Perhaps Laval’s last official act was to turn down a request that he and others meet with Hitler. He indicated that, as a person in custody, he could not negotiate on behalf of France, and that for him to do so would jeopardize his future political career.42 In the meantime, the Allies were quickly advancing eastward across France. After about a month in Belfort, Laval and others were transferred to a castle in Germany where they remained until the following spring. With the complete collapse of German authority in April 1945, Laval was momentarily free. He flew to Spain, hoping that his earlier support of the Nationalists would convince Francisco Franco, Spain’s dictator, to grant him asylum. Franco, sensing the direction in which the war was heading, refused and gave Laval a choice of going to either Ireland or Portugal, both neutral countries. Laval declined and remained in custody in Spain, probably in the hope that Franco would have a change of heart.43 It was not to be.
General Charles de Gaulle had by then established a government in France. De Gaulle’s desire to arrest Laval was communicated to American and British officials, who in turn made it known to Franco. Franco, not inclined to defy the victorious Allies, assented. Consequently, on July 31, Laval was flown to Linz, in the American zone of Austria; he was immediately transferred to a different plane and taken to Innsbruck, where the French authorities arrested him.44
On August 1, 1945, Laval was flown to Paris and detained at the Fresnes prison facility. The following seventy-five days were to be full and decisive for Laval. He began by testifying as a defense witness in the trial against Pétain, appearing on the stand within two days of his arrival in France.
Once Paris had been liberated on August 25, 1944, General de Gaulle’s government wasted no time in dealing with persons seen as having betrayed France by cooperating with the Germans. It became essential to create a formal mechanism for dealing with “collaborators.” The most pressing reason was that vigilante justice was rampant. It is not clear how many persons were killed as collaborators between the successful Allied landing at Normandy on June 6, 1944, and the complete withdrawal of German forces from France several months later. The figures range from as low as nine thousand persons to one hundred thousand.45 Because the regular courts were slow and heavily laden with judges who functioned during the Vichy regime, an ordinance of November 18, 1944, established special courts to try collaborators: a High Court of Justice for cabinet ministers and a Court of Justice for others. Magistrates for these purge courts were picked from among the less compromised members of the French judiciary. This selection method was driven by the embarrassing fact that only one French magistrate had refused to swear an oath of allegiance to Marshal Pétain.46 Hundreds of thousands of persons were processed through these courts, and about fifteen hundred executed. Many of the imprisoned received amnesty once the immediate ardor of the postwar period cooled in the early 1950s.47
The charges against Pétain, drawn under the same provisions of the penal code that were later applied to Laval, alleged that he acted against the interests of France in creating a form of government similar to the Franco dictatorship in Spain (Article 87) and that he collaborated with the enemy (Article 75).48 The presiding judge and prosecutor were the same as in the Laval trial and the jury was drawn from two lists: one was comprised of members of the National Assembly who had not voted to end the Third Republic, and the second consisted of names provided by various Resistance networks. Under the French legal system, three judges and a jury deliberate jointly and the verdict is a composite of their votes.
Pétain’s trial began on July 23, 1945. As a defense witness, Laval testified that Pétain never desired to set up a dictatorship. Pétain’s very able lawyers cross-examined prosecution witnesses and delivered a stirring closing argument, urging that as peace spread throughout Europe at last, France should not bruise itself further by condemning its own. Pétain himself ended the proceeding by saying: “Dispose of me according to your consciences. Mine does not reproach me because during a long life and having arrived by age [he was eighty-nine] at the threshold of death, I affirm that I had no ambition other than to serve France.” On August 15, 1945, Pétain was found guilty and sentenced to death. General de Gaulle, however, commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. Pétain was to remain in prison until his death of natural causes in 1951, at the age of ninety-five.49
Before turning to the trial against Laval, we briefly set out the basics of the French criminal process. Understanding this process is essential to appreciate how it was ignored in Laval’s case. The French system is a two-stage procedure that relies heavily on the judiciary.50 During the initial investigatory stage, an investigating magistrate collects all relevant evidence, both inculpatory and exculpatory, and then decides whether a prosecution should go forward and a trial take place. In Laval’s case, the investigative stage began within three weeks of his testimony in Pétain’s trial. The investigative stage is central to the criminal process since it defines the crimes that may be considered at trial. Given its importance and given the complexity of the case against Laval, it is not surprising that on August 21, 1945, his lawyers were promised that the preliminary stage would be lengthy, involving perhaps twenty-five sessions that would take them well into November.51 Had that procedure been followed, Laval would have been given pertinent documents and participated at length in presenting his defense. Whatever charges were then recommended would be tried by a court with a jury. Laval would be questioned by the court and the prosecution and allowed to call witnesses in his defense. This would be followed by the French equivalent of closing arguments. The process that was promised never materialized.
Early on in the preliminary phase, Laval’s lawyers learned through the press that the first stage would be terminated after just five sessions. Several more sessions were quickly arranged, but they were brief and largely ineffective. Laval had a right to review prosecution documents so that he could present a complete defense. When he asked for those documents, Laval was told that the examining magistrate had them in his locked files and was away on vacation. Around the same time, the president of the High Court announced that the trial had to be over by the time of the general elections in France, scheduled for October 21, 1945.52 The law required that there be more potential jurors than the number ultimately selected, to give the accused an ability to challenge jurors. When the trial began, however, the number of jurors called was exactly the number required, precluding the ability to strike objectionable jurors.53
Laval was charged with violations of articles 87 and 75 of the French Penal Code, plotting against the security of the state and collaboration with the enemy (the French term is “intelligence”).54 Both the presiding judge in the trial, Pierre Mongibeaux, and the prosecutor, Andrei Mornet, had been active in the judicial process during the Vichy period but, as has been noted, it was impossible to staff a judicial proceeding immediately after liberation without recourse to such jurists. The lawyers assigned to represent Laval, senior counsel Albert Naud and Jacques Baraduc and junior counsel Yves Jaffre, were excellent lawyers. However, given the irregularity of the procedures, they were unable to properly defend their client. The defense lawyers were not given access to key documents, and because the preliminary phase had been completed in such a hurried fashion, they were unable to fully confer with Laval to prepare both him and themselves for trial. The time sequence, with preliminary investigation beginning in late September and trial scheduled for early October, to end before October 21, was just too compressed. Nevertheless, the trial began on October 4, 1945.55
As a lawyer with extensive criminal defense experience, Laval was to be active in his own defense. His lawyers, however, felt there was little they could do because of the hurried and aberrational nature of the legal process. The transcript does not reveal any participation by these lawyers from the inception of the first day of trial until its tumultuous adjournment later in the day. The frustration of Laval’s lawyers was demonstrated at the opening of the proceedings when the presiding judge read a letter from the lawyers in which they asked to be relieved from the responsibility of representing Laval because of the premature termination of the preliminary stage. In their letter, the lawyers also expressed their concern that the haste which characterized the proceedings was