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France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain

byJulian Jackson

Julian Jackson reconstructs the 1945 trial of Marshal Philippe Pétain, the World War I hero who led Vichy France under Nazi occupation. For three charged weeks, testimony and argument forced a liberated country to decide whether Pétain was a traitor, a shield protecting French interests, or both. The courtroom became a stage for competing memories of defeat, collaboration, resistance, antisemitism, and national honor. Jackson shows how legal judgment could not resolve every historical ambiguity, but helped create the narratives through which postwar France understood responsibility and rebuilt political legitimacy.

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Publication date

2023

Format

Print edition

Pages

—

ISBN

9780674248892