Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach (31 March 1909 – 6 February 1945) was a French author and journalist who was executed for advocating collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II.
Biography
Born in Perpignan, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure and then became a novelist and literary critic for the Action Française of Charles Maurras. After the 6 February 1934 crisis in the Place de la Concorde, Brasillach openly supported fascism.
He became an editor of Je suis partout, an antisemitic paper. A soldier in 1940, he was captured by the Germans and held prisoner for several months after the fall of France. He was freed in early 1941 and returned to his editorial duties at Je suis partout. He wrote in favor of the collaboration and Nazi policies. In November 1942, he supported the German militarization of the unoccupied zone under the Vichy government, because it "reunited France". He called for the death of left-wing politicians and in the summer of 1944 signed the call for the summary execution of all members of the French Resistance. He considered himself a "moderate" anti-Semite and was replaced as editor of Je suis partout in 1943 by the even more extreme Pierre-Antoine Cousteau. After the liberation of Paris Brasillach hid in an attic, joking in his diary: "Jews have been living in cupboards for four years, why not imitate them?". He gave himself up on September 14 when he heard that his mother had been arrested. He spent the next five months in prison.
Brasillach went to trial in Paris on 19 January 1945. Ironically, his judge had served under Vichy. The prosecutor re-iterated Brasillach's vehement anti-semitism, linked his praise of Germany and denunciation of the Resistance to SS massacres in France and played upon homophobic sentiments by drawing the jurors' attention to the author's homosexuality, noting that he had slept with the enemy. In so doing the prosecution was making hay with Brasillach's own words, as he had suggested, as Liberation approached, that France had slept with Germany and would remember the experience fondly. Brasillach was sentenced to death. Brasillach responded to the outrage of some of his supporters then in attendance by saying "It's an honour!". The sentence caused an uproar in French literary circles and even some of Brasillach's political opponents protested against it. Resistance member and author François Mauriac, whom Brasillach had savaged in the press, circulated a petition to Charles De Gaulle to commute the sentence. De Gaulle did not comply and Brasillach was executed by firing squad in Montrouge. He called out "Long live France anyway!" ("Vive la France qund même!") immediately before his execution. He was buried in the cimetière de Charonne in the 20th Arrondissement of Paris. His biographer Alice Kaplan noted that his death made him the "James Dean of French fascism" and a martyr to the extreme right.
Selected novels
- 1934 L'Enfant de la nuit (Child of the Night)
- 1937 Comme le temps passe (How The Time Passes By)
- 1939 Les Sept Couleurs (The Seven Colors)
Cultural References
The Jean-Luc Godard film, Eloge de l’amour, prominently features the recitation of Brasillach's "Testament", written before his execution.
French singer Jann Halexander (born in 1982 in Libreville, Gabon) attacked the author's legacy and celebrated his execution in a song entitled "Brasillach 1945".
References
- The Collaborator : The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach by Alice Kaplan ISBN 0-226-42415-4 (publisher blurb, excerpt)
- Fascist Ego: A Political Biography of Robert Brasillach by William R. Tucker ISBN 0-520-02710-8
- The Ideological Hero in the Novels of Robert Brasillach, Roger Vailland & Andre Malraux by Peter D. Tame ISBN 0-8204-3126-5
- Translation of Notre Avant-Guerre/Before the War by Robert Brasillach, Peter Tame ISBN 0-7734-7158-8
External links
- ROBERT BRASILLACH: Challenging Mind by Radbod
- Biography from worldatwar.net
- Photograph
- Killed for His Words by Richard Corliss
- NOXIOUS WORDS, HEINOUS ACTS, THE POWER OF SPEECH by Kim Koster
- Robert Fulford's column about Marguerite Duras & Robert Brasillach from The National Post
- website of the singer Jann Halexander who sang about the death of the writer - French text, French music
- 1909 births
- 1945 deaths
- Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure
- Executed writers
- Deaths by firearm in France
- Executed French Nazi collaborators
- French fascists
- French literary critics
- French novelists
- Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni
- People from Perpignan
- People affiliated with Action Française
- People executed by firing squad
- French Nazi collaborators
- Antisemitism in France