Pétain's Crime

Argues that Pétain's government was in no way a Nazi puppet, but pursued its own independent policy, rooted in French conservative anti-republican antisemitism (beginning from the period of the Action Française). Shows that the main Nazi actions (e.g. "the great roundup" of July 1942 in Paris), and many others, could not have been accomplished without the collaboration of the French police. Deals also with Natzweiler-Struthof, the only extermination camp in France; postwar trials against collaborators and Nazi war criminals, especially Klaus Barbie; and contrasts Vichy activities with the humanistic stance of the Italian occupation authorities in France.