Darnand, Joseph

Darnand, Joseph (1897–1945),French First World War hero who became an early prisoner-of-war during the Second World War. He escaped and was made head of the Légion Français de Combattants in the Alpes Maritimes. In the summer of 1941 he instituted the fascist Service d'Ordre Légionnaire whose oath read: ‘I swear to struggle against democracy, against de Gaulle and the Free French, and against the Jewish plague.’ In January 1943 this organization provided personnel for the French Milice which helped the Germans in their fight against the maquis and other French resistance groups (see also France, 9). Unlike other Vichy paramilitary organizations it was allowed to recruit throughout France and the ruthlessness with which it tried to suppress the French resistance soon made it notorious. Darnand, by now an officer in the Waffen-SS, became the Milice's secretary-general and in February 1944 he was also appointed the Vichy government's secretary of state for internal affairs. He moved with the government to Belfort; then to Sigmaringen in Germany where he was a member of Doriot's Committee for French Liberation; and finally to Italy where he fought the partisans. After the war he was brought to trial and executed.