2,159 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
The following is the epilogue to Dominique Venner’s Histoire de la Collaboration (Paris: Gérard Watelet/Pygmalion, 2000), 522-26. The title is editorial.
[. . .] Throughout this book, I have sought to place the years of the Occupation and the variegated phenomenon of Collaboration in the wider context of the time, that of the French disaster of 1940 (more…)
Albrecht Dürer, Charlemagne (detail), circa 1512, with German and French escutcheons
1,385 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
The following is translated from Dominique Venner’s Histoire de la Collaboration (Paris: Gérard Watelet/Pygmalion, 2000), 151-54. The title is editorial.
In The Birth of Two Peoples, the great medievalist Carlrichard Brühl demonstrated the extent to which the consciousness of a common origin [between Frenchmen and Germans] was still felt at the time of Saint Louis.[1][2]
2,021 words
Robert Brasillach on trial
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
“Épuration,” literally meaning “purge,” “cleansing,” or “purification,” was the process of killing, imprisoning, ostracizing, or otherwise punishing those deemed to have been traitors by the Gaullist government and the Resistance following the eviction of German forces from France in 1944-45. (more…)
4,239 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
The following is taken from Dominique Venner’s Histoire de la Collaboration (Paris: Gérard Watelet/Pygmalion, 2000), 207-16. The title is editorial.
The premonition of decadence was strong with [the writer Alphonse de] Châteaubriant, but never reached the apocalyptic fury of a Céline, (more…)
852 words
Otto Abetz
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
The following is translated from Dominique Venner’s Histoire de la Collaboration (Paris: Gérard Watelet/Pygmalion, 2000), 160-62, under the heading “Weakening the defeated to better get along with him.” The title is editorial, and refers to German Ambassador to Paris Otto Abetz, who was said to rule like “King Otto” over the French capital and in particular its vibrant cultural scene.
The draft Statute on Jews of October 3, 1940, apparently toughened by the hand of Marshal Pétain.
1,988 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
The following extracts are translated from Dominique Venner’s Histoire de la Collaboration (Paris: Gérard Watelet/Pygmalion, 2000), 118-22. The title is editorial.
Before creating something new, to ensure that the old regime is genuinely laid low, one begins by driving out those who represent a potential counter-revolution, the risk of a lapse backwards. (more…)
2,509 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
The following extracts are translated from Dominique Venner’s Histoire de la Collaboration (Paris: Gérard Watelet/Pygmalion, 2000), 103-12. (more…)