VICHY FRANCE: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944

by Robert O. Paxton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1972

It is still possible to hear the view that a handful of fifth-column Nazi agents, a treasonous cabal, was responsible for betraying France in the 1940 defeat and during the Occupation. Paxton polemicizes against this notion, joining dozens of earlier writers in listing the pre-war ""internal factors"" that led to Vichy, and summarizing the symptoms of demoralization during the last years of the Third Republic. Paxton's professed purpose, however, is not to investigate ""why France fell,"" but to tell ""what Frenchmen decided to do next."" He tacitly acknowledges that a serious study has to deal with the first question as well as the second when he tacks on a homily about that ""subtle intellectual culprit: fear of social disorder. . . ."" But mainly he sticks to an enumeration of the policies of willing collaboration with the Third Reich, proving his thesis that Vichy by no means ameliorated the conditions of occupation but actually enhanced the Nazis' looting by streamlining it. The Old Guard's attempt to legislate a counterrevolution against the liberal-left, as well as the labor codes that victimized French workers, are documented with little effort to pull it all together. Petain and Laval look pitiful as the standard-bearers of the narrowminded conservatism which had grown up during the Third Republic. The ""200 families"" -- their enthusiasm for Hitler, their eagerness to import fascism and reinforce the foreign guardians of order, as servile junior partners if need be, so long as their system remained -- are not discussed. Thus even as factual presentation the book is incomplete and greater ""human interest"" may be found in Alexander Werth's France 1940 to 1955 (1966); but Paxton will perhaps draw readers among viewers of Max Ophuls' recent film documentary on the Occupation, The Sorrow and the Pity.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION