In order to deport Jews, they first had to be rounded up and this required the extensive cooperation of the French police who, in the last analysis, were in the administrative hierarchy under Laval and Pétain. The authority to cooperate was given.132 The July 1942 efforts in Paris yielded about 13,000 Jews. When it became clear that Jews were in danger of arrest and deportation, one of their options was to head for French colonies in Africa. To prevent this, Jews were barred from voluntarily leaving the country. In explaining why, Laval stated that “it would be a violation of the Armistice agreement with Germany to permit Jews to go abroad for fear they would take up arms against Germany.”133 Laval was doing his part.134
Considerable controversy related to Jewish children. Initially, after the Parisian roundups and deportations, families were separated, and children left behind, as parents were sent to the death camps. The United States, on October 15, 1942, offered to extend visas to up to 5,000 Jewish children. In negotiations with the United States, Laval insisted that there be no publicity in connection with Jewish children leaving France without parents under such visas.135 However, once Allied forces landed in North Africa in November 1942, technically an invasion of French colonies, negotiations broke down and no visas were issued. The breakdown of negotiations was probably preordained since Laval, speaking on French radio in mid-September 1942, said that the Vichy government was prepared to make a concession with regard to the deportation of Jewish children. Henceforth they would be deported together with their parents instead of being separated. He added, however: “No one and nothing can deter us from carrying out the policy of purging France of undesirable elements, without nationality.”136
Clearly the cooperation of the Vichy regime in the deportation of 75,000 Jews to Poland, where most were murdered, assisted the Germans in implementing their Final Solution. Laval bears responsibility for such cooperation. His explanation, of course, was that his concern was saving French Jews and if that meant sacrificing non-French Jews in France, that was a choice he could reasonably make. It is doubtful whether a defense to a charge of collaboration with the enemy can be that collaboration was committed to avoid more damaging collaboration. And Laval did show that he could say “no” to German demands. In 1943, when Germany wanted legislation to denaturalize any person who had attained French citizenship after 1927, Laval refused. Even though this refusal cast doubt on his commitment to cooperation, the Germans took no action against Laval.
Laval’s Motivation
To the end, Laval insisted that he was a patriot who did everything in the best interests of France. It may well be that he genuinely felt that way. But that cannot be the end of the discussion. How does his subjective sincerity bear on the question of whether he collaborated with the enemy, sham trial aside?
Generally, criminal law sees intent and motive as different mental states. Intent is the state of mind at the time of conduct; conduct is intentional if it is done on purpose and not accidentally or negligently. Motive is the underlying reason that spawns the conduct. A man who reveals state secrets may have a benevolent motive. Such motive, however, does not undo the underlying crime. So too with Laval. He provided significant assistance to Germany, France’s enemy, on behalf of its two major goals: victory in the war and annihilation of European Jewry. He did it intentionally—clearly aware of the purpose he was serving. Moreover, this intentional conduct was not on its face benevolent: it breached international norms, as expressed in numerous treaties relating to the treatment of civilian populations.137 Laval’s assistance facilitated Germany’s attainment of its dual wartime goals. Surely, this is criminal collaboration.
To defend against the collaboration charge, Laval would say that Soviet Bolshevism represented a greater threat to Europe than Germany’s Nazism. Even his “I wish for a German victory” statement was tied to the communist threat. Thus, however mistakenly, until the end, Laval felt genuinely that he could negotiate with Hitler while the ideological thrust behind Soviet expansion left no room for negotiation with the Allies. Under these circumstances, as Laval perceived them, France’s interests would best be served by a German victory and a Soviet defeat. How could it be a crime to act in France’s interest?
Hitler’s track record of broken promises makes this position difficult to appreciate, no less to defend. The dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and annexation of Austria came after Hitler had said that all he wanted was the Saar—which he had gotten. And, after all, it was the German military that invaded Poland in 1939, without a semblance of provocation, and then thrust across the Ardennes in 1940, utterly humbling France. It was the German, not the Soviet, administration that imposed the harsh armistice conditions on France, and at various places subjected French citizens to the brutality of the SS. In siding with Germany, Laval ignored the pattern of recent events. The only promises Hitler kept were those of death and destruction. On all others, his word was worthless. At some point, Laval’s concerns about the theoretical spread of communism in the future had to bump up against the reality of whom he was dealing with—and who was actually harming his country. This was a reality he never squarely faced.
Did Laval just guess wrong as to who would win the war? Given the same information on the war’s progress that Laval had, many Frenchmen opted to resist and refused to cooperate with the German occupiers under the Vichy regime. No one forced Laval to lead the collaborationist government. Laval’s preeminence in the Third Republic left him with the same choices faced by other former French prime ministers. Unlike other politicians, Laval sided with the Vichy government because he saw an opportunity for political advancement. Laval opted to pursue that opportunity, and it carried a price.
The Sentence
Pétain’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, while Laval was sentenced to death. Did Laval deserve a greater punishment than Pétain? This is a difficult question. Pétain was much older and mostly a figurehead in the Vichy regime. Laval, from April 1942 until he was placed in custody, was the de facto head of the government. Nevertheless, Pétain’s status as a genuine French hero is what gave the Vichy regime a semblance of legitimacy—far more than Laval could have given it. And Pétain had not been reticent about his feelings, having sent a congratulatory note to Germany after its forces successfully repelled the British raid at Dieppe. While Pétain and Laval were both reviled after the war, age alone could form a rational basis for the distinction between the two sentences, coupled also with Pétain’s heroism on behalf of France a full generation earlier. Perhaps both should have been executed, but the mercy de Gaulle showed by commuting the death sentence of the eighty-nine-year-old Pétain to life imprisonment does not, on its own, render the sentence imposed on Laval an injustice.
If the question is whether a guilty man was railroaded, the answer is “yes.” Laval collaborated with the enemy. It is, however, a stain on the de Gaulle postwar government that it failed to prosecute the leader of the Vichy regime in accordance with its own established procedures. Laval was entitled to a fair trial and he did not receive it. It is unfortunate that when the history of this period is reviewed, a tinge of martyrdom colors Laval’s collaboration.138
Bodies among the more than 2,000 seen by the U.S. military as it liberated the main Dachau concentration camp. Courtesy of the USHMM.
“Earthholes” at one of the Kaufering camps, satellites of the Dachau concentration camp, set aside mainly for Jews. Courtesy of the USHMM.
Inside an “earthhole.” Courtesy of the USHMM.
3
The Dachau Trial under U.S. Army Jurisdiction
Dachau
In March 1933, shortly after Hitler’s ascent to power in Germany, the Nazis opened the concentration camp known as Dachau, which included an entire ring of concentration camps administered from Dachau and encircling