Fascist and collaboration parties and movments in Gironde (Bordeaux) - Encyclopédie de l'Ordre Nouveau volume 8

[encyclo-collaboration]

Grégory Bouysse presents Volume 8 of « Encyclopédie de l'Ordre Nouveau – Histoire du SOL, de la Milice Française & des mouvements de la Collaboration », devoted to the department of Gironde (Bordeaux was then the second most populous city in the North area).
Available here : http://www.lulu.com/shop/gr%C3%A9gory-b ... 37691.html

In this volume are presented 333 portraits, of chiefs or obscure militants, officers or simple soldiers, having mainly occupied a post or lived in Gironde (but also sometimes in other departments, even a post of national level: Marcel Gombert, Georges Marionnet, Pierre Thurotte ...).
Almost all the New Order political parties that existed at the time were present in Gironde: the PPF and the RNP took the lion's share (with at least 200 members for each of them). The PPF formed a “Groupe d'Action pour la Justice Sociale”, which was primarily directed in the hunt for refractories, and less directly against resistant groups (unlike other departments - Haute-Garonne and Ariège in particular).
The MSR, Francisme, the Ligue Française, the Jeune de l'Europe Nouvelle and the Front Franc were less important, with a few dozen members each.
Let us not forget the Collaboration Group, a sort of para-political movement of the intellectual and semi-mundane type (some also said "slayer"!), With almost 500 contributions for the period, and the Workers' Committee of Immediate Rescue, organization of aid to the victims of the bombings, sponsored by the parties (especially the RNP). Finally, the LVF, with its recruitment and propaganda agents, at the regional and departmental level.

The Milice Française, which unlike all the aforementioned movements depended on the French State, and therefore initially prohibited in the northern zone, settled late, in March-April 1944. It recruited nearly 160 members (of which 1/3 were crammed or really active), among political movements but also among lost ones. Unlike other departments, it only participated in two anti-maquis operations (these being few, given the geography of the terrain) in July 1944, and its 2nd Service (the police branch of the Militia, ten of members in Gironde) was essentially directed against the black market. Only part of its members pass through Germany.

Girondin particularity: the Phalange raciste française nationale-socialiste et yndicaliste, sort of political group of national-socialist inspiration, particularly active, formed shortly after the defeat of June 1940 by a son and his father, and which was transformed into nursery of intelligence agents on behalf of the SD, before liquefying in late 1943.
Another typically Girondin group, the paramilitary group called Hauskapelle ("Chamber Orchestra"), formed in February 1944 (partly with members of the Phalanx). Initially responsible for guarding and protecting the SD Bouscat premises, hideouts and control missions, but also to assist the German inspectors during the arrests. Then they participate in arrests. They wear the German uniform of the S.D after the Landing. A part of its members pass in Germany at the end of August 1944, and are integrated in the hunting kommandos (paratroopers, partisans, deserters) of the S.D which skim Germany of the debacle in 1945.
Finally, the Corps of French Volunteers, formed by Commander André Besson-Rapp, who despite his French uniform, depended on the Abwehr. This small military formation took part in some operations in Gironde, then passed to Germany where it played only a hidden role.

Of course, the volunteers of the various more traditional formations (LVF, NSKK, Organization Todt, Legion Speer, Waffen-SS, etc.) are also approached.

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