Pierre Laval and Nazi Ideology: Complacency and Indifference from 1933 until his Death

AbstractAbstract

After the Great War, Pierre Laval, who had come from the extreme left, rejected ideologies in favour of a single objective that dominated all politics: peace. However, believing he was abstracting himself from ideologies, he failed to see that his pacifism, hostile to anti-fascist struggles, played into the hands of the Nazi warmongers while he was Minister of Foreign Affairs. More surprisingly, as the architect of the collaboration during the war, which he saw as a policy capable of obtaining more from Germany than the armistice agreement, he thought he could keep France out of the global conflict but also maintain a sovereign policy, independent of the Nazi programme, while anticipating its expectations, particularly in terms of antisemitic persecution. Laval embodied the singular case in Nazi Europe of a head of government of a State that remained sovereign and chose to apply part of the Nazi programme, particularly in terms of Nazi persecution, without adhering to its ideology. The pacifist did not identify with racism, nationalism, historical Darwinism, or anything to do with the regeneration of man through war.