During the Second World War, in France there was a significant resistance movement that
sought to rid the country from Nazi occupation.
They were helped by the British Special Operations Executive, undercover agents who had parachuted
into enemy territory to help co-ordinate resistance actions.
But for many people, living in Nazi occupied France was brutal and was tough.
Deportations of the populations took place and the country would not be liberated until
Summer 1944 following the Normandy landings and D-Day.
The Germans would conduct anti-partisan operations and this would result in large scale arrests
where people were tortured inside of gestapo prisons, and many were executed or were sent
to go and work as slave labourers inside of concentration camps.
But there was a French paramilitary group which was created by the Vichy regime along
with the Germans help to fight against the French resistance during the Second World
War, and they were a fascist group who were involved in executions, torture and horrific
war crimes.
But at the end of the war, many members of the Milice of the French Militia would be
rounded up, and many were executed for their collaboration with the Nazis.
Join us today as we look at the executions of the French Milice, to support our channel,
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The French Milice or the Militia was created on the 30th January 1943 as a response to
fight against the French Resistance.
The malice first supported the Vichy Government in unoccupied France, however it was later
in support of the Nazi government in Paris.
It’s believed that at its height, around 35,000 men were in the militia.
The French Resistance as the war was progressing were getting more successful and were seen
as more powerful, and the Milice was gathered to fight against them.
Pierre Laval was the Prime Minister of Vichy France at the time, and he was their formal
head, however the man who really held the power inside the group was Secretary General
and de facto leader Joseph Darnard.
It was a group that appealed to men from many backgrounds.
Some believed that the Militia was right to repel the Resistance, and others were supporters
of the Nazis and preferred life during the occupation.
France had been defeated by the Nazis, but there were many French people who were sympathetic
to Hitler’s cause, and some Frenchmen were allowed to join the SS at some point.
Others who joined the milice were men who had been unemployed and the group offered
paid employment, good pay and also substantial food rations which were better than what the
French population were receiving.
Also members of the group were exempt from being forced to conduct labour in Nazi Germany
where they would suffer a much worse fate, and that’s why some joined.
Others had been part of the pre-war far right in the country, and others joined as their
families had been injured or killed in Allied bombing raids, or had faced threat from the
Allies.
Criminals were recruited as they were told they would have their sentenced reduced if
they joined, but most of the members gave a few hours a week to take part in milice
activities, but there was a full time section of members known as the Franc-Garde who would
live in barracks.
But as mentioned their main job was to find out about the French Resistance and also fight
them.
Members of the Milice would work with locals and friends to find out what was happening,
but they had a superior advantage over the Nazis as they had excellent local knowledge
and could make them a fierce opponent of the French Resistance.
They were given a relatively free rein to do what they wanted, and they would often
round up suspects and they were allowed to torture people.
These ordeals were brutal as the militia men would beat and brutalise men and women accused
of being in the resistance, and they would also arrest the family members of the accused.
After obtaining confessions they would also carry out executions by firing squad, or hand
prisoners over to the Germans so they could be dealt with by them.
But the French Resistance deemed the Milice as more dangerous than the SS and the Gestapo,
as their knowledge of the local areas and the fact they had many informants made them
very deadly.
But the torture and execution that the milice got involved in quickly led to a war between
them and the French Resistance.
The Resistance would target members of the group for assassination at public places such
as in cafe’s or in the open, and on the 24th April 1943 they shot a Milicien in Marseilles.
Over the next few months dozens had been killed and wounded in attacks.
But the most prominent person killed by the Resistance was Philippe Henriot, often referred
to as ‘The French Goebbels.’
He was killed inside his apartment in the Ministry of Information, in the early hours
of the 28th June 1944 by Resistance members dressed as members of the Milice.
His wife was spared, but the Milice would retaliate by killing a number of anti nazi
politicians and local leaders.
They would work inside of different zones, and they established their headquarters in
the old headquarters of the communist party.
But they would be involved in further anti partisan operations, including the Battle
of Gliders, as they tried to suppress the resistance near to the Swiss border, but they
could not do so, and the Germans had to be brought in to help.
The Milice also executed 34 prisoners inside of a Paris Prison after a revolt broke out,
but as the Second World War was coming to an end, a number of Militiamen realised that
what they were involved in could come back to haunt them.
Marshal Philippe Petain began to try to distance himself from the milice and their torture,
and antics.
But after the Allies liberated France, a number of collaborators began to flee and try to
hide out.
After the German retreat, many miliciens were executed either on their own or in mass executions.
The offices of the group were ransacked and agents were beaten and were thrown from the
office windows into the streets, or they were thrown into the river and then later taken
to prison if they survived.
The French Forces of the Interior on the 24th August 1944 would execute 76 members of the
group, and some members later formed a new SS detachment, known as the Waffen Grenadier
Brigade of the SS Charlemagne.
This later became known as the Charlemagne Division of the SS, and it had over 7000 men
at its disposal, 2,500 made up of members of the Milice.
But there were a number of other execution that took place of members of the Milice.
One eyewitness said, ‘One afternoon recently in Grenoble I saw six young men shot by the
Maquis.
All had borne arms against France.
Each was tied to steel stakes.
Three died well.’
These men had been tied to stakes before they were shot by the Resistance members having
been declared traitors against France.
Another execution of a Milice member was said, ‘for the second time this month a French
mob reversed the decision of a purge court and lynched an alleged traitor.
In Dijon, the end of the war trial of Jacques Larsac former police chief charged with abuse
of French resistance fighters during the occupation.
An angry mob led by resistance veterans marched on the city jail, broke the prison doors and
pulled Larsac from his cell.
They carried him to the city’s outskirts and hanged him from a signpost, then dragged
his rope-tied body back into the town.’
Another execution of the members of the malice was said that, ‘six young men were tied
to rusty steel stakes and shot by a platoon of Maquis.
They were tried in the morning by a civilian judge and two military assistant judges in
a shabby palace of justice in the town.
They were defended by the towns two best lawyers and they were duly found guilty of treason.
At the appointed hour they were walked out to the spot where a few weeks before 23 Maquis
were shot by the French Militia on Nazi Orders.
Three died well, which is to say they died at once.
Three did not.
They sagged on their stakes and one even stood erect shaking his head from side to side as
if uncomprehending.
He and two others receiving final pistol bullets in their heads.
There was a crowd of 5000 that had come to see the spectacle and there was laughter and
shouting and pushing and noise.
There were men, women, children and women with infants in their arms.
They cheered when at last the volley came from the Maquis rifles.
The Millice were seen as a serious threat to the French Resistance and their expert
local knowledge made them more feared than German Soldiers.
But following the liberation of France there were many executions of them that took place
and they were seen as people in the pockets of the nazis.
Many were disgusted at their acts as they were considered the worst traitor’s preferring
to support the Nazi regime rather than act against it.
But they were torturers and executioners themselves, and still in the recent years there have been
members of the group decades after the war who were brought to trial.
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