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> Marshal Pétain, 84 years old and the great hero of World War I, believed it was his duty to save France from total destruction and accept an armistice with Ge

> Marshal Pétain, 84 years old and the great hero of World War I, believed it was his duty to save France from total destruction and accept an armistice with Germany. Britain was doomed, he said, and union would be “fusion with a corpse.” Another minister concluded: “Better be a Nazi province. At least we know what that means.” Reynaud later wrote in his memoirs, “Those who rose in indignation at the idea of union with our ally were the same individuals who were getting ready to bow and scrape to Hitler.” Wow. I knew that England and France have historically disliked each other, but preferring to be a Nazi province?

frozenport 7y ago
“Those who rose in indignation at the idea of union with our ally were the same individuals who were getting ready to bow and scrape to Hitler.”
roywiggins 7y ago
History has not been kind to Pétain, and deservedly so.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ Apparently I'm the odd one out that had never heard of this guy.
jacquesm 7y ago
Every country had its characters like Pétain, the Dutch had their own share of them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dutch_collaborators_with_Nazi_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dutch_collaborators_w... see here for a whole slew of Dutch), it was the same in almost every country the Nazi's attacked and even some where it did not.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  Indeed, and one of them, Norway's Vidkun Quisling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling), was so notorious his name become synonymous with betraying your country. To this day, in multiple countries, all you have to say to indicate that you think someone would be happy to trade loyalty for power is to call them a quisling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling).
  - verandacoffee 7y ago
    Relevant: https://www.norwegianamerican.com/norsk/the-coining-of-quisling/ https://www.norwegianamerican.com/norsk/the-coining-of-quisl... Unfortunately the caption is omitted, but is at least retold just below the middle of the article: 'It depicts Quisling arriving to audience before Hitler. His right arm raised in the Nazi salute, he announces “I’m quisling!” to which the doorman asks: “And your name?”' The original caption was just (if I remember correctly): - I’m quisling! - And your name? The cartoon was printed in Sweden, in Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, which was edited by Torgny Segerstedt, one of too few outspoken anti-nazis among Swedish editors.
smacktoward 7y ago
It only makes any kind of sense in the context of the times. France in the '30s had been run by a left-wing coalition, the Popular Front (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_(France) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_(France)), which had put things like the rights of workers and a move away from laissez faire capitalism front and center. The head of that coalition was a Jewish socialist, Léon Blum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Blum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Blum). That in turn had led to a kind of mass freak-out among the French right, who were terrified that Blum and the Popular Front were the harbingers of a Russian-style Communist revolution. (They weren't, of course, but then as now the hard right can't hear a dog bark without thinking it's the first shot of a Communist revolution.) Even in 1936, when Blum came to power, there were people on the right saying things like "better Hitler than Léon Blum" (http://worldatwar.net/biography/b/blum/ http://worldatwar.net/biography/b/blum/). So when the Nazis blew the old government away, there were a lot of people on the French right who saw their country's defeat by right-wing foreigners as an opportunity to restore the old order -- things like favoring aristocracy over democracy, reserving lots of power for the Catholic church, driving Jews and immigrants out of society, and so forth. These people coalesced around Pétain, and their ideology became the ideology of Vichy's Révolution nationale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9volution_nationale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9volution_nationale). (One of the results of which was that Blum was hauled off to a German concentration camp.)
- makomk 7y ago
  Errm, if I'm understanding that Wiki article right, one of the key factions in the Popular Front was a French communist party that was literally the local affiliate of Russian communism, complete with the usual support for Stalinism. Which wasn't terribly uncommon - part of the reason World War II happened the way it did was that Stalinist communism was a real, genuine threat in much of Europe, and of course much more than that in eastern Europe.
Leherenn 7y ago
Not to defend him, but Nazi Germany in 1940 wasn't seen the same as it is now. For instance there were no extermination camps yet.

frozenport 7y ago

“Those who rose in indignation at the idea of union with our ally were the same individuals who were getting ready to bow and scrape to Hitler.”

roywiggins 7y ago

History has not been kind to Pétain, and deservedly so.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ Apparently I'm the odd one out that had never heard of this guy.

jacquesm 7y ago

Every country had its characters like Pétain, the Dutch had their own share of them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dutch_collaborators_with_Nazi_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dutch_collaborators_w... see here for a whole slew of Dutch), it was the same in almost every country the Nazi's attacked and even some where it did not.

smacktoward 7y ago
Indeed, and one of them, Norway's Vidkun Quisling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling), was so notorious his name become synonymous with betraying your country. To this day, in multiple countries, all you have to say to indicate that you think someone would be happy to trade loyalty for power is to call them a quisling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quisling).
- verandacoffee 7y ago
  Relevant: https://www.norwegianamerican.com/norsk/the-coining-of-quisling/ https://www.norwegianamerican.com/norsk/the-coining-of-quisl... Unfortunately the caption is omitted, but is at least retold just below the middle of the article: 'It depicts Quisling arriving to audience before Hitler. His right arm raised in the Nazi salute, he announces “I’m quisling!” to which the doorman asks: “And your name?”' The original caption was just (if I remember correctly): - I’m quisling! - And your name? The cartoon was printed in Sweden, in Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, which was edited by Torgny Segerstedt, one of too few outspoken anti-nazis among Swedish editors.

smacktoward 7y ago

It only makes any kind of sense in the context of the times. France in the '30s had been run by a left-wing coalition, the Popular Front (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_(France) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_(France)), which had put things like the rights of workers and a move away from laissez faire capitalism front and center. The head of that coalition was a Jewish socialist, Léon Blum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Blum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Blum). That in turn had led to a kind of mass freak-out among the French right, who were terrified that Blum and the Popular Front were the harbingers of a Russian-style Communist revolution. (They weren't, of course, but then as now the hard right can't hear a dog bark without thinking it's the first shot of a Communist revolution.) Even in 1936, when Blum came to power, there were people on the right saying things like "better Hitler than Léon Blum" (http://worldatwar.net/biography/b/blum/ http://worldatwar.net/biography/b/blum/). So when the Nazis blew the old government away, there were a lot of people on the French right who saw their country's defeat by right-wing foreigners as an opportunity to restore the old order -- things like favoring aristocracy over democracy, reserving lots of power for the Catholic church, driving Jews and immigrants out of society, and so forth. These people coalesced around Pétain, and their ideology became the ideology of Vichy's Révolution nationale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9volution_nationale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9volution_nationale). (One of the results of which was that Blum was hauled off to a German concentration camp.)

makomk 7y ago
Errm, if I'm understanding that Wiki article right, one of the key factions in the Popular Front was a French communist party that was literally the local affiliate of Russian communism, complete with the usual support for Stalinism. Which wasn't terribly uncommon - part of the reason World War II happened the way it did was that Stalinist communism was a real, genuine threat in much of Europe, and of course much more than that in eastern Europe.

Leherenn 7y ago

Not to defend him, but Nazi Germany in 1940 wasn't seen the same as it is now. For instance there were no extermination camps yet.