. In the weeks before and during the liberation of Paris, German reprisals were still happening. So to deal with informants ruthlessly once and for all was well a relatively sensible thing in the eyes of the resistance.
Now, the German occupation had been incredibly brutal for the French. There had been mass executions of hostages, large deportations to concentration camps, and also torture by the Gustapo and other Nazis. Many resistance fighters lost their family members or friends. And when the occupation completely collapsed, years of intense and suppressed rage exploded with their enemies getting the full brunt of this.
Executions were also driven by personal grief. as much as they were political beliefs. In cities such as Grenobyl, many members of the police were rounded up and then were shot in front of groups of thousands of people. And the whole point of this was to ensure that the enemies were punished in front of the crowd and that revenge for the evils of the Nazis and the collaborators was very much visible.
Killing collaborators also was in this sense an act of political theater. It might have seemed medieval, but public executions along with head shavings and parades of accused collaborators sent a message that Germany no longer ruled France, that the resistance was now the authority, and that national honor was being restored.
This was crucial before shaul emerged to reestablish a legal state. Those who were shot by resistance units were also rather diverse. This included, of course, Gustapo informants, members of the pre-mentioned police, but also those who worked inside of prisons for the Nazi authorities, and even some collaborating may officials. Sometimes those who profiteered off the black market suffered the same fate as they became rich off the suffering of many others and at their expense.
Now, historians have believed that up to 10,000 people were killed during the war in the Wild Purge without any legal trial. Not all of these shootings and executions were just either. Some of them were mistaken and were incorrectly carried out upon people who had done very little.
In some occasions, personal vendettas, family feuds, and other arguments were settled, and false accusations often occurred in particular, affecting women who were subjected then to the ugly carnival. Once order returned, the provisional government replaced this form of mob justice with the legal purge, and many high-profile collaborators, such as former prime minister of Vishi, France, Pierre Laval, were shot after their trial.
France largely framed the resistance violence as necessary during a time of war and as a tragic but unavoidable consequence of the German occupation. The country was very much at threat of civil war even during World War II. But the executions roughly and rapidly closed a chapter on the occupation with bloodshed and in a sense vengeful and possibly rightful punishment.
One of these executions and shootings was witnessed by news reporters in Grenobyl and it was claimed that I quote as the rainy twilight gathered a closed van crawled through the hooting whistling crowd. The firing squad marched in single file to a point opposite the six posts and the factory wall. The van door opened. The six male stepped out.
A mache grasped each prisoner by the arm. The youngest prisoner was 19, the oldest 26. One had been a mechanic in other days, another had been a farmer, one had been a plumber whose job was to keep the toilets flushing at me headquarters. Two had been captured in a truck with a police captain who was killed.
Without warning or signal, the executioners fired two volleys. The six volies slumped. Mackey officers ran towards the states, fired a revolver bullet in each head. Within a minute after the coupe degra, the hands had been cut free. The bodies lay prone. From a truck, men brought six plain wooden coffins. As the coffin nails were driven in, the crowd shouted over the dead bodies, “Savages, salars, scum.
” The van with the six coffins rumbled off through the driving rain. The French resistance shock collaborators because well collaboration caused death and there was no lawful justice system and there was a fear of betrayal which was also constant. It was years of repression and anger which had built up and it was not random violence but it was often brutal, improvised and morally complex.
Still today there are many victims of the French resistance who actually lie in graves undiscovered. These are rough graves and their bodies were dumped in there over 80 years ago and their stories are sadly waiting to be told. Francois Darlan was born on the 7th of August 1881 and his family were intertwined with the French Navy for generations.
After graduating from the naval academy, Dalan during World War I commanded an artillery battery that was involved in the battle at Vdun. He fought throughout the conflict and then after he was in command of a number of training vessels and he rose throughout the ranks of the navy.
In 1932, he was promoted to the rank of vice admiral and he then in 1936 tried to convince the British that they needed to cooperate with the French to deal with the growing threat of Germany and Italy. At this point, Adolf Hitler had taken power and intelligence services knew that he was building up his armed forces to a huge extent. Darlan was concerned about this German threat and from 1937 he was appointed the chief of the naval staff and became an admiral as the head of the French Navy.
He used political connections to expand the navy in the face of the cremarine’s expansion. He was a French nationalist who wanted to preserve the power of France and he saw the navy as one of the world’s greatest but it was in need of rapid expansion. But he actually saw the bigger threat as the Italian navy rather than the creeks marine.
He would in 1938 mobilize the navy to be on the highest state of alert due to the Sudatan land crisis and he expected the Italians to join any conflict on the side of the axis and Hitler. Of course, Dalan would be right. He thought that France would be secure behind the Majino line and he had many meetings in the leadup to the outbreak of the Second World War.
But after France’s declaration of war in September 1939, Dalan became the commander-in-chief of the French Navy. However, when France was invaded, it crumbled quickly at the hands of the Axis and the German army. Dalon was proud of the navy he had helped to build and he promised the British that no French ship would fall into German hands, but he was talking of an armistice with the Germans and he was willing to accept it if the French fleet would not be taken by the Germans.
Darlan thought also that the British were finished and that they would be defeated quickly too. And with this he began to consider defecting. Winston Churchill believed that Darlan could have been the leader of the free French forces or the French resistance and he thought he would have been a more powerful leader than Sha de Gaul but the British would sink the French fleet at Mazal Kabir to put it out of action and to prevent it falling into German hands.
Dalana expected the Axis to then win the war and he thought it was in his best interest to then collaborate with the Nazis and he then began to slightly distrust the British. He joined the Vichi government, the collaborationist state led by Marshall Philip Patan and was made the vice president of the council and the minister of foreign affairs, minister of the interior and minister of national defense making him practically the head of the vich collaborationist government and he was later named the successor to
Marshall Patan. Dalan then met with high-ranking Nazis too, such as Reich Marshal Herman Guring, and he actually saw the final solution as a way that he could make a deal with the Germans. He thought that he could do a deal with the Nazis for the Jews inside of France, which would then relieve the occupation slightly and make it less tough for those French people who were living under occupation.
He was rather silent about the extermination of the Jews and he repeatedly offered also to militarily cooperate with Hitler against the British. Hitler did not trust Dalon and the French and he wanted it to remain in support and in collaboration. But the Germans were suspicious of Francois Dalon also.
He only answered to Patan and had broad powers to give out his own orders. In November 1942, he went to Alis to see his son who had been injured and the day after the Western Allies invaded French North Africa. Dalan was captured, but he did do a deal with Dwight D. Eisenhower, the allied commander, and this was for political and military cooperation.
This was very controversial as Darlon had been a Nazi collaborator and this upset many in the free French movement. He refused though to repeal many of the persecuting laws of the Vichi regime and many political prisoners were sent to concentration camps also. However, what was not known is that the resistance were beginning to hatch a plot to assassinate, execute and take out Francois Dalon and he was considered in their eyes a terrible traitor.
Ferdinand Bonire Deash Chappelle and three of his comrades Otto G and Robert and Philipe Tornierre Ragan came up with a plan to take out Dalon. The four of them drew straws and Bonier or Des Chappelle got the shortest, meaning it was his job to try and take out the powerful admiral. Bonire was given a 7.
65 65mm pistol and the assassination date was set at the 24th of December 1942. Bonire entered the people’s palace in Alers and after eating he rested and then waited in a hallway. After some time, Francois Dalan appeared accompanied by another naval officer. Bonire pulled out his pistol and he shot Dalon at point blank range. He fired two shots.
One struck Dalan in the face causing terrible damage and he then fired the second shot which struck the admiral in the chest and he then fell to the floor. He also fired one shot at the other naval officer and with the loud sound of gunshots being heard, Bonier de la Chappelle was wrestled to the ground. Darlon never regained consciousness and he had been killed by the fatal shots at point blank range.
Less than 48 hours after Bonier himself was dead and was inside of a grave after being condemned to death by a court marshal and then being shot at dawn being executed. This was ruthless justice in the eyes of the Vichi regime. But amongst the allies, Dalan’s assassination and death did not bring too much sympathy.
He wasn’t very wellliked and was seen by many as a pompous collaborator. and he was seen as someone who was a turncoat and a traitor who could be brought through financial negotiations. Some like Winston Churchill did praise Dalan for his work in North Africa, but he was one of many men who found themselves being taken out and executed by the French resistance and by those who were very much against the Vichu regime.
Pierre Laval was born in June 1883 and his family were shopkeepers. As a young man, he shone at school but his father insisted that he worked in the family business. Laval did as a young man serve in the military for a year, but he was then discharged as it was deemed that he was unfit for service.
He moved to Paris and studied law in 1907 and then took many workingclass clients whom he offered legal advice to. With regards to his legal career, Laval claimed, “I am a comrade amongst comrades, a worker amongst workers. I’m not one of those lawyers who are mindful to the bourgeoa origin, even when they attempt to deny it.
I’m not one of those highbrow attorneys who engage in academic controversies and pose as intellectual. I’m proud to be what I am, a lawyer in the service of manual laborers who are my comrades, a worker like them. I am their brother.” He then got involved with trade unionists and he later won a seat in 1914 in the chamber of deputies as a socialist representing a workingclass suburb to the north of Paris.
He refused to support the first world war and Laval promoted anti-militarism and pacifism and he never served in the war himself and following the end of the conflict he lost his seat in the chamber of deputies. After this brief flirtation with politics, Lval then went back to working as a lawyer and he became very rich and with this change in fortunes, he then turned his back on socialism.
Pierre Laval in 1923 was elected as a mayor of Urbilars as he was seen as a champion of the working class and he struggled with the local communist party and Laval became very anti-communist. He was elected back to the chamber and then in 1927 he won a Senate seat. He served in many different cabinets before he became prime minister for the first time in January 1931.
France at the time was not affected by the economic crisis around the world and he said that France remained healthy thanks to work and savings and France had accumulated the largest gold reserves in the world behind the Americans. He continued to visit different nations as he served as a prime minister and he seemed to deal with the Hoover moratorum which was put forward to free his debt payments for a year in the aftermath of the first world war.
Pierre Laval at this time was seen as a competent diplomat and he was actually named Time magazine’s man of the year in 1931 and was the first Frenchman to be awarded this at the time. But he briefly fell from power shortly after and he had free strong and staunch political beliefs at the time. He wanted pacifism, held strong anti-communist beliefs and he also wanted to restore peace and positive relations with Germany.
He was a hard-working prime minister, but was a man who was happy to go and confront other politicians around the world one-on-one to negotiate a solution to issues. But he before the Second World War met with Bonito Mussolini in Rome, and he signed the Franco Italian agreement on the 4th of January 1935, seeding areas of French Somalia to Italy in exchange for support against German aggression.
Pierre Laval was seen as weak with this bending to Mussolini and he was also said to have held fascist beliefs. Laval also negotiated a secret plan to give Italy much of the territory that the French had conquered in East Africa with the hopes of ending the Abbiscinia crisis.
This led to public outrage when the plan leaked and Lval was forced to resign on the 22nd of January 1936. But Pierre Laval did not take his latest forefront grace well and he believed he was trying to maintain peace and to prevent another world war. He returned to his hometown with his huge wealth and he created a media empire.
However, his belief to come to some agreement with Germany was becoming an obsession and he was hoping to come to some form of peace with the country but of course this would not happen. He led a right-wing anti-communist group of politicians who wanted to seek peace with Hitler and opposed the declaration of war which emerged following the German invasion of Poland.
Hitler would then turn his attention towards France and the nation would collapse and would find itself occupied by the Germans. In this the French prime minister stepped down and Pierre Laval had brought led to Batan’s admission that France would try and collaborate with the Nazis. The extent of this collaboration would later turn incredibly deadly as the Germans imposed their brutal policies of persecution onto the nation and many people were transferred to concentration camps and then extermination camps from
France. The French state of Vichi was a civil authority over all France but the ultimate authority was a German occupation. German troops later occupied all of the country and Pierre Laval was a victim of an assassination plot at one point but he did return to power on the 18th of August 1942 and he met the harsh wishes that the Germans wanted from France to appease them.
He later admitted, “I hope for a German victory to stop bulcheism and communism.” But the Nazis were now ramping up the persecution whilst he served as a prime minister. And Laval asked the French police to carry out raids to seize Jews. And this caused chaos and he also ordered that Jewish children should be deported with their parents as he said they would fill up a quot of 50,000 Jews that the Nazis wanted from France.
Laval went beyond his orders to appease the Germans. When confronted with criticism regarding the deportation of Jewish children, Lval stated, “Not one must remain in France.” With this, he was seen as a horrific collaborator, where he then became the leader of the newly created police or the militia.
These were paramilitary groups who fought against the French resistance and they executed and assassinated many and also helped to round up those who were being deported. The milit also used torture to extract information from their captives. Hitler then asked the French government to fight alongside him and for Vichi to declare war against the British.
But during the Normandy landings, Laval made a speech to the people of France. He said, “You are not in the war. You must not take part in the fighting. If you do not observe this rule, if you show proof of in discipline, you will provoke reprisals, the harshness of which the government would be powerless to moderate.
You would suffer both physically and materially, and you would add to your country’s misfortunes. You will refuse to heed the insiduous appeals which will be addressed to you. Those who ask you to stop, work, or invite you to revolt the enemies of our country. You will refuse to aggravate the foreign war on our soil with the horror of civil war.
At this moment fraught with drama when the war has been carried onto our territory, show your worthy and disciplined attitude. You are thinking of France and only of her. But Pierre Laval was then two months later arrested and the rest of the Vichy government was moved to Sigmaring in Germany. Patan lived inside of Hoen Castle and Laval had lived here but then he was assigned to a different castle.
In April 1945 the US army led by George S. Patton was approaching and Laval was forced to try and escape and he was given permission to try and go to Spain and he flew out on a Luwaffer aircraft to Barcelona. But then later Charles de Gaul pressurized the Spanish and Franco to turn over Pierre Laval and he was then handed over to the Americans who arrested he and his wife and he was then imprisoned inside a Fier prison.
Pierre Laval was tried for treason and for his collaboration which had resulted in the deaths of thousands. He believed he could convince the French population that he was acting in the best interests of their nation. And his trial began on the 4th of October 1945. He was charged with plotting against the security of the state and intelligence and collaboration with the enemy.
His lawyers thought he would be acquitted. However, his trial will lasted a matter of days and the jury at times held abuse at him. He was sentenced to death for his crimes. Pierre Lavala’s execution was scheduled for the 15th of October 1945 at Fren prison. One news article from the time documents his execution.
It was said when his advocates told him last night that General Deaul would not commute the sentence or the minister of justice order a retrial, Laval had been composed and cheerful. When this morning at 8:45 a.m., Monae, the procurator general, came to him to inform him he was to be executed at 9:30, Laval was lying in his bed.
Without replying, he put his head under the blanket. His advocates thought he had a moment of weakness, and one of them raised a blanket to ask him to muster himself, but saw at once from Laval’s appearance that he must have taken poison. He was already losing consciousness. He had in fact drunk from a bottle of cyanide or potassium, which he still held, but in his hurry, he had not drained the bottle and had not shaken it before drinking.
Immediately medical attention prevented his attempted death and half an hour later Laval was again conscious. A letter by his bedside said the following. To my advocates for their information to my executioners for their shame. I refuse to be killed by French bullets. I will not make French soldiers accompllices in a judicial murder.
I have chosen my death the poison of the Romans which I have carried with me through my long wanderlings which have escaped the searches of my guards. I wish to be buried with the trickle scarf around my neck. I die because I loved my country too much. My last fault is for France. Pierre Laval was restored to consciousness and he did not escape his execution.
The firing squad was brought from the fort of Cantalon to execute him where his execution was originally to have taken place. But Laval placed a white tie around his neck and also a trickle scarf around his neck. As he was led to his execution, he was led into the prison courtyard and a chair was sat in a corner and Laval was then secured to this.
He told the firing squad, “I pity you for having to execute this crime. Aim at my heart. Long live France.” After the final checks were made, the firing squad aimed their rifles at the former prime minister, and his eyes had not been covered to allow him to see his executioners in his final moments, and he was also not allowed to give the order to fire.
Ruthlessly, the executioners then fired into the former prime minister, Pierre Laval, and he was instantly executed. Pierre Laval was seen as a collaborator with the evil Nazis and the Germans, and he was seen as a turn code by many inside of his nation. He was found guilty of plotting against the security of the state and of collaboration.
And because of this, he was executed by a firing squad inside of a French prison. Thanks for watching. To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe and once again, thank you so much for watching.
Why French Resistance Enemies Were Executed – YouTube
Transcripts:
They were one of the most fearsome resistance groups of World War II and they fought fiercely for the liberation of their country. The French resistance also took very few prisoners because they lived years under occupation and aris. If the resistance members were captured, then they would be executed themselves by either their domestic enemies by German occupation forces.
But when they were on the front foot, the French resistance ruthlessly executed their enemies in huge public executions. But specifically, how did this happen? As the allies landed in Normandy and pushed throughout France in 1944, they came across a huge amount of anger and also terror inside the country.
There were elements of the nation who were in uproar and an internal civil war between collaborators and the French resistance was in the midst of breaking out. The French resistance made many enemies during the war and they were hunted by those who collaborated with German occupation troops. But when the resistance were empowered and backed up by the allies, they went on the offensive and they rampaged and carried out huge amounts of executions of their enemies.
Many of these were conducted in public in front of the full view of thousands inside towns and cities. In particular, one set of executions in Grenobyl drew a massive crowd and members of the police, the collaborationist militia, were tied to stakes and then dispatched by a firing squad. But the executions that the French resistance carried out were widespread.
However, why were they so brutal? The executions carried out by members of the French resistance against captured German soldiers and members of the Malise, the French militia during the liberation were exceptionally brutal at times because they were driven by a combination of revenge, years of occupation, personal hatred, and the near collapse of legal authority.
While many prisoners were handed over to the allies or the French authorities, thousands of others were killed without trial in what became known as the operation savage, the wild purge. The brutality was particularly, as mentioned, directed at the mise because many French people regarded them not just as collaborators, but as distinct traitors who had hunted, tortured, and killed their fellow French citizens on behalf of the Third Reich and Nazi Germany.
But why was there so much hatred? By the summer of 1944, France had endured four years of German occupation. During that time, thousands of resistance fighters had been tortured as well as those who were suspected of resisting. Entire villages had also been massacred and persecuted people were rounded up with assistance from those who collaborated.
Hostages had also been executed in reprisal for resistance attacks upon the Germans, and families had been betrayed by their own neighbors. Many resistance members had lost friends, parents, spouses, or children, and some had personally witnessed torture carried out by the Gustapo or the Meliss. When German control suddenly collapsed following D-Day, many resistance groups felt justice could not wait.
The police were, in particular, the target of this. They were founded in 1943 by Prime Minister and collaborator Pierre Laval and they quickly became one of the resistance’s most feared enemies. They helped out with the German occupation and they were of course French. This made them even more despised. They were very noticeable by their uniforms and their black berets, but members often went on the rampage.
They arrested resistance fighters, identified targeted people who were in hiding. They guarded prisoners, helped the Gustapo to conduct interrogations, took part in torture, carried out executions, and informed on their own neighbors and even family. Many resistance fighters considered them worse than the Germans because they had willingly turned against their own countrymen, and because they had great knowledge of their local towns, cities, and villages.
For the resistance, they represented an enemy which was in fact more dangerous than the SS. But when captured and when the balance of power inside of France shifted, many police members never made it to a courtroom. Across France, resistance groups often executed captured Maician almost immediately. Methods included firing squads, shooting besides roads, executions in woods, machine gunning prisoners, and occasional beatings before execution.
Some were even forced to dig their own graves, and others were immediately shot when they were captured. In some areas, particularly where the police had committed notorious crimes and atrocities, they were denied any trial and were quickly dispatched. One example of this took place inside the town of Grenobyl.
And a witness claimed about this that, I quote, “It was like the crowd were rushing to watch a circus, laughing and greeting loudly and rushing to surround the execution site. At the site, people pushed past each other to find a good view. There was a lot of anger that day and people who had suffered under occupation wanted to see that justice was being carried out.
The six men were taken out to their sight of execution where wooden states had been sunk into the ground. The officers of the resistance approached the men and then tied them to the post around their arms and legs so they couldn’t move. A witness also claimed that, I quote, “The six dying men walked straight to the execution post without any begging or resistance, then turned around, leaned against the post, and obediently let Mache tie them up.
The youngest prisoner was only 19 years old, and the oldest was only 26. The two youngests were tied to the post at both ends. They were by no means heroes. They had opposed France, and some of them were still firing back on the day of liberation. But no one denied that they would also face death. They did not kneel, sigh, or avoid the muzzles of the firing squad.
Some claimed that those who had been shot that day were rather young and could have been teenagers. The witness also said, I quote, “I paid special attention to the 19-year-old boy.” He was looking up to the sky just above the firing squad. However, he would never feel the rain again, nor would he see the beautiful Alps above the town.
He stood there until the firing squad suddenly opened fire without any signal. The bullets seemed to have entered the chest and heart of the deceased, but I’m not sure. The shooting was carried out twice. The boy leaned forward and fell back against the pillar, never to look up at the sky again. Not every collaborator was killed.
Many suspected collaborators, in particular women, were accused of having relationships with German soldiers or having slept with them, and they suffered a more public form of humiliation, akin to torture. They had their heads forcibly shaved in front of large crowds, and this was very painful, and often they were beaten, too.
The resistance paraded them throughout towns and cities, and crowds threw stones, spat at them, shouted abuse, and some women were even beaten to death with crowds swept up in the full-blooded attacks. Although this treatment may appear severe, it was less than what happened to many armed collaborators. The treatment of German soldiers inside of France also varied significantly.
Large numbers of occupiers and soldiers surrendered peacefully to the allies and they were kept as prisoners of war and many were actually sent to other countries as prisoners of war to work. But those connected with atrocities and particularly nasty German troops such as the SS often found themselves dispatched by the French resistance very quickly.
Gustapo officers, antipartisan units, and members of the security police could find themselves facing summary execution. Resistance fighters frequently believed that at any point in the war, some of these men would escape any form of punishment or would escape to continue fighting and then cause more terror if they were spared.
Hence why the trigger was pulled. Now, one reason why executions became so violent was that the resistance members often recognized the very people who had tortured them. There are accounts of captured or Gustapo personnel being identified by former prisoners. Some had bones broken under interrogation. Others had seen their friends beaten to death.
For these survivors, capture sometimes became immediate vengeance. Most of the summary executions consisted of shootings. However, historians have documented cases in which captured Germans and police members were tortured before they executed. Some were kicked by crowds, struck with rifle butts, punched, and forced to run before being shot.
There are also documented incidents involving continuous torture by the French resistance, especially in areas where emotions were especially intense after recent massacres or torture. During liberation, there was also no functioning police force to keep control of things. Courts had not reopened and government officials had fled attempting to save their own skin.
Resistance groups effectively became the local authority overnight and many of them believed that immediate executions were necessary because prisoners were insecure. Collaborators might escape. German counterattacks were very much still possible and there was no established legal process. As shor’s provisional government reestablished control, it sought to end these summary killings and replace them with formal legal proceedings.
But how many people were actually killed in the manner before? Exact numbers remain debatable, but most historians estimate that around 8 to 10,000 people were killed during the Wild Purge between 1944 and 1945. And some estimate that this number may even be higher. Many of these were genuine collaborators. Others were executed on suspicion, and some even became victims of mistaken identity or were shot due to local feuds.
After the liberation of France, the French government organized what became known as the legal purge. Special courts tried tens of thousands of suspected collaborators and around 120,000 people were investigated. Thousands were given prison sentences, forced labor or other penalties, and several hundred people were actually legally executed after trial, including government officials and even a collaborating prime minister.
The aim was to replace revenge with due process and restore the rule of law. But the brutality of some French resistance executions reflected the extraordinary circumstances of occupied France. Four years of repression, torture, execution, deportation, and betrayal, created an atmosphere in which many resistance fighters viewed immediate vengeance as justice.
Members of the police were especially vulnerable because they were seen as fellow French citizens who had actively assisted Nazi oppression. Although many collaborators later faced legal trials, the chaotic weeks following liberation also saw thousands of summary executions, showing how quickly war can erode normal legal standards and how deeply personal the conflict and war had become for those who had lived under Nazi occupation.
On the 26th of April 1944, years into the German occupation of France during World War II, a well-known female French athlete was traveling down a country road. She was more than just an athlete, though. This lady was known as a hyena of the Casto, and she was known for being a brutal and ruthless collaborator who had hunted down resistance to the German occupation.
Many of the people she had helped to capture were then executed by the Germans and many were sent back to camps inside of the Reich and lots were tortured. There were even allegations that she had been involved in the torture herself. Violet Morris also ran a garage for the Luwaffer and she was seen very much in the eyes of the Nazis as someone who was favorable and helpful and even Adolf Hitler invited her to attend the 1936 Summer Olympics as an esteemed guest.
But on that fateful day when she was driving down that road, Violet Morris was cut down in a hail of bullets from members of the French resistance who made sure she would never again collaborate and work with their enemy. Her body was riddled with bullets and she was then later buried in an unmarked grave.
But why specifically was she targeted by the French resistance? And what made Violet Morris so dangerous? As a young woman, Violet Morris lived inside of Paris. And during the First World War, she learned how to drive and drove ambulances which helped evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefields. She also worked as a courier during a deadly battle of the Som and the Battle of Adun.
So, how did she go from this to becoming a traitor of her own people? She was very sporty and played football for the French women’s national team and even won gold medals. She was a participant in many other sports too. Was a keen avid boxer known for beating men and also participated in motorcycle racing, car racing, tennis, archery, and many other sports and disciplines including weightlifting and Greco Roman wrestling. in the 1924 women’s Olympiad.
She also won gold medals in discus and shotput. But one of her most successful sports was motor racing in which she competed and won many different races. Violet Morris was a very different woman for what would have been expected in the 1920s. She often dressed in men’s clothes, smoked heavily, and swore often.
This led to her actually being banned from participating in the 1928 summer Olympics as it was said she had a lack of morals. Her racing license was also later revoked too. This caused great upset to Violet and she later trial claimed that I quote, “We live in a country made rotten by money and scandals ruled by schemers and cowards.
This country of little people is not worthy of its elders, not worthy of survival. Someday it will decay. It will bring it to the level of a slave. But if I’m still here, I won’t be one of those slaves. Believe me, it’s not my temperament. It may have been the restrictions placed upon her which began to change her opinion of her nation and country, but in 1937, Violet became involved in a very high-profile murder case.
On Christmas Eve 1937, she was having dinner with friends and encountered a drunk and aggressive man named Joseph Liam. He argued with one of Violet’s friends and she managed to calm him down. But then the next night, Liam went to Morris’s houseboat and an argument between them took place. Lam pulled a knife on Violet and she pushed him back before he lunged at her with his weapon.
And Violet fired four shots at Lam and he died then in hospital. She was arrested and charged with murder, but was tried and acquitted when the court accepted her plea of self-defense. But during World War II, Violet Morris would become infamous for her betrayal of France. For some reason, she was invited to attend the 1936 Summer Olympics hosted in Berlin by the Nazis.
Hitler himself insisted that Morris was present and she was received as an honored guest. Now, one reason why this is strange is that she went against everything that the Nazis believed women should be, and Hitler may have invited her to try and spite the French, as they had very much turned their backs on Violet.
She watched many of the events and stayed inside fancy hotels, all paid for by the Nazis. Years later, following the outbreak of World War II, France would find itself invaded by the Germans and quickly placed under occupation. The German tanks and military vehicles blitzcreed their way across the lands and this resulted in the country falling to the Nazis.
The Vichi regime was then established. One of the biggest actions she took part in was to try and hunt down special operations executive agents. These were British secret agents who operated in the shadows and helped to coordinate French resistance actions and also helped to ensure the resistance were wellarmed.
Many of these British agents were dropped by parachute behind enemy lines and Violet Morris tried to track down many of these men and also women. She also allegedly spied on high value targets for the Nazis and may have been personally involved in some of the brutal torture sessions of the Gustapo. But alongside all of this, she also worked for the Luwaffa, the German Air Force.
She ran a garage for them and was involved in sourcing black market fuel for them. Of course, this fuel would then be used to bomb British towns and cities and bring death to the enemies of the Nazis. It was also said that she conducted much of this work before France had officially fell. Some historians believe that she may have been a scapegoat later on, but Violet Morris gained a fearsome reputation for being involved in matters involving the enemy, and she was also known to have enjoyed participating in torture.
For all of this, she gained the nickname the hyena of the Gustapo. But the resistance were hunting her down and all of this came to a head on the 26th of April 1944. Violet Morris was driving her Citroen car down a country road near EPR in Normandy. She was with another family who were also liked by the Nazis, but her car then broke down.
The engine coughed and this had been tampered with by resistance fighters. As she got out of the vehicle, resistance members came out from a hiding spot and they then shot their weapons directly into her and towards a car. Five people were killed in the attack, including two children. The resistance littered the body of Violet Morris with many bullets, and her body was then dragged towards a morg, and it was left unclaimed for many months.
It was a brutal end for a woman who had collaborated with the enemy, and it showed the intent the resistance had. But why was she executed or assassinated in such a public place? And why did it happen altogether? The French resistance had a habit of taking out high-value targets in public places to strike a significant blow and to send a message to their enemies that no one was safe.
Many high-V valueue German officers were cut down inside cities such as Paris in this manner, and most were killed by quick methods such as gunshot. Violet Morris was seen as one of the worst enemies of her country. She had betrayed France and was clearly a traitor and in the eyes of the resistance this was the worst crime one could commit.
She was ambushed in an attack which was carefully planned and it shows the harsh reality of the warfare that the resistance were carrying out. She was also in the eyes of the resistance a high value target. She was not someone who was obscure and was not known about. Her famous athletics and sports background had made her a celebrity and the notoriety of her amplified the impact of her collaboration.
Killing such a well-known collaborator sent a message to other French people that this would not be tolerated and that prominent figures were not untouchable. But it also sent another message specifically to the Germans that the resistance itself had intelligence capabilities and were capable of carrying out ruthless attacks.
It was also an attack which helped the resistance to deal with potential security risks. By taking her out, it led to fewer resistance members being captured and she was known to have possessed significant information about them. Her access within the Gustapo also made her very unpredictable and resistance groups often eliminated their targets who were seen as a future risk to them.
to defend themselves, especially in 1944 when the Allied invasion was very much expected and underground networks were expanding rapidly because of this. Many resistance members were also driven by local reports and information that they heard on the ground. Civilians would have known that she was collaborating and rival networks and informants were working also to bring her down.
Occupied France was full of suspicion once a person was denounced as a collaborator or traitor. there a number of times while they stood very much in the firing line. This doesn’t mean though that the resistance acted randomly, but often decisions were made to take someone out based upon unverified intelligence. Violet Morris was shot and killed by the resistance because in their eyes she was very much a dangerous and destructive traitor and collaborator.
France had suffered for many years under the occupation and she had allegedly even helped the German air force get fuel for their planes. She was a woman very much trusted by the Germans to help them, and she may have felt empowered by them. She was someone who was even invited as a personal guest of Hitler to witness the Berlin Olympics years before World War II broke out.
But on a very quiet French country road, her body was littered with the bullets from the guns of French resistance fighters. It is June 1944, days before the Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy and faced heavy resistance and millions of bullets which were fired at them from German forces who were told to dig in.
As some villages were liberated from where the German occupiers had once been, elements of the French resistance felt emboldened to round up those who had collaborated with their enemies. and also those who had betrayed their French neighbors. Collaborating was seen as treason and the French resistance did not waste any time in forcing their enemies against a wall and then pulling the trigger.
Across France, thousands of people would find themselves tied to stakes before they were confronted by their executioners. The Wild Purge, as it became known, raced throughout France and different towns and cities, and mob justice prevailed at times. Questions were asked later, long after the guns had been fired.
But why did the French resistance shoot traitors immediately, often without any trial at all? France had suffered a long and painful occupation and by the time that summer 1944 came around many people were suffering. They had hugely reduced food rations and inside the nation the underground resistance networks face threats not just from the Germans but from emboldened French militia known as the milit.
These men were tasked to hunt down resistance members and often they tortured and carried out executions with their own hands. But when the allies began to liberate the country following D-Day, the resistance fought alongside them and they were coordinated relatively well in certain regions. And when the German enemy was forced out of the towns and cities, huge mass celebrations took place.
But there was a bitterness and a thirst for revenge inside these places. Women who were accused of sleeping with the enemy were forcibly shaved in what became known as the ugly carnival and they were then beaten badly by the crowds. Collaboration was seen as treason in wartime France and under occupation it was not viewed as a form of political disagreement but it was seen as actively betraying the nation.
collaborators informed the Gustapo about resistance members, helped to arrest persecuted people and escaped prisoners of war, and they served also in pro-German militia groups such as the previously mentioned police. They also helped to enforce German authority at local level, too. Many resistance fighters had seen comrades tortured or even executed because, well, someone taught.
In this context, collaborators were viewed as directly responsible for deaths. And with this, well, they had to pay. The resistance saw this as a capital crime and as something that someone should pay for with their lives. There was also at the time of the liberation no functioning justice system.
So the resistance could in a sense well do what they wanted with their prisoners. France was existing in somewhat of a legal vacuum. The courts of the collaborationist Vishi regime were ignored and discredited. German authority also lay in tatters and the future French government had not yet taken control for resistance units operating inside towns, forests and cities.
There was no time or infrastructure for formal trials. Summary execution was often considered a necessity during the war. This led to what became known as the Wild Purge taking hold. And because of this, thousands of men, well, mostly men accused of collaborating or being enemies of the resistance, found themselves executed, most of them being shot.
Resistance cells were also rather fragile, and one single informant could destroy a whole network, leading to the deaths of many people. Carrying out executions served a practical purpose, as it helped during the war prevent betrayal and offered protection to these networks. executions silenced informants permanently and also warned others not to collaborate.
There was also less fear in the ranks of the resistance, meaning they were more likely to fight on. In the weeks before and during the liberation of Paris, German reprisals were still happening. So to deal with informants ruthlessly once and for all was well a relatively sensible thing in the eyes of the resistance.
Now, the German occupation had been incredibly brutal for the French. There had been mass executions of hostages, large deportations to concentration camps, and also torture by the Gustapo and other Nazis. Many resistance fighters lost their family members or friends. And when the occupation completely collapsed, years of intense and suppressed rage exploded with their enemies getting the full brunt of this.
Executions were also driven by personal grief. as much as they were political beliefs. In cities such as Grenobyl, many members of the police were rounded up and then were shot in front of groups of thousands of people. And the whole point of this was to ensure that the enemies were punished in front of the crowd and that revenge for the evils of the Nazis and the collaborators was very much visible.
Killing collaborators also was in this sense an act of political theater. It might have seemed medieval, but public executions along with head shavings and parades of accused collaborators sent a message that Germany no longer ruled France, that the resistance was now the authority, and that national honor was being restored.
This was crucial before shaul emerged to reestablish a legal state. Those who were shot by resistance units were also rather diverse. This included, of course, Gustapo informants, members of the pre-mentioned police, but also those who worked inside of prisons for the Nazi authorities, and even some collaborating may officials. Sometimes those who profiteered off the black market suffered the same fate as they became rich off the suffering of many others and at their expense.
Now, historians have believed that up to 10,000 people were killed during the war in the Wild Purge without any legal trial. Not all of these shootings and executions were just either. Some of them were mistaken and were incorrectly carried out upon people who had done very little.
In some occasions, personal vendettas, family feuds, and other arguments were settled, and false accusations often occurred in particular, affecting women who were subjected then to the ugly carnival. Once order returned, the provisional government replaced this form of mob justice with the legal purge, and many high-profile collaborators, such as former prime minister of Vishi, France, Pierre Laval, were shot after their trial.
France largely framed the resistance violence as necessary during a time of war and as a tragic but unavoidable consequence of the German occupation. The country was very much at threat of civil war even during World War II. But the executions roughly and rapidly closed a chapter on the occupation with bloodshed and in a sense vengeful and possibly rightful punishment.
One of these executions and shootings was witnessed by news reporters in Grenobyl and it was claimed that I quote as the rainy twilight gathered a closed van crawled through the hooting whistling crowd. The firing squad marched in single file to a point opposite the six posts and the factory wall. The van door opened. The six male stepped out.
A mache grasped each prisoner by the arm. The youngest prisoner was 19, the oldest 26. One had been a mechanic in other days, another had been a farmer, one had been a plumber whose job was to keep the toilets flushing at me headquarters. Two had been captured in a truck with a police captain who was killed.
Without warning or signal, the executioners fired two volleys. The six volies slumped. Mackey officers ran towards the states, fired a revolver bullet in each head. Within a minute after the coupe degra, the hands had been cut free. The bodies lay prone. From a truck, men brought six plain wooden coffins. As the coffin nails were driven in, the crowd shouted over the dead bodies, “Savages, salars, scum.
” The van with the six coffins rumbled off through the driving rain. The French resistance shock collaborators because well collaboration caused death and there was no lawful justice system and there was a fear of betrayal which was also constant. It was years of repression and anger which had built up and it was not random violence but it was often brutal, improvised and morally complex.
Still today there are many victims of the French resistance who actually lie in graves undiscovered. These are rough graves and their bodies were dumped in there over 80 years ago and their stories are sadly waiting to be told. Francois Darlan was born on the 7th of August 1881 and his family were intertwined with the French Navy for generations.
After graduating from the naval academy, Dalan during World War I commanded an artillery battery that was involved in the battle at Vdun. He fought throughout the conflict and then after he was in command of a number of training vessels and he rose throughout the ranks of the navy.
In 1932, he was promoted to the rank of vice admiral and he then in 1936 tried to convince the British that they needed to cooperate with the French to deal with the growing threat of Germany and Italy. At this point, Adolf Hitler had taken power and intelligence services knew that he was building up his armed forces to a huge extent. Darlan was concerned about this German threat and from 1937 he was appointed the chief of the naval staff and became an admiral as the head of the French Navy.
He used political connections to expand the navy in the face of the cremarine’s expansion. He was a French nationalist who wanted to preserve the power of France and he saw the navy as one of the world’s greatest but it was in need of rapid expansion. But he actually saw the bigger threat as the Italian navy rather than the creeks marine.
He would in 1938 mobilize the navy to be on the highest state of alert due to the Sudatan land crisis and he expected the Italians to join any conflict on the side of the axis and Hitler. Of course, Dalan would be right. He thought that France would be secure behind the Majino line and he had many meetings in the leadup to the outbreak of the Second World War.
But after France’s declaration of war in September 1939, Dalan became the commander-in-chief of the French Navy. However, when France was invaded, it crumbled quickly at the hands of the Axis and the German army. Dalon was proud of the navy he had helped to build and he promised the British that no French ship would fall into German hands, but he was talking of an armistice with the Germans and he was willing to accept it if the French fleet would not be taken by the Germans.
Darlan thought also that the British were finished and that they would be defeated quickly too. And with this he began to consider defecting. Winston Churchill believed that Darlan could have been the leader of the free French forces or the French resistance and he thought he would have been a more powerful leader than Sha de Gaul but the British would sink the French fleet at Mazal Kabir to put it out of action and to prevent it falling into German hands.
Dalana expected the Axis to then win the war and he thought it was in his best interest to then collaborate with the Nazis and he then began to slightly distrust the British. He joined the Vichi government, the collaborationist state led by Marshall Philip Patan and was made the vice president of the council and the minister of foreign affairs, minister of the interior and minister of national defense making him practically the head of the vich collaborationist government and he was later named the successor to
Marshall Patan. Dalan then met with high-ranking Nazis too, such as Reich Marshal Herman Guring, and he actually saw the final solution as a way that he could make a deal with the Germans. He thought that he could do a deal with the Nazis for the Jews inside of France, which would then relieve the occupation slightly and make it less tough for those French people who were living under occupation.
He was rather silent about the extermination of the Jews and he repeatedly offered also to militarily cooperate with Hitler against the British. Hitler did not trust Dalon and the French and he wanted it to remain in support and in collaboration. But the Germans were suspicious of Francois Dalon also.
He only answered to Patan and had broad powers to give out his own orders. In November 1942, he went to Alis to see his son who had been injured and the day after the Western Allies invaded French North Africa. Dalan was captured, but he did do a deal with Dwight D. Eisenhower, the allied commander, and this was for political and military cooperation.
This was very controversial as Darlon had been a Nazi collaborator and this upset many in the free French movement. He refused though to repeal many of the persecuting laws of the Vichi regime and many political prisoners were sent to concentration camps also. However, what was not known is that the resistance were beginning to hatch a plot to assassinate, execute and take out Francois Dalon and he was considered in their eyes a terrible traitor.
Ferdinand Bonire Deash Chappelle and three of his comrades Otto G and Robert and Philipe Tornierre Ragan came up with a plan to take out Dalon. The four of them drew straws and Bonier or Des Chappelle got the shortest, meaning it was his job to try and take out the powerful admiral. Bonire was given a 7.
65 65mm pistol and the assassination date was set at the 24th of December 1942. Bonire entered the people’s palace in Alers and after eating he rested and then waited in a hallway. After some time, Francois Dalan appeared accompanied by another naval officer. Bonire pulled out his pistol and he shot Dalon at point blank range. He fired two shots.
One struck Dalan in the face causing terrible damage and he then fired the second shot which struck the admiral in the chest and he then fell to the floor. He also fired one shot at the other naval officer and with the loud sound of gunshots being heard, Bonier de la Chappelle was wrestled to the ground. Darlon never regained consciousness and he had been killed by the fatal shots at point blank range.
Less than 48 hours after Bonier himself was dead and was inside of a grave after being condemned to death by a court marshal and then being shot at dawn being executed. This was ruthless justice in the eyes of the Vichi regime. But amongst the allies, Dalan’s assassination and death did not bring too much sympathy.
He wasn’t very wellliked and was seen by many as a pompous collaborator. and he was seen as someone who was a turncoat and a traitor who could be brought through financial negotiations. Some like Winston Churchill did praise Dalan for his work in North Africa, but he was one of many men who found themselves being taken out and executed by the French resistance and by those who were very much against the Vichu regime.
Pierre Laval was born in June 1883 and his family were shopkeepers. As a young man, he shone at school but his father insisted that he worked in the family business. Laval did as a young man serve in the military for a year, but he was then discharged as it was deemed that he was unfit for service.
He moved to Paris and studied law in 1907 and then took many workingclass clients whom he offered legal advice to. With regards to his legal career, Laval claimed, “I am a comrade amongst comrades, a worker amongst workers. I’m not one of those lawyers who are mindful to the bourgeoa origin, even when they attempt to deny it.
I’m not one of those highbrow attorneys who engage in academic controversies and pose as intellectual. I’m proud to be what I am, a lawyer in the service of manual laborers who are my comrades, a worker like them. I am their brother.” He then got involved with trade unionists and he later won a seat in 1914 in the chamber of deputies as a socialist representing a workingclass suburb to the north of Paris.
He refused to support the first world war and Laval promoted anti-militarism and pacifism and he never served in the war himself and following the end of the conflict he lost his seat in the chamber of deputies. After this brief flirtation with politics, Lval then went back to working as a lawyer and he became very rich and with this change in fortunes, he then turned his back on socialism.
Pierre Laval in 1923 was elected as a mayor of Urbilars as he was seen as a champion of the working class and he struggled with the local communist party and Laval became very anti-communist. He was elected back to the chamber and then in 1927 he won a Senate seat. He served in many different cabinets before he became prime minister for the first time in January 1931.
France at the time was not affected by the economic crisis around the world and he said that France remained healthy thanks to work and savings and France had accumulated the largest gold reserves in the world behind the Americans. He continued to visit different nations as he served as a prime minister and he seemed to deal with the Hoover moratorum which was put forward to free his debt payments for a year in the aftermath of the first world war.
Pierre Laval at this time was seen as a competent diplomat and he was actually named Time magazine’s man of the year in 1931 and was the first Frenchman to be awarded this at the time. But he briefly fell from power shortly after and he had free strong and staunch political beliefs at the time. He wanted pacifism, held strong anti-communist beliefs and he also wanted to restore peace and positive relations with Germany.
He was a hard-working prime minister, but was a man who was happy to go and confront other politicians around the world one-on-one to negotiate a solution to issues. But he before the Second World War met with Bonito Mussolini in Rome, and he signed the Franco Italian agreement on the 4th of January 1935, seeding areas of French Somalia to Italy in exchange for support against German aggression.
Pierre Laval was seen as weak with this bending to Mussolini and he was also said to have held fascist beliefs. Laval also negotiated a secret plan to give Italy much of the territory that the French had conquered in East Africa with the hopes of ending the Abbiscinia crisis.
This led to public outrage when the plan leaked and Lval was forced to resign on the 22nd of January 1936. But Pierre Laval did not take his latest forefront grace well and he believed he was trying to maintain peace and to prevent another world war. He returned to his hometown with his huge wealth and he created a media empire.
However, his belief to come to some agreement with Germany was becoming an obsession and he was hoping to come to some form of peace with the country but of course this would not happen. He led a right-wing anti-communist group of politicians who wanted to seek peace with Hitler and opposed the declaration of war which emerged following the German invasion of Poland.
Hitler would then turn his attention towards France and the nation would collapse and would find itself occupied by the Germans. In this the French prime minister stepped down and Pierre Laval had brought led to Batan’s admission that France would try and collaborate with the Nazis. The extent of this collaboration would later turn incredibly deadly as the Germans imposed their brutal policies of persecution onto the nation and many people were transferred to concentration camps and then extermination camps from
France. The French state of Vichi was a civil authority over all France but the ultimate authority was a German occupation. German troops later occupied all of the country and Pierre Laval was a victim of an assassination plot at one point but he did return to power on the 18th of August 1942 and he met the harsh wishes that the Germans wanted from France to appease them.
He later admitted, “I hope for a German victory to stop bulcheism and communism.” But the Nazis were now ramping up the persecution whilst he served as a prime minister. And Laval asked the French police to carry out raids to seize Jews. And this caused chaos and he also ordered that Jewish children should be deported with their parents as he said they would fill up a quot of 50,000 Jews that the Nazis wanted from France.
Laval went beyond his orders to appease the Germans. When confronted with criticism regarding the deportation of Jewish children, Lval stated, “Not one must remain in France.” With this, he was seen as a horrific collaborator, where he then became the leader of the newly created police or the militia.
These were paramilitary groups who fought against the French resistance and they executed and assassinated many and also helped to round up those who were being deported. The milit also used torture to extract information from their captives. Hitler then asked the French government to fight alongside him and for Vichi to declare war against the British.
But during the Normandy landings, Laval made a speech to the people of France. He said, “You are not in the war. You must not take part in the fighting. If you do not observe this rule, if you show proof of in discipline, you will provoke reprisals, the harshness of which the government would be powerless to moderate.
You would suffer both physically and materially, and you would add to your country’s misfortunes. You will refuse to heed the insiduous appeals which will be addressed to you. Those who ask you to stop, work, or invite you to revolt the enemies of our country. You will refuse to aggravate the foreign war on our soil with the horror of civil war.
At this moment fraught with drama when the war has been carried onto our territory, show your worthy and disciplined attitude. You are thinking of France and only of her. But Pierre Laval was then two months later arrested and the rest of the Vichy government was moved to Sigmaring in Germany. Patan lived inside of Hoen Castle and Laval had lived here but then he was assigned to a different castle.
In April 1945 the US army led by George S. Patton was approaching and Laval was forced to try and escape and he was given permission to try and go to Spain and he flew out on a Luwaffer aircraft to Barcelona. But then later Charles de Gaul pressurized the Spanish and Franco to turn over Pierre Laval and he was then handed over to the Americans who arrested he and his wife and he was then imprisoned inside a Fier prison.
Pierre Laval was tried for treason and for his collaboration which had resulted in the deaths of thousands. He believed he could convince the French population that he was acting in the best interests of their nation. And his trial began on the 4th of October 1945. He was charged with plotting against the security of the state and intelligence and collaboration with the enemy.
His lawyers thought he would be acquitted. However, his trial will lasted a matter of days and the jury at times held abuse at him. He was sentenced to death for his crimes. Pierre Lavala’s execution was scheduled for the 15th of October 1945 at Fren prison. One news article from the time documents his execution.
It was said when his advocates told him last night that General Deaul would not commute the sentence or the minister of justice order a retrial, Laval had been composed and cheerful. When this morning at 8:45 a.m., Monae, the procurator general, came to him to inform him he was to be executed at 9:30, Laval was lying in his bed.
Without replying, he put his head under the blanket. His advocates thought he had a moment of weakness, and one of them raised a blanket to ask him to muster himself, but saw at once from Laval’s appearance that he must have taken poison. He was already losing consciousness. He had in fact drunk from a bottle of cyanide or potassium, which he still held, but in his hurry, he had not drained the bottle and had not shaken it before drinking.
Immediately medical attention prevented his attempted death and half an hour later Laval was again conscious. A letter by his bedside said the following. To my advocates for their information to my executioners for their shame. I refuse to be killed by French bullets. I will not make French soldiers accompllices in a judicial murder.
I have chosen my death the poison of the Romans which I have carried with me through my long wanderlings which have escaped the searches of my guards. I wish to be buried with the trickle scarf around my neck. I die because I loved my country too much. My last fault is for France. Pierre Laval was restored to consciousness and he did not escape his execution.
The firing squad was brought from the fort of Cantalon to execute him where his execution was originally to have taken place. But Laval placed a white tie around his neck and also a trickle scarf around his neck. As he was led to his execution, he was led into the prison courtyard and a chair was sat in a corner and Laval was then secured to this.
He told the firing squad, “I pity you for having to execute this crime. Aim at my heart. Long live France.” After the final checks were made, the firing squad aimed their rifles at the former prime minister, and his eyes had not been covered to allow him to see his executioners in his final moments, and he was also not allowed to give the order to fire.
Ruthlessly, the executioners then fired into the former prime minister, Pierre Laval, and he was instantly executed. Pierre Laval was seen as a collaborator with the evil Nazis and the Germans, and he was seen as a turn code by many inside of his nation. He was found guilty of plotting against the security of the state and of collaboration.
And because of this, he was executed by a firing squad inside of a French prison. Thanks for watching. To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe and once again, thank you so much for watching.
