Jacques Doriot (September 26 1898, Bresles, Oise—February 22 1945, near Mengen, Württemberg) was a
French politician prior to and during World War II. He
began as a Communist but then turned Fascist.
Early life and politics
Doriot moved to Saint Denis, near Paris, at a young age and became a labourer. In
1916, in the midst of World War I, he became a committed
Socialist, but his political activity was halted by his joining the French Army in 1917. Participating in active combat during World War I, Doriot was captured by enemy troops and remained a prisoner
of war until 1918. For his wartime service, Doriot was awarded the Croix de Guerre.
After being released, he returned to France and in 1920 joined
the French Communist Party (PCF), quickly rising through the party - within a few
years, he had become one of the PCF major leaders. In 1922 he became a member of the Presidium of
the Executive Committee of the Comintern, and a year later was made Secretary of the
French Federation of Young Communists. In 1923, Doriot was arrested for violently protesting
French occupation of the Ruhr Area. He was released a year later, upon being elected to the
French Chamber of Deputies (the Third Republic equivalent of the National Assembly) by the people of Saint Denis.
Fascism
In 1931, Doriot was elected mayor of Saint Denis. Around this time, he came to advocate a Popular Front alliance between the Communists and other French socialist parties with whom Doriot
sympathized on a number of issues. Although this would soon become official Communist Party policy, at the time it was seen as
heretical and Doriot was expelled from the Communist party in 1934.[1]
Still a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Doriot struck back at the Communists by becoming a devoted Fascist and forming the
ultra-nationalist Parti Populaire
Français (PPF) in 1936. Doriot and his supporters were vocal advocates of France
becoming organized along the lines of Fascist Italy and Nazi
Germany and bitter opponents of Socialist Premier Léon Blum and his Popular Front coalition.
Collaboration
When France went to war with Germany in 1939, Doriot became a staunch pro-German and supported
Germany's occupation of northern France in
1940. Doriot resided in collaborationist Vichy France for a time, but he eventually found that it wasn’t nearly as fascist as he had hoped it would
be and moved to occupied Paris, where he espoused pro-German and anti-Communist
propaganda on Radio Paris. In 1941, he and fellow Fascist
collaborator Marcel Déat founded the Legion des Volontaires Francais (LVF), a French unit of the
Wehrmacht.
Doriot fought with the LVF and saw active duty on the Eastern Front when
Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. When the
LVF was all but destroyed, Doriot fought with the Wehrmacht, and was awarded the Iron Cross in 1943. In December of 1943, Doriot travelled to
Sigmaringen, Germany, and later became a member of the exile Vichy government there. He was
killed while traveling from Mainau to Sigmaringen in February of 1945 when his car was strafed by Allied fighters. He was buried in
Mengen.[2]
Notes
- ^ Alexander 145.
- ^ "Doriot, French Pro-Nazi" 4.
References
- Alexander, Martin and Helen Graham (1989). The French and Spanish Popular Fronts: Comparative Perspectives. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
- Allardyce, Gilbert (1966). "The Political Transitions of Jacques Doriot." Journal of Contemporary History. 1
(1966).
- Arnold, Edward (2000). The Development of the Radical Right in France: From Boulanger to le Pen. London:
Macmillan.
- (1945). "Jacques Doriot, French Pro-Nazi, is Killed by Allied Fliers, Germans Report." New York Times. February 24.
- Soucy, Robert (1966). "The Nature of Fascism in France." Journal of Contemporary History. 1 (1966).
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