Commission d'Épuration

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French women accused of collaborating with the Nazis are dishonored and taken through the streets of Paris. Barefoot, burn marks on the face, the head shaved. Summer 1944.

As part of the liberation of France from German occupation in World War II , there were numerous actions between 1944 and 1947 to purge the state apparatus and public life from people who were accused of collaboration . The alleged acts very often involved denunciations or the extradition of refugees and hostages to the German occupation forces.

First there were the wild, uncontrolled actions (épuration sauvage) . In addition to abuse and public humiliation, according to various estimates, there were 7,500 to around 10,000 killings. They were not later prosecuted as a crime (e.g. not as acts of lynching ). Women who got involved with German soldiers had to endure public humiliation. In this context, the images of women whose heads were shaved in order to brand them as lovers of the German occupiers are known.

Later there were forms of purification made justiciable by the Commission d'Épuration (épuration légale) . There were three main groups:

  • Criminal acts (sanction up to the death penalty )
  • Loss of civil rights for a time
  • State confiscation of war profits of the person concerned

In the whole of France there were around 120,000 convictions with around 1,500 executions , which were often carried out without the rule of law . In Paris, for example, the communist participant in the French Resistance René Sentuc , known as "Capitaine Bernard" , showed himself in this way in a former military hospital in 1944, Institut dentaire George-Eastman . In Paris between August 20 and September 15, 1944, a large number of people were tried in arbitrary trials and fusilized .

Charles de Gaulle and the Provisional Government of the French Republic , Gouvernement provisoire de la République française , tried to oppose this practice throughout French territory .

Later investigations point to similar experiences as with the denazification in Germany: The small ones were hanged, the big ones could benefit from delays with legal procedures and Persilscheine (in these cases often through actions for the Resistance ).

Known cases

literature

  • Robert Aron: Histoire de l'épuration, tome 2: Des prisons clandestines aux tribunaux d'exception (September 1944 - June 1949) . Paris, Fayard, 1969.
  • Marcel Baudot: La résistance française face auxproblemèmes de répression et d'épuration . In: Revue d'histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale , n ° 81, January 1971
  • Marcel Baudot: L'épuration: bilan chiffré . In: Bulletin de l'Institut d'histoire du temps présent , n ° 25, September 1986, pp. 37-52.
  • Philippe Bourdrel: L'épuration sauvage (1944-1945) , tome 2, Paris, Perrin, 1991, p. 351.
  • Cf. Michèle Cotta: La collaboration (1940-1944) , Paris, Kiosque-Armand Colin, 1964
  • Marcel Henriot: Statistique de la repression à la liberation - Département de la Haute-Marne . In: Bulletin du Comité d'histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale , n ° 183, September / October 1969, pp. 13-20.
  • Jean-Pierre Husson: Statistique de la répression à la liberation - Département de la Marne . In: Bulletin du Comité d'histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale , n ° 243, November / December 1980, pp. 36–46.
  • Herbert Lottman: L'Épuration (1943-1953) . Paris, Fayard, 1986
  • Peter Novick: L'épuration française (1944-1945) . Paris, Baland, 1985, pp. 330-333.
  • Jean-Pierre Rioux: L'épuration en France (1944-1945) . In: L'Histoire , n ° 5, October 1978
  • Henry Rousso: L'épuration en France, une histoire inachevée . In: Vingtième siècle - Revue d'histoire , n ° 33, July / March 1992.
  • François Rouquet: L'épuration administrative en France après la libération - Une analyze statistique et geographique . In: Vingtième siècle - Revue d'histoire , n ° 33, January / March 1992, pp. 106–117.
  • Jacques Vadon: Statistique de la répression à la liberation - Département des Ardennes . In: Bulletin du Comité d'histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale , n ° 197, January / February 1972, pp. 22-25.

Movie

The chamber play Marie-Octobre, filmed as a crime thriller by Julien Duvivier in 1958, with Danielle Darrieux in the title role as a former resistance fighter, addresses most of the arguments about patriotism and betrayal in a production that was highly regarded at the time. The film was released in theaters in 1959.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jean-Marc Berlière, Franck Liaigre: Ainsi finissent les Salauds. Robert Laffont, Paris 2012, ISBN 978-2-221-12998-2 .
  2. ^ Dominique Lapierre, Larry Collins: Paris brule t'il. Pocket, 2001, ISBN 978-2-26611-501-8 .
  3. ↑ Nicolas Jacquard: Les purges aveugles de la Libération. Le Parisien , September 15, 2013. [1]