Vichy France

Rating:
Summary: a breakthrough book, but a bit slanted
Review: paxton's book was a breakthrough in that it showed to what a huge extent the vichy regime's odious policies weren't simply imposed by the germans, but were carrying out willingly and represented the revenge of right-wing, catholic, nationalistic france against the left, unions, and jews and other foreigners. but at times the book goes a little too far and borders on cheap anti-frenchness. his denunciations of the vichy regime and the elements of france they represented are well backed up, but he's on much shakier ground when he tries to downplay the role of and support for the resistance and charles de gaulle. overall, a chilling, important book, but it should be read as a book about vichy, and not as a definitive book about all aspects of france under the occupation, as it purports to be.

Rating:
Summary: On the review of Mr J. Adams
Review: The book in question was written by Mr Paxton as a thesis for his PHD at Harvard in 1963 and was later published in 1966 by Princeton University.
The infamous Vichy regime rightfully denounced by Mr Paxton enjoyed the offcial embassy of Admiral Leahy helped by the friend and personal representative of President Roosevelt, Robert Murphy [despite the existence of the Free French government in London]. The fact that France is a member of the security counsel of the United Nations results from the fact that the Free French supplied the biggest contingent of men after the launching of Torch [landing in north Africa) and stayed alongside their American allies in the Japanese war.
You should check that, at Yorktown, Washington was actually defeated by the English when the French army and the French fleet captured the British army and fleet... before offering this victory to Washington. There was no lend-lease for the French support to the young American republic and you never heard a French regretting it. It's a matter of style.
You should also check that only the down payment of the Louisianna deal was actually paid because Napoleon got ultimately defeated by the British. France never made a territorial claim for that.
You should learn that despite the infamous Vichy regime which came to power by a coup and not by a democratic vote, the Jewish community of France is the one who survived the most of all the occupied countries (don't believe me check with Raul Hilberg's book), again despite this truly infamous regime.
Of the two friendly country which one should be criticized for its support is a truely open debate.
You should check that the grand father of president Bush was sentenced under the "Trading with the ennnemy act" for his partnership with nazis in mining investments in Upper Silesia, that President Kennedy's father was recalled from his position as Embassador in London for his openly expressed nazi sympathy...
You should however learn that, to this very day, Americans showing their American passports in most of the restaurants of Normandy don't have to pay for their bills because the French are still grateful to the American people.
You should know that the French population, even when they politically disagree with the American government, keep their friendship for the American people intact and their sympathy for young American soldiers on the front. There are many dark periods in American history as well (ask the Japanese Americans for exampple, or the Eastern Europeans offered to Stalin at Yalta for American control over western European economies: cf Churchill's memoirs).
The French do not resent Robert Paxton for his studying of a dark period in French history, but you should also read the cynical view of President Roosevelt toward the dismantling of the French empire reported in "The way he saw it" by his son Elliott.
The French keep saluting the American men and women, for they risked or lost their lives in France, or their blood or just a part of their youth to combat Hitlerite tyrany in what Pressident Roosevelt, after the Tehran conference didn't call "freeing France" ... but "Invasion of France".
Every American is wellcome to France no matter what! Our friendship pre-dates English friendship.
The book of Mr Baxton is an excellent book but it must be completed by "our Vichy Gamble" by William Langer and other readings like Raoul Aglion's "Roosevelt & deGaulle Allies in conflict" to understand France in the second world war.
It is not so clear to know which one of these two friendly countries has a greater work to do for cleaning its own doorstep. It takes more courage and intelligence to listen to one another points, than to spit hate for recently frustrated foreign policy. Leadership is not dominance, friendship is not obedient slavery and patriotism is not narcissic craving for military power.
For avoiding any readers'possible prejudice or misconception, it must be stated that the present reviewer's father, born catholic, spent years in the worst concentration camps for resisting the nazi policy towards Jewish people [he had already been arrested, tortured and deported when America did land in North Africa].
Among the four liberties presented by President Roosevelt were the liberty of speech, the liberty of opinion and the liberty from fear.
Let's drink to Robert Paxton having the liberty to fearfully express, with talent and personality, his political vision on an infamous French regime, and the French having the right of criticizing without fear the foreign policy of their American friends.

Rating:
Summary: A better understanding of the French
Review: This book was first written in 1972 when the fifty-year seal on Vichy documents was still in effect, and has been updated since. But Paxton did a very good job of gathering good material from Nazi archives and others to deliver a book which required very little revision once more documents became available.
The book was explosive when first published because it shattered the Hollywood myth of brave French resistance fighters arm-in-arm with the Allied forces beating back their German occupiers. The truth was much more complicated, but basically France was so politically divided in the 1930's that it was impotent in dealing with the threat of a Hitler. That impotence translated into the Vichy government led by Petain and his numerous cabinet officers who were far more likely to assist the Nazis than confront them. Double dealing, scheming, back stabbing, corrupt, duplicitous; the regime was a training ground for the kind of French diplomacy which continues to this day. Numerous attempts were made by the Vichy regime at reaching a lasting peace with Hitler and included proposals for France to be an ally with Nazi Germany's new world order after the Brits and later the Americans were defeated. It was only after the tide was turning against the Germans did the French resistance begin to gain popular support and shift to DeGaulle from Petain and his fellow collaborators. Even the Nazis were appalled by the lack of principle when the French offered up native French Jews for transport to German concentration camps when the Nazis never demanded they be turned over. French workers in Germany freed up enough manpower for Germany to field many more divisions than they otherwise could have been able to. While the same could be said of "neutral" Sweden, without whose willingness to supply the steel needed by the Nazi war machine would have forced Germany to cut back its standing army by hundreds of thousands, at least the Swedes have never tried to cover up the fact that they did it for the money.
This is a very good book, and the kind of historical research which is sorely lacking in many books today which purport to cover history but usually wind up offering a hidden political agenda. For those who are interested in this subject I recommend Chabrol's video "Eye of Vichy" which is an amazingly brave film of Vichy propaganda that put pictures to the words of Paxton's book. With "friends" like France during WWII, we didn't need any enemies. The fact that France was given a permanent seat in the UN Security Council after its role during WWII is a living legacy of Roosevelt's infirmity in his last months.