[Peace-discuss] Violence after occupation

[C. G. Estabrook]

It was mentioned at tonight's meting that the Germans could rightly say in 1944 
that there would be violence if they withdrew from France -- but we would not 
think that that would justify their staying.  We can say the same thing about 
the US in Iraq.

In fact, when the Germans withdrew, there was a serious blood-letting in France 
-- in two forms, popular and official.

Robert Aron, in his Histoire de l'épuration in the 1960s, estimated the popular 
executions at 40,000. (The French population in 1945 was 40 million).

On the official side, Charles de Gaulle established on June 26 and June 27, 
1944, "commissions d'épuration," which condemned approximatively 120,000 people. 
  From 1944 to 1951, official courts in France sentenced 6,763 people to death 
(3,910 in absentia) for treason and other offenses; 791 executions were actually 
carried out (i.e., an average of more than two a week). More common was 
“national degradation,” a loss of face and civil rights, which was meted out to 
49,723 people.  (Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 [2007], p. 
46.)  --CGE