1944: Georges Suarez, collaborationist editor

ExecutedToday.com ^ | November 9, 2009 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1944, the restored French Republic shot the editor of the collaborationist newspaper Aujourd’hui (Today).

Suarez‘s (linked page in French) writings (French again) had endorsed the German occupation and called for steps even beyond what the Germans were prepared to take: the wholesale taking of Anglo hostages as proof against Allied bombing raids, for instance.

His trial and execution were the first of many suffered by pro-Vichy writers and journalists condemned by the vengeful free French courts for their part in the Nazi occupation, especially in the first months after liberation. The public intellectuals of the wartime government were, as a matter of fact, in the dock faster than the government itself.

Alice Kaplan, writing of the more infamous collaborationist writer Robert Brasillach who would follow Suarez’ footsteps in a few weeks, observes:

Writers were easy to try. Their files, crumbling now, are rather thin: clippings of their articles from the collaborationist press, underlined in red and blue ink with an occasional commentary; a report by the prefecture of police outlining their political affiliations and behavior during the Occupation; a list of witnesses called by the defense and the prosecution; interviews of the accused, before the trial, going over the charges against him; letters from friends — and enemies — sent to the judge before the trial. It was easier to organize a case against a journalist than a case against a common-law criminal or a financial collaborator. The bulk of the evidence was in newspaper clippings, quickly compiled.

[kiryandil]

Be a shame if that happened in this country...

[Steely Tom]

His trial and execution were the first of many suffered by pro-Vichy writers and journalists condemned by the vengeful free French courts for their part in the Nazi occupation, especially in the first months after liberation. The public intellectuals of the wartime government were, as a matter of fact, in the dock faster than the government itself.

Yes, the mean courts didn't understand that it was all performance art.

[Red Badger]

What a novelle idee...................

[Little Ray]

It would be completely wrong.
Unless they did it in support of an occupying power or their writings otherwise caused death and injury, then it is not appropriate to punish them.
Remember, anything we can get the government to do them, the Left can get the government to do to us.
And the Left is already making lists.

[kiryandil]

Unless they did it in support of an occupying power or their writings otherwise caused death and injury

This has already happened.

[DesertRhino]

No, not in support of an occupying power. Doing it in the service of abolishing the constitution and instituting a revolutionary socialist government is plenty of justification.