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Pierre Laval

In review this, there is good and bad. He had to choose between Hitler or Russia. In some ways Germany may have been a better choice than communism. Hitler was not without support. He was a politician that tried to appease everybody and ended up appeasing nobody.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Laval

Laval began his career as a socialist, but over time drifted far to the right.

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In a speech broadcast on the Normandy landings’ D-day, he appealed to the nation:

You are not in the war. You must not take part in the fighting. If you do not observe this rule, if you show proof of indiscipline, you will provoke reprisals the harshness of which the government would be powerless to moderate. You would suffer, both physically and materially, and you would add to your country’s misfortunes. You will refuse to heed the insidious appeals, which will be addressed to you. Those who ask you to stop work or invite you to revolt are the enemies of our country. You will refuse to aggravate the foreign war on our soil with the horror of civil war.... At this moment fraught with drama, when the war has been carried on to our territory, show by your worthy and disciplined attitude that you are thinking of France and only of her.”[41]

A few months later, he was arrested by the Germans and transported to Belfort.

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Laval’s trial began at 1:30 pm on Thursday, 4 October 1945. He was charged with plotting against the security of the State and intelligence (collaboration) with the enemy. He had three defence lawyers (Jaques Baraduc, Albert Naud, and Yves-Frédéric Jaffré). None of his lawyers had ever met him before. He saw most of Jaffré, who sat with him, talked, listened and took down notes that he wanted to dictate. Baraduc, who quickly became convinced of Laval’s innocence, kept contact with the Chambruns and at first shared their conviction that Laval would be acquitted or at most receive a sentence of temporary exile. Naud, who had been a member of the Resistance, believed Laval to be guilty and urged him to plead that he had made grave errors but had acted under constraint. Laval would not listen to him; he was convinced that he was innocent and could prove it. “He acted”, said Naud, “as if his career, not his life, was at stake.”[48]

All three of his lawyers declined to be in court to hear the reading of the formal charges, saying “We fear that the haste which has been employed to open the hearings is inspired, not by judicial preoccupations, but motivated by political considerations.” In lieu of attending the hearing, they sent letters stating the shortcomings and asked to be discharged from the task of defending Laval.[49]

I don't accept that Laval was a mixed bag of good and bad.

The French Government should have gone to Africa with the Navy and what of the Army they could take to continue the War, as Churchill urged. But the senior French leaders were too divided to take that decision.

I understand Petain and Laval thought they were doing good by keeping as many Frenchmen out of German occupation as they could get away with, but the truth is the Vichy system could only work, in the sense of keeping the Germans out, by collaborating with the Germans.

Laval was instrumental in the deportation of French Jews and what became French slave laborers to the East.

I did not know that Admiral Leahy became friendly with Petain when he was Ambassador to Vichy. The letter from Leahy to Petain is very interesting. Leahy advised Petain to positively refuse to make any concessions to German demands. It would have resulted in hardships, possibly even prison, but it was good advice for both Petain and Laval. Had they done so, they would not have been in the dock.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Both verdicts were just.