Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944
by Robert O. Paxton
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert O. PaxtonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-09-15
ISBN: 0231124694
Number of pages: 438
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Book Reviews of Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944
Book Review: A better understanding of the French
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was first written in 1972 when the fifty-year seal on Vichy documents was still in effect, and has been updated since. But Paxton did a very good job of gathering good material from Nazi archives and others to deliver a book which required very little revision once more documents became available. The book was explosive when first published because it shattered the Hollywood myth of brave French resistance fighters arm-in-arm with the Allied forces beating back their German occupiers. The truth was much more complicated, but basically France was so politically divided in the 1930's that it was impotent in dealing with the threat of a Hitler. That impotence translated into the Vichy government led by Petain and his numerous cabinet officers who were far more likely to assist the Nazis than confront them. Double dealing, scheming, back stabbing, corrupt, duplicitous; the regime was a training ground for the kind of French diplomacy which continues to this day. Numerous attempts were made by the Vichy regime at reaching a lasting peace with Hitler and included proposals for France to be an ally with Nazi Germany's new world order after the Brits and later the Americans were defeated. It was only after the tide was turning against the Germans did the French resistance begin to gain popular support and shift to DeGaulle from Petain and his fellow collaborators. Even the Nazis were appalled by the lack of principle when the French offered up native French Jews for transport to German concentration camps when the Nazis never demanded they be turned over. French workers in Germany freed up enough manpower for Germany to field many more divisions than they otherwise could have been able to. While the same could be said of "neutral" Sweden, without whose willingness to supply the steel needed by the Nazi war machine would have forced Germany to cut back its standing army by hundreds of thousands, at least the Swedes have never tried to cover up the fact that they did it for the money.
This is a very good book, and the kind of historical research which is sorely lacking in many books today which purport to cover history but usually wind up offering a hidden political agenda. For those who are interested in this subject I recommend Chabrol's video "Eye of Vichy" which is an amazingly brave film of Vichy propaganda that put pictures to the words of Paxton's book. With "friends" like France during WWII, we didn't need any enemies. The fact that France was given a permanent seat in the UN Security Council after its role during WWII is a living legacy of Roosevelt's infirmity in his last months.
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