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Originally Posted by Tom Houlihan
Let me get out my pot stirrer...
Were they actually traitors? Was not Vichy France an ally of Germany?
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This is a complicated issue and I anticipated that
someone would make this point. Here's my answer:
The Vichy government was really no more legitimate than any of the Nazi installed governments. They may have had a tad more independence but not much. To describe them as "allies" is also overstating what they were as they did not contribute troops in French uniform to any war effort. They were collaborators with a foreign occupying force even during the period of time when their part of France was technically not occupied. This complicity has been decided again and again in French courts to have been a crime, from Marshal Pétain on down. After Operation Torch in November 1942 any idea of an "independent" France (a farce from the very start) was ended when the entire country was occupied. By then the Vichy government could best have been described as a "puppet".
So...I still hold these men were traitors to France and while they paid the ultimate price, it was not out of line for the crime of "treason during time of war".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Helmut Von Moltke
French volunteers were an complicated issue. At that time the Vichy government was recognized as legtitimate by many, including the USA, since they negotiated with Vichy in the 1942 Morrocan campaign. The Vichy government in 1941 officially sanctioned and called for a legion of French volunteers to fight on the Eastern front. For example, after the war French volunteers of the Waffen-SS were released and were full citizens.
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Again, it is a complicated issue. The US even maintained diplomatic relations with Vichy during those years. Negotiating with her to secure her cooperation in Operation Torch (there were perhaps 60,000 troops in Morocco still taking orders from Vichy at that time) made political and military sense.
What later became of French volunteers who fought only on the Eastern Front is a bit different than is the fate of those captured taking up arms in France itself. Also a complicated issue and at some point, when the bullets stop flying people want the enmity and killing to stop and forgiveness and healing to begin.