Yahoo Sports Inside the nightmarish final days of Vichy France
On September 6 1944, the head of the French state, Marshal Philippe Pétain, was forcibly removed from France. After the collapse of the Third Republic four years earlier, Pétain – the former “lion of Verdun” – had signed an armistice with Nazi Germany. His Vichy-based collaborationist regime had claimed authority over the country, but now, with the Allies advancing and Paris liberated by the forces of General de Gaulle, the Germans seized Pétain during their retreat.
It may seem odd that Hitler should have cared, not least because Pétain, now 88, was refusing to exercise his (nominal) powers, on the grounds that he was effectively a German prisoner. Yet in the case of an eventual reconquest of France – a fantasy still considered possible – a “legitimate” French government would have been useful. The destination of the Vichy rump was southern Germany, to the former castle of the princes of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Sigmaringen, a massive structure with 800 rooms, seemed like a fantasy German schloss reimagined by Viollet-le-Duc, or Walt Disney. An aide to Pierre Laval, Pétain’s prime minister, recalled:
“The robber barons of the Teutonic Middle Ages had built it on a rocky point in a curve of the Danube… [it had] an atmosphere of heavy grandeur and faded ostentation, with numerous grand staircases and secret stairways, paintings, displays of armour and terrible weapons, statues of hunting trophies, and old furniture. The elevator was almost big enough to hold a Simca motorcar.”
The most famous descriptions come from the novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Anti-Semitic to the point of derangement, Céline had left Paris in June 1944, shortly before de Gaulle’s arrival, intending to cross Germany and find refuge in Denmark. He had two vials of cyanide in his luggage, just in case. But he instead reached Sigmaringen, where this phantom government in its Ruritanian setting offered an ideal subject for his first postwar novel, D’un château l’autre (1957), written in his hallucinatory style: “Stucco, turrets, chimneys, gargoyles…! Super Hollywood!”
In Sigmaringen, overseen by the Germans, distinctions of hierarchy were minutely observed. Pétain’s entourage was housed in the princely apartments on the seventh floor, accessed by the huge lift, which only he was allowed to use. Pétain and his wife lodged at one end of an immense corridor lined with statues, portraits and hunting trophies. Laval, his wife and their entourage took quarters on the floor below. Menus were calibrated according to status. On the Pétain floor, there were three different levels of menu, with only Pétain and his wife accorded the luxury of full-fat cheese, while Laval and co mostly had potatoes and cabbage, although served on silver platters.
Pétain attended Mass at the castle every Sunday, hidden in a secret loggia linked to the apartments by a special walkway. In good weather, he was allowed to walk in the countryside – with Gestapo officers watching at a distance. In the last months of the Vichy regime, he had been put under strict Nazi surveillance, and deprived of almost all the advisers he had appointed in 1940.
The sole survivor of those days was his doctor and confidant, Bernard Ménétrel, who came to Sigmaringen, too, and now spent his time huddled with Pétain working on a future legal defence – for it was evident by this point that de Gaulle planned to hold Pétain to account for his collaboration with Hitler’s regime.
Ménétrel knew that the Germans were aware of his efforts, but he also knew that the last thing they wanted was for the elderly Pétain to die, so he repeatedly warned them that conditions in the castle threatened le Maréchal’s health (which was, in truth, very robust). It didn’t matter. Returning from an outing with Pétain on November 22, Ménétrel was seized and put under house arrest. Being a trained doctor as well as a novelist, Céline was proposed as a possible replacement. To this, Pétain allegedly remarked: “I would prefer to die at once.” Céline was disappointed, but kept busy treating the many diseases that were spreading around the town below. Here clustered about 1,500 French ultra-collaborators, accompanied by wives, mistresses and hangers-on, who had scuttled out of France in the wake of the German retreat. They crowded into the local hotels, school buildings and gymnasia.
Deprived of power, the former Vichy leaders sought distraction in self-improvement. Sigmaringen had a well-stocked library, and Pétain settled down to the memoirs of Talleyrand – perhaps seeking tips on how to make a transition from one regime to another. Surreal cultural events were organised in the castle’s salle des fêtes and down in the town. These included readings, fascist lectures and a Bach recital by the celebrated ultra-collaborationist pianist Lucienne Delforge – whose presence caused tensions with Céline’s wife, since Delforge had been Céline’s mistress in the 1930s.
The cultural highlight was a visit by the Belgian fascist leader Léon Degrelle, who appeared in his SS uniform to lecture on the New Europe and the Recovery of France. Le tout Sigmaringen turned out to hear him, including Céline, dressed like a tramp, wearing a pair of moth-eaten mittens around his neck and carrying his cat Bébert in a bag. Even he was exasperated by the insanely exalted tone of Degrelle’s lecture, and left before the end, muttering about this “roi des cons” (king of idiots).
In spite of Pétain’s “strike” and the evident end of Vichy power, some of its leaders set up a “Governmental Commission” in the castle – a theoretical French regime-in-waiting. This body went through the futile motions of “governing”. One subject that sucked up much time was the interest rate at which they would one day reimburse the Germans for their “generosity” in making the castle available.
No one was busier than Jean Luchaire, a venal journalist with expensive tastes and Brylcreemed hair. He had arrived in Sigmaringen with a considerable retinue, including at least two mistresses, his wife and his daughter Corinne, an actress popular in occupied Paris. Put in charge of propaganda, Luchaire set up a radio station that alternated news bulletins and light operettas, and a newspaper named France. To give a flavour of its contents, one article, on November 5 1944, reporting on the condition of French workers in Germany, was titled “Auschwitz, Model Camp”. Meanwhile, since the commission had no real authority, matters of protocol assumed huge importance. A mini-crisis exploded, for instance, when someone was spotted using a castle staircase reserved for commission members.
At the end of 1944, as the news from France became more alarming, the Sigmaringen exiles briefly consoled themselves with rumours that the Germans were about to counterattack. The V2 rocket attacks on London in the autumn raised hopes, then came news of the German counteroffensive through the Ardennes. France continued to offer its alternative reality. On February 23 1945, it proclaimed: “Liberation has Turned France into the Field of Ruins and Death.” But by the end of March, the newspaper had shifted from a daily to a weekly publication – and not many weeks were left. Despite the bombastic headlines, no one was under any illusion about the war’s direction.
Céline was among the first to leave Sigmaringen, at the end of March. He and Lucette finally managed to reach Denmark, where they were promptly interned. Others crossed the Brenner Pass into Italy, to be arrested by the Americans. Only Pétain was eager to return to France. Once he had heard the news of the establishment of the high court in Paris, specifically designed to try the Vichy leaders, he was determined to defend his reputation. On April 5, he sent Hitler a letter asking permission to return to his homeland: “It is only in France that I can account for my actions… At my age, one only fears one thing: not having performed one’s duty, and I want to perform mine.” He received no reply.
By April 19 1945, Allied forces were about 25 miles away from Sigmaringen. The next day, some German officials, taking matters into their own hands, informed Pétain that they would remove him to Switzerland – with whose ambassador to Vichy he’d always had good relations – to avoid his falling into Allied hands. At 4am on April 21, they departed. A few hours later, troops of the French First Army reached the castle. Pétain’s bed was unmade. Next to it was a half-empty bottle of Vichy water.
After a three-day journey, on his 89th birthday, Pétain’s entourage reached the Swiss border. Once they had received confirmation that de Gaulle’s government would permit Pétain to return to France, they continued west to the Franco-Swiss frontier. Crossing through Switzerland, they reached the French border post at Vallorbe on the evening of April 26. Le Maréchal’s car was the first to cross. On the other side, Pétain got out, stepped back onto French soil, and saluted the republican guards lining the road. Presumably obeying orders, they ignored him. When a French police officer asked Pétain to give his name and title, he replied: “I think I am still Marshal of France.” On returning to his car, he found his chauffeur replaced by a French gendarme, who drove him to the nearest railway station. There, a special service was waiting to take Pétain to Paris – and to a trial that would divide France for decades to come.
France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain by Julian Jackson will be published by Allen Lane on June 15
