Collaboration Oxford VDF

1940 Gaston Bergery’s Views on Collaboration
Workshop “Vichy in concepts” Maison Française d’Oxford in collaboration with the Centre for
Second World War Studies (University of Birmingham), 7-8 May 2010
Collaboration is a word the Second World War gave a new meaning.
According to the dictionnary (TLF), during the Nazi occupation, the word
‘collaboration’ ended up meant « cooperation with the enemy ».
Because collaboration as a political choice put the occupied France
nearly at war against the Allies, and in a situation of civil war from June 1944, it
is difficult to imagine the positive meaning collaboration had covered up at the
very beginning of the Vichy Regime, from June 1940 to March 1941.
A key thinker of this early collaboration was a man we know relatively
little about : Gaston Bergery.
In his pioneered work, La Dérive fasciste Doriot, Déat, Bergery 1933-1945
(Seuil, 1986), relying on Bergery’s personnal papers deposited at the Hoover
Institute (Stanford University), Philippe Burrin offered a portrait of a man
whose political life could be considered as a failure but who had original and
influential ideas. Bergery did not see come into force under Vichy the hopes he
had envisaged in the thirties, but, as far as the history of the concept of
collaboration is concerned, put Gaston Bergery (1892-1974) in the picture allow
us to understand things differently.
The « radical bolchevik »
International lawyer, Gaston Bergery started his political carreer as an
expert1. This war veteran would be Secretary at the Conference de la Paix, in
1919, before joining the Commission des réparations inter-alliées from 1919 to
1924. Fluent in English and in German, Bergery was not the kind of man
narrowly stuck in national problems.
As Edouard Herriot’s Foreign Office « chef de cabinet » in 1924-1925,
and from 1928 roughly to 1939, as member of the State Department
Commission in the Parliament, Bergery had always been very well informed
about international affairs. That did not mean that he would have an accurate
analysis of the nazi phenomenon : Bergery did not understand nazism2, but,
1
2
Philippe Burrin, La Dérive fasciste Doriot, Déat, Bergery 1933-1945, Seuil, 1986, p. 31.
Ibid., p. 35.
2
because of his international background, would always think he did…
When, after the First World War, Bergery decided to join the old parti radical,
the choice appeared unusual : the Parti Radical embodied moderation and the
Old Regime, the Third Republic. Open to an alliance with the socialists -and
why not the communists ?, Bergery stood at the extreme left of the party. He
was in favor of a strong executive power, and an under-state controlled
economy, -even if private property should be protected. Deputy of Mantes
(Seine-et-Oise) from 1928, Bergery would leave the parti radical in 1936, and
would set up a new political organisation : L’Union des Gauches. Its influential
newspaper, La Flèche, argued in favor of a « third way », a French national
socialism that would lead some of his backers to Vichy or even further… Some
of them would join the Resistance, illustrating as Claude Mauriac, the category of
the vichysto-resistant3.
On the 6th July 1940, the bourgeois « non conformiste » Bergery was a
refugee, following the French government fleeing the German army. His
presence in Vichy was conspicuous. The deputy of Mantes got new ideas and
voiced them loudly :
« À en croire Henri Noguères, alors député de la SFIO, [Bergery] fut
celui des parlementaires qui, à Vichy, s’est le plus prodigué en faveur de
la « Révolution Nationale » […]. Il était en constant état d’ébullition. On
le voyait partout, on le trouvait partout, on l’entendait partout ! Il […]
bâtissait déjà, à lui tout seul, la France de demain, lui donnait ses bases,
ses institutions4 […] ».
And also a completely new foreign policy : the one designated under a
word Bergery would be the first French politician to use in an official
document÷ collaboration. I quote :
« L’autre politique, celle du Maréchal, implique –par un dosage de
collaboration avec les puissances latines et l’Allemagne elle-même –
l’établissement d’un nouvel ordre continental. »
Known as the « Declaration », written by Bergery as the « Declaration on
the National Assembly », this text released on July 7th 1940 was a justification
for the massive ‘yes’ vote of the deputy three days after, July 10th 1940 (where
constitutional power was transfered to Marechal Pétain). The word
« collaboration » appeared five times in the « Declaration » approved of by 97
deputies5, roughly 20% of the deputies as a whole, the hardcore of the
Révolution Nationale to come.
Bénédicte Chaignon-Vergez, Les Vichysto-Résistants de 1940 à nos jours, Perrin, 2008.
Philippe Burrin, La Dérive fasciste Doriot, Déat, Bergery 1933-1945, op. cit., pp. 332-333.
5 Ibid., p. 335.
3
4
3
Collaboration in 1940 : how to mean many things with one word
The word « collaboration » first appeared in the article 3 of the armistice
convention signed by France and Nazi Germany the 22th June 1940 (Paxton in
Azéma, Bédarida, p. 350). I quote :
« Le Gouvernement français invitera immédiatement toutes les autorités
et tous les services administratifs français du territoire occupé à se
conformer aux règlementations des autorités militaires allemandes et à
collaborer avec ces dernières d’une manière correcte6. » (Montigny, p.
112)
The text of the armistice convention was NOT officially published at
that time, and the French could read it only in November 1940, in Jean
Montigny’s booklet, Toute la Vérité sur un mois dramatique de notre histoire. So French
men and women were doing collaboration without knowing it for five month
which according to Bergery’s point of view was no big deal because one thing
was crystal-clear : ‘collaboration’ according to the armistice convention did not
mean ‘collaboration’.
In a totally new document from November 20th 1945, questioned on his
political activities during the Occupation before ending up in front of a Court of
Justice, Bergery gave those details. I quote :
« On incluait sous le vocable collaboration, trois choses essentiellement
différentes :
1°-Ce qu’on pourrait appeler la collaboration quotidienne, involontaire,
résultant de l’armistice et de l’occupation : c’était le cas du particulier qui
avait besoin d’un ‘ausweiss’ ; du maire qui devait s’entendre avec la
Kommandatur de sa commune ; du préfet qui devait négocier avec les
Autorités Allemandes départementales ; du gouvernement enfin qui
devait négocier avec les Allemands par ses organismes et notamment par
sa commission d’Armistice. »
Those examples qualify what Robert Paxton called a « technical
collaboration7 », an involuntarily collaboration, following on from the presence
of the German troops on the national territory. Bergery put into brackets this
kind of collaboration :
« Ce genre de ‘collaboration’ était inévitable et d’ailleurs bénéficiaire pour
la France, la seule alternative étant la position de résistance et du maquis.
Mais cette position de résistance n’était pas en question en 1940 et au
début 1941. »
6 Jean Montigny, De l’armistice à l’Assemblée nationale 15 juin-15 juillet 1940. Toute la vérité sur un mois
dramatique de notre histoire, Clermont-Ferrand, Imprimerie de Mont-Louis, 1940, p. 112.
7 Robert Paxton, La France de Vichy 1940-1944, [1972, 1997], Seuil, coll. “Points-Histoire”,1999,
p. 351 et 363.
4
According to Bergery, from the very beginning, if « technical
collaboration » should not been taken into account as ‘collaboration’, what did
real ‘collaboration’ mean ? To follow Bergery, one should first understand what
collaboration was not.
Collaboration was not a passive attitude. Collaboration was not, as often
described by the historians, a spiral8 (Azéma). Collaboration did not move from
administrative grounds (the « technical collaboration ») to political ones, -the
« state collaboration »9 -that was : the cooperation with Nazi Germany to protect
French national interests- or the « collaborationism » -that was : the cooperation
with Nazi Germany according to ideological dogma. From the very beginning,
collaboration was politic as Bergery sketched in a confidential note to the
Marechal Petain from March 30th 1941.
To understand what ‘collaboration’ one has to gather ideas set-out in
four texts written by Bergery :
1-the « Declaration » (July 7th 1940),
2-the « Projet de manifeste du Rassemblement pour la Révolution
nationale » (September 19th 1940).
3-Marechal Pétain’s talk on October 11th 1940
4-the « Note from monsieur Bergery to the Marechal on the justification
on collaboration » (March 30th 1941).
Defeated France had one but one choice : collaboration with Germany
(Declaration). Collaboration should not be considered as a consequence of the
defeat, but as a « historical necessity » based upon a new conception of
Europe (Note March 1941). Collaboration was a tool for a new european order
based upon, and this word was a key one, peace. Republic was devoted to war.
Collaboration would be devoted to the protection of peace stabilized by the
Nazi victory. Inevitably, this new european order would be ruled by Germany…
but thought about by France. Jean Paulhan used to say that in it was common
sense that French (men and women) were more cleaver than their German
counterparts… Bergery made the Germans conscious of what could be called an
historical possibility : collaboration embodied this historical possibility.
Bergery always thought by confronting two drastic opposite ideas, to
convince the person he was talking to that the solution he ended up with was a
logic -and not an ideological- one. As far as collaboration was concerned, the
reasoning would be : Germany won the war. But Germany was as trapped in
victory as was France in defeat. Actually, Germany had only two choices. Either
1/« a traditional peace of oppression » that would lead back to european blood8
9
Jean-Pierre Azéma, La Collaboration 1940-1944, PUF, 1975.
Stanley Hoffmann, “La collaboration”. In Essais sur la France, Seuil, 1974, pp. 41-67.
5
shed,
Or
2/ « a revolutionary peace of collaboration » (Bergery wrote « revolutionary »,
Marechal Petain was more moderate and, in his October 11th 1940, speech
talked about « a complete new peace »).
Why would the Germans prefer « a revolutionary peace of
collaboration » ? Neither because they were « generous » nor because they were
« faithful » but because they were realistic : the « revolutionary peace of
collaboration » was the only way to protect German interest on the long term
(Déclaration). Collaboration would prevail because it was an always winning
game : through collaboration Germany would rule a peaceful Europe ; because
of collaboration, France would achieve something new in its history, a peaceful
revolution, a revolution from abovehigh (‘révolution par en haut’), mobilizing
the state apparatus, -in other words putting aside the people gathered and
controlled in the only authorized political party, the Rassemblement national. So
understood, collaboration, as incredible as it sounds, could fit the national
frame : collaboration was the French way to a new kind of revolution.
Collaboration would give not only birth to a new european order but also to a
new political, economic and social regime for France, based upon hierarchy and
spared from class struggles and civil war (Petain’s speech 11th October 1940).
And Bergery could write in March 30th 1941 :
« Nous devons nous engager dans cette voie, non pas avec résignation,
mais avec espoir et enthousiasme. Avec aussi la résolution de briser les
obstacles qu’élèverait un chauvinisme souvent bien intentionné mais
ignorant des intérêt permanents de la nation. » [emphasis mine]
The only chink in the armour was… peace. If Bergery was not as cleaver
as he thought, he was certainly not stupid. As time was running out, peace with
Germany was vanishing. But in March 1941, Bergery was still thinking that
peace was possible.
Eberhard Jäckel demonstrated that from the end of July 1940, Hitler had
decided not to conclude any peace treaty with France. But Bergery, as I said, was
a jurist : none jurists had ever ever seen an armistice that had not to ended up in
a peace treaty. The due process of law was as powerful as ideology to dismiss
historical reality. In March 1941, Bergery could still write, I quote :
« L’heure n’est pas à la conclusion d’un traité de paix. Mais il semble que
les directives générales pourraient et devraient être indiquées ».
If collaboration turning out to be a fool bargain (‘marché de dupes’),
showing a French government more and more subdued to German demands, it
was not because collaboration was wrong, but because the « bad » conception of
collaboration had taken over, that meant : « collaboration for war », embodied
by Pierre Laval and his team, had won over « collaboration for peace » promoted
by a man alone, who did not succeed in coming to power. As Bergery pointed
out, « collaboration for war » was nothing else than collaboration ruled by Pierre
6
Laval :
« C’est du reste sur ce point que s’est produit le dissentiment véhément
entre monsieur Pierre Laval et moi-même. C’est contre cette
collaboration pour la guerre que j’avais à Vichy suscité le rasemblement
des ministres anti-lavalliens […]. C’est enfin cela qui avait poussé M.
Laval à lancer contre moi un ordre d’arrestation quand je revins à Paris,
ordre qui ne fut mis en échec que par une intervention directe du
Maréchal. »
The « collaboration for peace » promoted by Bergery which pretended to
be a completely new politic on a european scale ended up, under the infamous
« collaboration for war », in a squalid fight for power… Bergery would be the
looser and one could always imagine, in a counter-factual perspective, what would
have happened if Bergery had succeed Pierre Laval at the head of the Vichy
government in December 1940 ? Probably nothing much different from what
historically happened, because collaboration was never a politic, a sovereign
choice made by a free nation. Collaboration was from the beginning a fool
bargain which not only damaged French interests but also brought about the
humiliation of defeated France.
Conclusion
In a famous article wrote in 1945, « Qu’est-ce qu’un collaborateur10 ? »,
Sartre dwelt upon the fact that collaboration was inseparable of an attitude he
called « la passéification continue du présent » (‘present under permanent
supervision of the past’). Sartre was right : Bergery’s two conceptions of peace,
« peace of oppression » and « revolutionary peace of collaboration », were an
inheritance of the afterwards of the First World War, when France forced upon
Germany what Bergery called at that time a « peace of exaction » instead « a
noble peace ».
Under the mask of a new european order, the « revolutionary peace of
collaboration » was nothing else than a rhetoric to seize power. Collaboration
had been a complex social phenomenon, but as a concept, collaboration was a
rhetoric advocated by men who had been put aside under the Republic, aimed at
legitimising their arrival in power.
In this perspective, as Stanley Hoffmann pointed out, collaboration was
more useful to study French relationships under Vichy than to look upon the
« French-German relationships in Hitler’s Europe ».
That is the crude light Bergery’s paper helped to cast on a shady concept.
Anne Simonin
(CNRS, IRICE, Université de Paris I et de Paris IV)
10
Jean-Paul Sartre, Situations III. Lendemains de guerre [1949], Gallimard, 1992, pp. 43-63.