Within the Context of the Period 1895-1995 to What Extent Were the Anti-Semitic Policies Implemented by the Right Wing Elites During the Vichy Regime from 1940-1944 a Reflection of Their Popularity Within France?
Within the context of the period 1895-1995 to what extent were the anti-Semitic policies implemented by the right wing elites during the Vichy Regime from 1940-1944 a reflection of their popularity within France?
To this day the period of French Occupation and the Vichy Regime remains one of the most contentious and sensitive in modern French history. After suffering a crushing military defeat to Germany in the summer of 1940 an armistice was signed and the country was divided: the northern half of France including the capital was occupied by the German forces and became the zone occupée and in the southern unoccupied zone, the zone libre, the ‘autonomous’ yet collaborationist government was set up in the town of Vichy headed by Marshal Philippe Petain. Petain’s government collaborated with the German forces in deportation of some 75,000 Jews who perished in Auschwitz . (JJ) These 4 years in French history which have become known as the ‘Dark Years’ still to this day weigh heavily on the French national conscience. Consequently in post-war France there was a widely shared desire to erase these years from French history. The French post-war leaders that had, for the most part, emerged from the Resistance attempted to erase Vichy from French history through not acknowledging the government as legitimate. De Gaulle refused announce ‘the restoration of the French Republic... on the grounds that it had never ceased to exist.’ De Gaulle had no need to encourage examination of this shameful period of French History and instead went about reinterpreting the Vichy years as the years of the Resistance. However this myth of the Resistance ignored many of the harsh and unfavourable realities of French life during the occupation. Robert Paxton’s Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order marked the first phase of study of Vichy and was written at a time when the Gaullist myth was being questioned and challenged. His historical study somewhat dispelled the generally accepted
To this day the period of French Occupation and the Vichy Regime remains one of the most contentious and sensitive in modern French history. After suffering a crushing military defeat to Germany in the summer of 1940 an armistice was signed and the country was divided: the northern half of France including the capital was occupied by the German forces and became the zone occupée and in the southern unoccupied zone, the zone libre, the ‘autonomous’ yet collaborationist government was set up in the town of Vichy headed by Marshal Philippe Petain. Petain’s government collaborated with the German forces in deportation of some 75,000 Jews who perished in Auschwitz . (JJ) These 4 years in French history which have become known as the ‘Dark Years’ still to this day weigh heavily on the French national conscience. Consequently in post-war France there was a widely shared desire to erase these years from French history. The French post-war leaders that had, for the most part, emerged from the Resistance attempted to erase Vichy from French history through not acknowledging the government as legitimate. De Gaulle refused announce ‘the restoration of the French Republic... on the grounds that it had never ceased to exist.’ De Gaulle had no need to encourage examination of this shameful period of French History and instead went about reinterpreting the Vichy years as the years of the Resistance. However this myth of the Resistance ignored many of the harsh and unfavourable realities of French life during the occupation. Robert Paxton’s Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order marked the first phase of study of Vichy and was written at a time when the Gaullist myth was being questioned and challenged. His historical study somewhat dispelled the generally accepted
Bibliography: Jackson, Julian. ‘France the Dark Years 1940-1944’. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Paxton, Robert. ‘Vichy France Old Guard ad New Order’. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Sweets, John. ‘Choices in Vichy France’. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Marrus, Michael and Paxton, Robert. ‘Vichy France and the Jews’. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1981. Vinen, Richard. ‘The Unfree French: Life under the Occupation’ London: Penguin Books, 2007. http://www.wikepedia.com