Vichy 1942-44: Laval and Germany's Total War

Pierre Laval was a key figure in Vichy between 1940 and 1944. In April 1942 Laval was made Head of Government, a newly-created post, and from that point on became a more influential figure within the Vichy régime. He was particularly important however, between 1942 and 1944, the years during which Vichy became more authoritarian and repressive. Vichy took this direction, not through any prompting from Laval, but, rather, in response to increasing pressure from Nazi Germany. Germany's supply of labour from Poland and the Soviet Union was drying up and their `war against the Jews', to use Lucy Dawidowicz's phrase, was entering a fanatical new phase. Moreover, the war was starting to go badly for the Nazis: the Soviet Union was beginning to gain the upper hand in the east and the Allies were beginning to make advances in north Africa and southern Europe. This is the context in which Pierre Laval became a decisive influence in the Vichy régime.

By early 1942 there were concerns that Germany's supply of foreign labour - mainly from Russia and Poland - was beginning to run out. Fritz Sauckel, a long-time Nazi was given responsibility for recruiting new labour and, in May 1942 he demanded that 250,000 French workers be sent to Germany by the end of July that year. Laval, initially unhappy with this decision, responded with a scheme called la relève by which one French prisoner of war would be returned to France for every three workers who volunteered to work in Germany. This scheme, perhaps inevitably, failed to recruit the required number and by February 1943 the Vichy administration was required to introduce a form of conscription to work in Germany. The response in France to te introduction of compulsory labour in Germany was increased numbers of young men fleeing, often joining the resistance movement. At the end of the war, it is extimate that approximately 650,000 Frenchmen and 44,000 Frenchwomen had been sent to labour in Germany, making France the second largest contributor of unskilled labour - only Poland contributed higher numbers - and the largest contributor of skilled labour to the German economy (Atkins: 1998 p.174).

Worse was to come. Shortly after the Wannsee conference of January 1942 in which the details of the `final solution to the Jewish question' were discussed, the Nazi authorities began to request the arrest and deportation of Jews resident on French soil. From 7 June 1942 all Jews were required to wear a yellow star of David on their outer garments. On the 11 June, the Nazis requested the Vichy authorities hand over 100,000 Jews for deportation. Finally, on the 23 June it informed Vichy that all Jews were to be removed from France.

Laval's response, as was so often the case, was to attempt to bargain with the Nazis. He offered to hand over 10,000 Jews from the Unoccupied zone in exchange for protecting Jews of French nationality. Only if there was a shortfall, would these French nationals from the Occupied zone be handed over. Laval did not act out of altruism but, rather, as later historians have argued, to preserve Vichy's autonomy and authority over French nationals. It was thus out of a desire to safeguard the independance of Vichy that the French police became involved in the mass arrest and deportation of thousands of Jews resident on French soil. These mass arrests took place all over the Occupied zone and those arrested were held in transit camps - many historians now consider them to be antichambres de la mort - like Pithiviers, Beaune-la-Rolande and, most famous of all, Drancy.

The most infamous of the mass arrests was the so-called grande rafle du Vél' d'Hiv' which took place in Paris on the 16th and 17th July 1942. The Vélodrome d'Hiver was a large indoor sports arena situated on the rue Nélaton near the Quai de Grenelle in the 15th arrondissment of Paris. In a vast operation codenamed vent printanier, the French police rounded up 12,884 Jews from Paris and its surrounding suburbs. These were mostly adult men and women but there were 4,000 children amongst them. The rounding up was made easier by the large number of files on Jews complied and held by Vichy authorities since 1940. The French police, headed by René Bousquet, were entirely resonsible for this operation and not one German soldier assisted.

Although, in theory at least, the Vichy régime governed both Occupied and Unoccupied zones, it constantly found the limits of its sovereignty tested by the German military authorities who had the power of veto over any measure or legislation to which they objected. Between June 1940 and November 1942, the only zone over which Vichy enjoyed any real sovereignty was the Unoccupied zone in the south. By 11 November 1942, however, this too had been occupied. The fiction of Vichy sovereignty was exposed. Developments in the global conflict, in particular, the military advances of the Allied forces in north Africa - on 7 November 1942 Allied troops landed in Morocco and Algeria as part of Operation Torch - posed the threat of an an Allied invasion from the Mediterranean. Nazi Germany's response to this threat was to occupy the Unoccupied zone in the south.

Total German occupation of France, the deportation of thousands of Jews and the stepping up of German demands for French workers created massive discontent. As dissatisfaction amongst the French population began to increase, so too did the resistance. Moreover, with the chances of an Allied victory looking better every day, Vichy began to lose much of its attraction to many French. Resistance, a relatively minor phenomenon before 1942, began a major problem for Vichy.

The growth of internal resistance made a firm response from either the Nazis or Vichy inevitable. Since 1942 Laval had argued for the creation of a special police force controlled by Vichy to combat internal dissent. Initially suspicious of a rival group to the SS, the demands of the war on the German military made Laval's proposals seem good sense. On the 5 January, the Nazi authorities allowed the Milice to be founded. At its head was Joseph Darnand, a World War I veteran with a history of involvement in a number of extreme Right-wing movements L'Action française, La Croix de feu, the Cagoule and the PPF. He supported Pétain in the early days but was also notoriously pro-Nazi. Like Laval but more extreme, he saw the Nazis as the best defence against Bolshevism in Europe. In October 1943, he went so far as to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler and became an SS Obersturmfuhrer.

The Milice recruited around 30,000 members, mostly young working-class men from a variety of backgrounds. Some were ideologically motivated, others were in it for the money and status, and others for the excitement of a good scrap. Their principal aim was to track down Jews, Communists and réfractaires (i.e. those fleeing work service in Germany) and to combat the resistance. Their brutality was another important factor in turning public opinion away from Vichy and towards the resistance.