Last edited Fri Aug 2, 2013, 11:09 PM - Edit history (1)
The remainder of France was not under direct German control but under the control of the government of Marshall Petain, headquartered in Vichy.
The Vichy government was very anxious to assure Germans that it was finding, deporting and persecuting Jews just as furiously as the Germans would in their own Reich. In fact there are plenty of statements that can be found in the record about the French of the Vichy regime going beyond anything asked of them by the Nazis. The French were hardly unique in being more diligent Nazis than the German Nazis were themselves.
Whether a suit against SNCF has any merit today is another question altogether. The Vichy govt. was not elected, but appropriated the trappings of the French Republic during the downfall and flight into exile of the last government of the Third Republic. Were Petain, Laval et al. the "French Republic"? Is there continuity as they claimed at the time, between France before Occupation and during - and then after?
Was Vichy the legitimate government of France, or just puppets of the Nazi Reich? Most Frenchmen would hotly deny this continuity I feel certain and would deny that Vichy was a legitimate government of France. Its mere existence and it acts were inflicted on France by Germany, many would argue, and responsibility for its heinous acts died with Vichy and with the deaths of the individual scumbags who opportunistically seized power and acted as local overseers for Germany's exploitation of France, and those who joined in the black beret wearing Milice a fascist paramilitary and secret police adjunct of the Vichy regime.
On the other hand, it's not like there was no fascist rightwing in France before the war. And it's not like anti-Semitism was some German import without deep roots or power to influence events in French history before the Nazis invaded.
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