Pierre Gérard halved the propaganda department's budget in his 1945 statement to the police, a masterpiece of fabrications and understatement. When Darquier asked him for premises on the boulevard Haussman, he told Achenbach that the UFDR had nine hundred members who had formerly been members of his Anti-Jewish Union. He provided no proof as to how he tracked this number down after four years.
Gérard titivated one of his earlier pamphlets into a thick booklet, The Jew: What He Is. What He Wants…What He Has Done. Over five thousand copies were printed for the UFDR in July 1943.
CHAPTER 18
Loot
INTERVIEWS AND CORRESPONDENCE: Darquier family, Pierre Gayet, Jean Lindoerfer, Auguste Mudry. Sources: PAF, September 1942; AN AJ 38; AN 3W142;AN 3W147; AN 3W355; APP GA D9; BNF 4-V-14644.; CDJC XXVIII-217; CDCJ XXXIV-1; CDJC LXXV-105, 219; CDJC XCVI-57, 63, 80, 84, 88 (Antignac Affairs Schloss dossier); CDJC CVI-128, appendix 1; CDJC CXXXIX-6; CDJC CXVI-17; CDJC CXCIII-187.Publications: Billig, Le Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives; Le Crapouillot,no. 23, 1953; Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Bursting Taittinger's Bubble,” Pakistan Today, 9 January 2004; Feliciano, The Lost Museum; Lacroix-Riz, Industriels et banquiers français sous l'Occupation; Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews; Matteoli, Mission d'étude sur la spoliation des Juifs de France (The Matteoli Commission), 17 April 2000; Nicholas, The Rape of Europa; Ousby, Occupation; Petropolous, The Faustian Bargain; Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich; Rousso, L'Aryanisation économique; The Week, 11 March 2000; Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France; Weisberg, Times Literary Supplement, 21 May 2004; Zucotti, The Holocaust, the French and the Jews; www.ambafrance-us.org/news/statmnts/1998/wchea/schlosse.asp.
Billig, p. 10.
CDJC LXXV-105. Probably a Propaganda Arbeitlung press conference.
Billig, p. 174; Summary of the work of the study mission on the spoliations of the Jews in France: “The Matteoli Commission,” 17 April 2000.
Billig, p. 321; CDJC CXCIII-187, Dr. Blanke of the MBF to Darquier, 4 December 1943; Pryce-Jones, p. 83.
The German military decree of May 1940 enabled them to appoint trustees to vacant businesses. Then came their first Jewish ordinance in September 1940, and their second on 3 October.
Both the Vichy Ministries of Finance and of Industrial Production were involved in SCAP, which ran Aryanisation from October 1940 until March 1941, and was thus the precursor to the CGQ J in this work.
The first director of SCAP was a former director of the Bank of France, Pierre-Eugène Fournier. On 14 February 1941 he instructed his French trustees: “The definition of Jew is given in the ordinance of 27 September 1940. You will note that these texts speak mainly in terms of religion. However, this term should not be taken in its narrowest sense. In reality, religion is not the only criterion in the interpretation applied by the Occupation authorities and race is actually more important. I have seen questions raised by people who can prove that they themselves, as well as their parents and grandparents, have been baptised but they still want to know if they can be sure that they belong to a non-Jewish race. Enquiries in this area are clearly quite delicate and only crop up rarely but I would like to stress that religion alone is not always a sufficient criterion” (Billig, p. 29).
The staff of the Economic Aryanisation section increased from 425 in June 1941 to 766 in October 1941, and then to 942 in November 1942. From October 1942 there were the additional 102 agents from the SEC. These were the theoretical figures, at any rate.
AN 3W142-KNO; Billig, p. 50.
Mudry, November 1999.
AN 3W142. Darquier wrote to Pétain refuting such an accusation.
Billig, p. 37; CDCJ XXXIV-1.
Lacroix-Riz, p. 478, quoting AN AJ 38.
Taittinger also acquired the famous 1930s art deco beachfront house Hôtel Martinez in Cannes when it was Aryanised. It is said still to be owned by the holding company he founded, Société du Louvre. See also Ehrenfeld.
Pierre Cathala (1888–1947): Lawyer and Minister of Finance on Laval's accession to power. Parliamentary deputy, under-secretary to Laval and Minister of Agriculture in the 1930s. Pro-German and anti-communist. He was in Pétain's first government, then Under-Secretary for Information. Close to Bousquet and Laval: together these three made Darquier's life miserable. Cathala died of a heart attack in Paris while awaiting trial.
Marrus and Paxton, p. 101.
Billig, p. 132. Written by Boué's second in command, Elid Caris, who, like Galien, was an SD informer. He wrote this letter to the Prefect of Police on 23 September 1942.
AN AJ 38/3ix.
AN 3W142.
Lacroix-Riz, pp. 381–3; René Darquier's address to his associates is in Corps gras, savons revue technique et professionnelle, 1 July 1943.
CDJC XCVI-80.
Billig, p. 114; CDJC XCVI-57,p. 4a.
AN 3W142.
Ibid.
Ibid.
AN AJ 38 330, 27 February 1943.
PAF.
PAF and Pryce-Jones, p. 150.
Jean Lindoerfer, October 2000.
AN AJ 38 164; AN AJ 38 180; AN AJ 38 330.
Billig, p. 327; MBF report 21 July 1943, CDJC LXXV-219.
Rosenberg was to pursue Masonic and Jewish properties specifically, but anyone could be called either of those if the art appealed to Hitler. The ERR's record, by August 1944, was 71,619 dwellings raided, 1,079,373 cubic meters of goods shipped off in 29,436 trains.
Acceptable art ranged from van Dyck's Portrait of a Lady to Vermeer's Astronomer, from Boucher's Madame de Pompadour to the van Eyck Ghent altarpiece. Paintings by Titian, Velasquez, Raphael, Rubens, Watteau, Ingres, Goya, Gainsborough, Fragonard, Cranach—an endless and awe-inspiring list of great names, were crated up and went off in trains. Returning on the same trains came Germans bearing lists: dealers, private citizens, Nazi officials, the Reichsbank and museum curators on a spending spree, slavishly served by French and German art dealers, by fraudsters, Swiss banks and international con men.
Some French artists, of course, collaborated—the sculptor Aristide Maillol, the painters Dunoyer de Segonzac, Cocteau, Derain, Vlaminck, Kees van Don-gen—and their work remained untouched.
Nicholas, p. 134.
AN 3W142.
Nicholas, pp. 160, 172; Rembrandt and Hals were queried later; AN 3W142; Feliciano, p. 60.
CDJC CXXXIX-6, George Ebert to Rosenberg.
Antignac dossier, CDJC XCVI-88; AN 3W142; Feliciano, p. 112; Interrogation of Bruno Lohse, investigation into Lefranc, and CIR Bruno, National Archives, Washington. Lohse to Miss Limberger, Secretary to Goering, 29 September 1942. Jean-François Lefranc (dates unknown): French art dealer in Paris, worked closely with the Germans and was responsible for the liquidation of other collections besides the Schloss. Arrested in 1945 and condemned by the Court of Justice of the Seine. Later fate unknown.
Bruno Lohse (1911–19): Art historian and dealer, arrested by the American Art Looting Investigation Unit at the end of the war. Tried before the Military Tribunal in Paris in 1945, but later resumed his career as an art dealer in Munich.
CDJC XCVI-63, Costemale-Lacoste, and XCVI-84; CDJCYXCVI-80; CDJC XCVI-88, XCVI-63.
It is possible that this telegram was sent to warn Henri, because the informer who first revealed that the collection was in the Corrèze, stricken by remorse, tried, anonymously, to warn the family there.
In AN 3W142 there is an undated statement about Antignac taking Petit back into the Economic Aryanisation section as its general secretary with “exorbitant remuneration,” which caused the “unhappy staff ” to stop work. AN 3W142, CDJC CX 1–7, Billig, p. 133.
CDJC XCVI-88; Lynn Nicholas, in The Rape of Europa, maintains that Laval actually instructed Darquier to find the collection for him. I cannot relate this to Darquier's September 1942 arrangements with Lefranc, Lohse and von Behr. Darquier may have been playing a triple game—getting the paintings for his own cut, for Goering and for Laval, but generally speaking such complexities were we
ll beyond him.
AN 3W147, Schleier telegram, 26 April 1943.
CHAPTER 19
D-Day
INTERVIEWS AND CORRESPONDENCE: Pierre Combes, Beryl Coombes (Clifton), Jean Gayet, Julia Keal, Alistair Rapley. Sources: PAF; AN 3W142; AN 3W356; APP GA D9; CDJC XXVI-19; CDJC XXVII-4–35, 49; CDJC XCVI-21, 66, 71, 75, 80, 83, 88; CDJC CIII-162; CDJC CXLIV-424; CDJC CXCIII-203; CDJC CCXIV-III. Publications: Action française, 8 and 30 June 1944; Au Pilori, 20 April 1944; Barthélemy, Mémoires; Billig, Le Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives; Cointet, Vichy; Feliciano, The Lost Museum; Felstiner, To Paint her Life; Gordon (ed.), Historical Dictionary of World War II; Gordon, Collaborationism in France During the Second World War ; Halls, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France; Hoover Institution, France During the German Occupation; Jackson, France: The Dark Years; Joly, Darquier de Pellepoix et l'antisémitisme français; Klarsfeld, Le Calendrier de la persécution des Juifs en France; Laloum, La France antisémite de Darquier de Pellepoix; McCrum, Wodehouse; Marrus and Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews; Mengin, No Laurels for de Gaulle; Le Monde, 7 November 1995; Nicholas, The Rape of Europa; Nossiter, The Algeria Hotel; Paris-Soir, 29 March 1944; Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich; Randa, Dictionnaire commenté de la collaboration française; Salomon, Life? or Theatre?: Sergeant, Give Me Ten Seconds; Taguieff (ed.), L'Antisémitisme de plume; Varney, Great Tew; Zucotti, The Holocaust, the French and the Jews; www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/archives/dossiers/schloss/sommaire.html.
PAF.
Billig, p. 265.
AN 3W142, Antignac, 4–5 November 1944.
CDJC 1–38, Knochen to Müller, 12 February 1943.
CDJC XXVII 4–34.
Schleier, in Randa, p. 65.
CDJC XXVII-12.
Billig, p. 268.
AN 3W356, Klassen to Schleier, 19 July 1943.
Halls, p. 135.
CDJC XXVII-34.
CDJC XXVII-35, Billig, p. 268; for Darquier's improvements: see Röthke's document on the four bills, CDJC XXVII-34.
AN 3W142; Antignac and Paule Fichot; Paule Fichot in CDJC XCVI-66; Antignac in Hoover, p. 649.
Darquier to Schleier, 2 July 1943. In this letter it appears that there were also collections belonging to the “Jews Bonn, Hauser and others.” Darquier asks for Schleier's assurance that the Germans won't touch the paintings while they are in Paris, but will permit them to be returned to Vichy once they have been valued, etc. The reason for this deceitful letter would be twofold: first, to keep the embassy's hands off ERR loot; and second because Darquier was in the midst of the Au Pilori row with Klassen, and Schleier was in daily receipt of memos begging that Darquier be sacked. It was probably written at Laval's instruction: he was always keen on official file copies to cover all dubious activities.
Antignac, Hoover, p. 649.
AN 3W142.
AN 3W142; CDJC XCVI-80. Several representatives of different administrations viewed the collection. A delegation from the headquarters of the security police services of Paris, Jean-François Lefranc, Postma, expert on Flemish painting, René Huyghe and Germain Bazin, Louvre curators, bailiffs, functionaries from the SEC and the CGQ J.
AN 3W142, Antignac.
CDJC XXVII-33.
Klarsfeld, Le Calendrier,p. 74.
AN 3W142, Antignac.
Felstiner and Salomon.
Florence Gould, the American hostess, Nicholas, p. 175.
McCrum, pp. 340ff.
AN 3W142 3, 1 October 1943.
Rose Valland to Jaujard, Director of the Louvre, original document in the archives of the Office of the Museums of France. Archives diplomatiques: www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/archives/dossiers/schloss/sommaire.html.
Barthélemy, p. 70.
Antignac, CDJC XCVI-21.
In those days you had to be employed as a “gentleman's servant” to be allowed to run the pub; his work for the Schusters qualified Arthur for this opportunity.
CDJC CIII-162.
For Great Tew: Alistair Rapley, Julia Keal; Beryl Coombes (Clifton). See also Sergeant and Varney.
AN 3W142.
Jean Gayet, 22 November 1999. Pierre Combes later said that three or four died.
CDJC CXCIII and CDJC CXLIV-424, Taguieff, pp. 406ff, pp. 442ff. Jacques Bouly de Lesdain (dates unknown): Extremist, political editor of l'Illustration, convenor of two exhibitions on the new European Order at the Grand Palais in 1941 and 1942.
“Dépêche de France” may well be a misquote for the Sarrault brothers'” Dépêche du Midi.
Paris-Soir, 29 March 1944; CDJC XCVI-83.
Charles Paty du Clam took over from Louis. He was the undistinguished descendant of the commandant who had arrested Alfred Dreyfus in 1894.He fled in disgust, and Antignac, who had left in a snit, returned as secretary-general, appointed by Laval, and saw the CGQ J through to the end.
Beryl Coombes (Clifton).
Zucotti, pp. 161, 196, 198 and 200, and Marrus and Paxton, p. 334.
Le Nouvelliste de Neuilly, 10 June 1944.
Marie-Rose Gounel was arrested on 20 May 1944 by Vichy, and interviewed by the police after the war on 16 November 1946.
Charles Maurras, Action française, 8 June 1944, 30 June 1944.
CHAPTER 20
The Family
INTERVIEWS AND CORRESPONDENCE: Maud de Belleroche, Michael de Bertadano, Pierre Combes, Bill Coy, Jeanne Degrelle, Henri Fernet, Jean Gayet, Jean-Louis Huberti (real name Alain Baudroux), Eanswythe Hunter, Violet Kench, Yvonne Lacaze, Père Lucien Lachièze-Rey, Bertrand Leary, Brian Nield, Pierre Orliac, Alistair Rapley, Simone Reste, Teresa, Mrs. Jim Tustain. Sources: Darquier family correspondence; SRD; AGA, 18 May 1947; AGA (f); AMAE (b); AMAE (c); AMAE (d); AMAE (e); AN 3W142; APP GA D9, 15 October 1944; BNF Document 8–TH Paris—17823: Jeanne (Janot) Darquier, “Contribution à l'étude de la Médecine du Travail. Thèse pour le Doctorat en Médecine,” 30 June 1943; CDJC LXXIV-11; CDJC XCVI-12; CDJC CXCIII-203; TNA: PRO FO371/42755: The Deportation of the Children; TNA: PRO 892/163.Publications: Chalon, Portrait of a Seductress; Combat, 25 January 1945; Louis Darquier, l'Express, 28 October–4 November 1978; Droit et liberté; Franc-tireur, 21 October 1944, 16 June 1945; France libre, 21 October 1944; France-revolution, “Fifteen Minutes with Louis Darquier,” 31 October 1943; Gordon, Collaborationism in France During the Second World War; Gun, “Les Enfants au nom maudit,” Historia,no. 241, December 1966; Halls, Politics, Society and Christianity in Vichy France; Histoire,no. 159, October 1992; Howson, Arms for Spain; Keesing's Contemporary Archives; Klarsfeld, Le Calendrier de la Persécution des Juifs en France; Klarsfeld, French Children of the Holocaust; Laurier, Il Reste le drapeau noir et les copains; Bernard Lecache, Le Droit de vivre, December 1947; Laborie, Résistants, vichyssois et autres; Lottman, The Purge; Le Monde, March 2000; Nossiter, The Algeria Hotel; Le Nouvel observateur, March 2000; Novick, The Resistance versus Vichy; the Observer, 5 March 1998; l'Opinion, March 2000; Ousby, Occupation; Paxton, New York Review of Books, 16 December 1999; Péan, Une Jeunesse française; Paul Preston, Times Literary Supplement, 29 June 2001; Le Procès de Charles Maurras et de Maurice Pujo; Le Procès de Maréchal Pétain; Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich; Randa, Dictionnaire commenté de la collaboration française; Taittinger, Et Paris ne fut pas détruit; Venner, Histoire de la Collaboration; Warner, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France; Weber, Action Française; The Week, 2 December 2000.
Pryce-Jones, p. 187.
PRO FO371/42755, The Deportation of the Children; Klarsfeld: Le Calendrier and French Children of the Holocaust.
All material for final days from Archivo general de la administration, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid: Compte Rendu de l'Arrestation du Maréchal Pétain; Lottman; Pryce-Jones.
Lottman, p. 79.
Georges Bidault, a Catholic and head of the Conseil National de la Résistance, was de Gaulle's post-war Foreign Minister and also drew up a blacklist noting collaborating clerics whose resignations—nothing more—should be required. Only seven bishops in all were removed.
Cardinal Henri-Marie Alfred Baudrillart:(1859–1942): Auxiliary Archbishop of Paris 1921–1942, elevated to cardinal in 1935. Rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris. Dedicated anti-communist and, amongst the cardinals, the leading collaborationist; he also associated with fascist groups and was patron of the LVF. Bishop Paul Chevrier (1886–1968): Bishop of Cahors 1941–62. His resignation was mooted, but that is all. Never brought to justice.
Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier (1880–1965): Archbishop of Lyons 1937–65 and Primate of the Gauls. Gerlier was defined as particularly at fault. Never brought to justice. Cardinal Achille Liénart (1884–1973): Bishop of Lille 1928–68. Liénart, whose attitude to Vichy and the Nazis was sometimes less enthusiastic than that of his fellow cardinals, was not singled out for special mention though he continued to defend Pétain after the war and led a campaign to free him from imprisonment. Never brought to justice.
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