NCJ Number
137777
Date Published
1992
Length
129 pages
Annotation
This study examines how the law enforcement bodies of France -- the Gendarmerie, the Garde, and the National Police -- responded to the dilemma posed by the German occupation (1940-44), a period when men and women who had sworn to uphold the laws of France found themselves confronted with laws dictated by German occupying forces through a French puppet government.
Abstract
Although some collaborated and some joined the Resistance, many officers remained in the force but adopted a stance of recalcitrance and disobedience. The Vichy puppet government slowly lost any semblance of legitimacy with members of the French police forces, whose silent rebellion then changed to open revolt. German attempts to use the French police and courts to suppress the Resistance failed. This led to the establishment of a parallel police and court system staffed by those sympathetic to Nazi goals and willing to mete out the arbitrary justice of the occupying forces. Local police collaboration with German political and occupation police occurred in every German-occupied country. The behavior of French police forces was not an abnormal deviation from the norm of reaction to the dilemma of obedience to authority. The fundamental lesson of this period is that the police forces of a democratic country, who may not be extremists or repressive by nature, can become the agents of a repressive totalitarian government. Chapter notes, annotated selected readings, and a subject index