Paul Sézille

Paul Sézille (born November 10, 1879 in Blérancourt in the Aisne department , † April 20, 1944 in Paris ) was a French anti-Jewish propagandist.

Life

Paul Sézille was wounded twice, mentioned three times and awarded the Croix de guerre during his service in the First World War . He then became a captain in the French protectorate troops . Before the Second World War he seconded Louis Darquier de Pellepoix in the leadership of the French anti-Jewish movement. In August 1940, with the support of the German Embassy in Paris , he organized anti-Jewish events in the Cirque d'hiver (Paris) , in which he held the Jews responsible for the defeat of the French army.

He founded the Communauté Française (CF), which in an open letter from Philippe Pétain called for anti-Jewish policies.

In December 1940, Sézille met Theodor Dannecker , who with the Institut d'étude des questions juives (IEQF) gave hatred of Jews a French label. After the fascist Rassemblement national populaire in April 1941 in a dispute between Eugène Deloncle and Marcel Déat , Sézille was designated Secretary General of the IEQF , while the staff were recruited from the CF. Paul Sézille suffered from alcoholism and was an uncontrolled person. On May 11, 1941, the day the IEQF opened , he physically attacked the publisher Gilbert Baudinière, whereupon Theodor Dannecker had him replaced by René Gérard as IEQF General Secretary. The IEQF formally acted as the organizer of anti-Jewish propaganda in France. In 1941 Paul Sézille wrote an introduction to the exhibition catalog of Le Juif et la France . One of the IEQF's projects was to call for streets that were named after people who, according to the NSDAP's categories, were Jews to be renamed.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Roland Ray, Approaching France in the Service of Hitler ?, p. 369.
2. ↑ Pierre-André Taguieff, Grégoire Kauffmann, Michaël Lenoire, L'antisémitisme de plume: 1940-1944, Berg 1999, p. 442.