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Rene Bousquet was a lifelong friend of Francois Mitterand. But that is far from his worst offense.
Rene Bousquet was a lifelong friend of Francois Mitterand. But that is far from his worst offense.
Bousquet is
not a cop like Barbie, or a militiaman like Touvier; nor is he a prefect like
Papon in Bordeaux. He is a high-level politician destined for a brilliant
career, but who chooses the path of collaboration and gets mixed up in the
deportation of Jews. He is the one who ensures that the raid on Vel d’Hiv (code
name Spring Wind) is carried out by the French police rather than the Germans.
He is thus responsible for what is probably the most infamous deed in the
history of the French nation [the raid on the Velodrome d’Hiver took place on
July 16-17, 1942, And involved the arrests of 13,152 Jews, including 5,802
women and 4,051 children. They were sent to concentration camps. Only 25 people
survived]. That it was committed in the
name of the French state obviously changes nothing. How many World Cups will we
have to win in order to erase such a stain?
After the war, Bousquet survives the purge of Nazi collaborators that took place in France, but his participation in the Vichy government nevertheless deprives him of the political career that appeared to be his destiny. He doesn’t live on the streets, though, and gets positions on various boards of directors, including that of the newspaper La Depeche du Midi; he is the main force behind its hardline anti-Gaullist stance between 1959 and 1971. So, basically, he benefits from the usual tolerance of the ruling class for its most compromised members. He also enjoys the company – not without malice, I imagine- of Simone Weil, an Auschwitz survivor who knows nothing of Bousquet’s collaborationist activities.
His past finally catches up with him in the 1980s, however, and in 1991 he is charged with crimes against humanity.
The investigation ends two years later when he is shot in his own house by a madman. I vividly remember seeing that guy give a press conference just after killing Bousquet and just before the cops arrested him. I remember how pleased with himself he looked as he calmly explained that he’ done it to make people talk about him. I found that utterly idiotic.
After the war, Bousquet survives the purge of Nazi collaborators that took place in France, but his participation in the Vichy government nevertheless deprives him of the political career that appeared to be his destiny. He doesn’t live on the streets, though, and gets positions on various boards of directors, including that of the newspaper La Depeche du Midi; he is the main force behind its hardline anti-Gaullist stance between 1959 and 1971. So, basically, he benefits from the usual tolerance of the ruling class for its most compromised members. He also enjoys the company – not without malice, I imagine- of Simone Weil, an Auschwitz survivor who knows nothing of Bousquet’s collaborationist activities.
His past finally catches up with him in the 1980s, however, and in 1991 he is charged with crimes against humanity.
The investigation ends two years later when he is shot in his own house by a madman. I vividly remember seeing that guy give a press conference just after killing Bousquet and just before the cops arrested him. I remember how pleased with himself he looked as he calmly explained that he’ done it to make people talk about him. I found that utterly idiotic.
This
ridiculous moron deprived us of a trial that would have been ten times more
interesting than those of Papon and Barbie [put together, more interesting than
those of Petain and Laval . . . the trial of the century. As punishment for
this outrageous attack on history, this unimaginably cretinous man was given ten years; he served
seven, and is now free. I feel a great repulsion and mistrust for someone like
Bousquet, but when I think of his assassin, of the immense historical loss that
his act represents, of the revelations the trial would have produced and which
he has forever denied us, I feel overwhelmed by hate. He didn’t kill any
innocents, that’s true, but he is the destroyer of truth. And all so he could
appear on TV for three minutes! What a monstrous, stupid, Warholian piece of
shit! The only ones that ought to have a moral right to judge whether this man
should live or die are his victims- the living and the dead who fell into the
Nazis’ claws because of men like him – but I am sure they wanted him alive. How
disappointed they musty have been when the heard about this absurd murder! I
can feel openly disgust for a society thjat produces such behavior, such
lunatics. Pasternak wrote: “I don’t like people who are indifferent to truth.”
And worse still are those bastards who are not only indifferent to it but work
actively against it. All the secrets that Bousquet took with him to his grave
. .
. I have to stop thinking about this because its making me ill.
Bousquet’s trial: that would have been the French equivalent of Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Bousquet’s trial: that would have been the French equivalent of Eichmann in Jerusalem.
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Anyway, let’s talk about something else. I have just discovered the testimony of Helmut Knochen, appointed chief of the German police in France by Heydrich. He claims to reveal something that Heydrich told him in confidence and which he never repeated to anyone until now,. His testimony dates from June 2000-. Fifty-eight years later!
Anyway, let’s talk about something else. I have just discovered the testimony of Helmut Knochen, appointed chief of the German police in France by Heydrich. He claims to reveal something that Heydrich told him in confidence and which he never repeated to anyone until now,. His testimony dates from June 2000-. Fifty-eight years later!
Heydrich
supposedly told him: “The war can no longer be won. We must reach a negotiated
peace and I am afraid that Hitler can’t accept that. We must think about this.”
We are meant to believe that Heydrich reached this conclusion in May 1942 –
before Stalingrad at a time when the Reich had never looked stronger..
Knochen sees in that an extraordinary clairvoyancy on Heydrich’s part. He considers the Blond Beast much more intelligent than all the other Nazi dignitaries. He also believes that Heydrich was thinking of overthrowing Hitler. And based on this he proposes the following theory: that the assassination of Heydrich would have been a high priority for Churchill, who absolutely refused to be deprived of a total victory over Hitler. In other words, the British would have supported the Czech’s because they were afraid that a wise Nazi like Heydrich might remove Hitler and save the regime through a negotiated peace.
Knochen sees in that an extraordinary clairvoyancy on Heydrich’s part. He considers the Blond Beast much more intelligent than all the other Nazi dignitaries. He also believes that Heydrich was thinking of overthrowing Hitler. And based on this he proposes the following theory: that the assassination of Heydrich would have been a high priority for Churchill, who absolutely refused to be deprived of a total victory over Hitler. In other words, the British would have supported the Czech’s because they were afraid that a wise Nazi like Heydrich might remove Hitler and save the regime through a negotiated peace.
I suspect
it’s in Knochen’s interest to associate himself with the theory of the plot
against Hitler, in order to minimize his own (very real) role in the police
machine of the Third Reich. It is even perfectly conceivable that, sixty years later, he actually believes
what he is saying. Personally, I think it’s bullshit. But I report it anyway.
204
A poster on an Internet forum expresses the opinion that Max Aue, Jonathan Littell’s protagonist in The Kindly Ones, ‘rings true because he is the mirror of his age.” What? No! He rings true (for certain, easily duped readers) because he is the mirror of our age: a postmodern nihilist, essentially. At no moment in the novel is it suggested that this character believes in Nazism. On the contrary, he displays an often critical detachment towards National Socialist doctrine – and in that sense, he can hardly be said to reflect the delirious fanaticism prevalent in his time. On the other hand, this detachment, this blasé attitude toward everything, this permanent malaise, this taste for philosophizing, this unspoken amorality, this morose sadism, and this terrible sexual frustration that constantly twists his guts . . .but of course! How did I not see it before? Suddenly, everything is clear. The Kindly Ones is simply “Houellebecq does Nazism.”
205
I think I’m beginning to understand. What I’m writing is an infranovel.
204
A poster on an Internet forum expresses the opinion that Max Aue, Jonathan Littell’s protagonist in The Kindly Ones, ‘rings true because he is the mirror of his age.” What? No! He rings true (for certain, easily duped readers) because he is the mirror of our age: a postmodern nihilist, essentially. At no moment in the novel is it suggested that this character believes in Nazism. On the contrary, he displays an often critical detachment towards National Socialist doctrine – and in that sense, he can hardly be said to reflect the delirious fanaticism prevalent in his time. On the other hand, this detachment, this blasé attitude toward everything, this permanent malaise, this taste for philosophizing, this unspoken amorality, this morose sadism, and this terrible sexual frustration that constantly twists his guts . . .but of course! How did I not see it before? Suddenly, everything is clear. The Kindly Ones is simply “Houellebecq does Nazism.”
205
I think I’m beginning to understand. What I’m writing is an infranovel.
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