VORTRAG: Nach der Kollaboration – Strafverfolgung im befreiten Frankreich

In the organizer's words:

Event with the former chairman Dr. Wolfgang Uellenberg van Daven

80 years after the end of the Second World War, there is as much debate in France as in Germany about how those who were perpetrators, accomplices, followers or even profiteers of the ruling regime were dealt with at the time. While in Germany, apart from the victims and the few members of the resistance, an entire nation was in the dock, the majority of French people had more or less endured the German occupation. After liberation by the Allies with the active support of the Resistance, the process of prosecuting those who had collaborated with the German Reich began. In the dock were people who had been involved with the occupation, but above all the Vichy regime, its government, the authorities, the fascist militias, its minists and accomplices.

This process, described in French as "epuration", or cleansing, often began immediately after the withdrawal of the German troops and ended in the 1980s with the trial of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief of Lyon.

Francois Rouquet, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Caen Normandie and Fabrice Virgili, Research Director for International and European Relations at the Sorbonne, have described this process in detail from the perspective of the French and analyzed its impact on politics and the culture of remembrance in France today. The book was published in French in 2018.

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