Robert Brasillach
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Robert Brasillach (31 March 1909 – 6 February 1945) was a French pro-Nazi Germany author in the Vichy France who was executed for collaboration.
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.
After the fall of France, he became an editor of Je suis partout, an antisemitic paper, and wrote in favor of the collaboration and Nazi policies. In November 1942 he supported the German takeover of the unoccupied zone under the Vichy government, because it "reunited France". He called for 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. After the liberation of Paris, Brasillach hid in an attic but 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 and was sentenced to death. The sentence caused uproar in French literature circles and even some of Brasillach's political opponents protested against it. Resistance member and author François Mauriac 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 was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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
[edit] 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
Categories: 1909 births | 1945 deaths | Alumni of the École Normale Supérieure | Executed writers | Deaths by firearm | French executions | French fascists | French literary critics | French novelists | Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni | Natives of Languedoc-Roussillon | People affiliated with Action Française | People executed by firing squad | People executed for treason | Vichy regime