During the Second World War, in France there
was a significant resistance movement that sought to rid the country from Nazi occupation.

They were helped by the British Special Operations
Executive, undercover agents who had parachuted into enemy territory to help co-ordinate resistance
actions.

But for many people, living in Nazi occupied
France was brutal and was tough.

Deportations of the populations took place
and the country would not be liberated until Summer 1944 following the Normandy landings
and D-Day.

The Germans would conduct anti-partisan operations
and this would result in large scale arrests where people were tortured inside of gestapo
prisons, and many were executed or were sent to go and work as slave labourers inside of
concentration camps.

But there was a French paramilitary group
which was created by the Vichy regime along with the Germans help to fight against the
French resistance during the Second World War, and they were a fascist group who were
involved in executions, torture and horrific war crimes.

But at the end of the war, many members of
the Milice of the French Militia would be rounded up, and many were executed for their
collaboration with the Nazis.

Join us today as we look at the executions
of the French Milice, to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.

The French Milice or the Militia was created
on the 30th January 1943 as a response to fight against the French Resistance.

The malice first supported the Vichy Government
in unoccupied France, however it was later in support of the Nazi government in Paris.

It’s believed that at its height, around
35,000 men were in the militia.

The French Resistance as the war was progressing
were getting more successful and were seen as more powerful, and the Milice was gathered
to fight against them.

Pierre Laval was the Prime Minister of Vichy
France at the time, and he was their formal head, however the man who really held the
power inside the group was Secretary General and de facto leader Joseph Darnard.

It was a group that appealed to men from many
backgrounds.

Some believed that the Militia was right to
repel the Resistance, and others were supporters of the Nazis and preferred life during the
occupation.

France had been defeated by the Nazis, but
there were many French people who were sympathetic to Hitler’s cause, and some Frenchmen were
allowed to join the SS at some point.

Others who joined the milice were men who
had been unemployed and the group offered paid employment, good pay and also substantial
food rations which were better than what the French population were receiving.

Also members of the group were exempt from
being forced to conduct labour in Nazi Germany where they would suffer a much worse fate,
and that’s why some joined.

Others had been part of the pre-war far right
in the country, and others joined as their families had been injured or killed in Allied
bombing raids, or had faced threat from the Allies.

Criminals were recruited as they were told
they would have their sentenced reduced if they joined, but most of the members gave
a few hours a week to take part in milice activities, but there was a full time section
of members known as the Franc-Garde who would live in barracks.

But as mentioned their main job was to find
out about the French Resistance and also fight them.

Members of the Milice would work with locals
and friends to find out what was happening, but they had a superior advantage over the
Nazis as they had excellent local knowledge and could make them a fierce opponent of the
French Resistance.

They were given a relatively free rein to
do what they wanted, and they would often round up suspects and they were allowed to
torture people.

These ordeals were brutal as the militia men
would beat and brutalise men and women accused of being in the resistance, and they would
also arrest the family members of the accused.

After obtaining confessions they would also
carry out executions by firing squad, or hand prisoners over to the Germans so they could
be dealt with by them.

But the French Resistance deemed the Milice
as more dangerous than the SS and the Gestapo, as their knowledge of the local areas and
the fact they had many informants made them very deadly.

But the torture and execution that the milice
got involved in quickly led to a war between them and the French Resistance.

The Resistance would target members of the
group for assassination at public places such as in cafe’s or in the open, and on the
24th April 1943 they shot a Milicien in Marseilles.

Over the next few months dozens had been killed
and wounded in attacks.

But the most prominent person killed by the
Resistance was Philippe Henriot, often referred to as ‘The French Goebbels.

’ He was killed inside his apartment in the
Ministry of Information, in the early hours of the 28th June 1944 by Resistance members
dressed as members of the Milice.

His wife was spared, but the Milice would
retaliate by killing a number of anti nazi politicians and local leaders.

They would work inside of different zones,
and they established their headquarters in the old headquarters of the communist party.

But they would be involved in further anti
partisan operations, including the Battle of Gliders, as they tried to suppress the
resistance near to the Swiss border, but they could not do so, and the Germans had to be
brought in to help.

The Milice also executed 34 prisoners inside
of a Paris Prison after a revolt broke out, but as the Second World War was coming to
an end, a number of Militiamen realised that what they were involved in could come back
to haunt them.

Marshal Philippe Petain began to try to distance
himself from the milice and their torture, and antics.

But after the Allies liberated France, a number
of collaborators began to flee and try to hide out.

After the German retreat, many miliciens were
executed either on their own or in mass executions.

The offices of the group were ransacked and
agents were beaten and were thrown from the office windows into the streets, or they were
thrown into the river and then later taken to prison if they survived.

The French Forces of the Interior on the 24th
August 1944 would execute 76 members of the group, and some members later formed a new
SS detachment, known as the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne.

This later became known as the Charlemagne
Division of the SS, and it had over 7000 men at its disposal, 2,500 made up of members
of the Milice.

But there were a number of other execution
that took place of members of the Milice.

One eyewitness said, ‘One afternoon recently
in Grenoble I saw six young men shot by the Maquis.

All had borne arms against France.

Each was tied to steel stakes.

Three died well.

’ These men had been tied to stakes before they
were shot by the Resistance members having been declared traitors against France.

Another execution of a Milice member was said,
‘for the second time this month a French mob reversed the decision of a purge court
and lynched an alleged traitor.

In Dijon, the end of the war trial of Jacques
Larsac former police chief charged with abuse of French resistance fighters during the occupation.

An angry mob led by resistance veterans marched
on the city jail, broke the prison doors and pulled Larsac from his cell.

They carried him to the city’s outskirts
and hanged him from a signpost, then dragged his rope-tied body back into the town.

’ Another execution of the members of the malice
was said that, ‘six young men were tied to rusty steel stakes and shot by a platoon
of Maquis.

They were tried in the morning by a civilian
judge and two military assistant judges in a shabby palace of justice in the town.

They were defended by the towns two best lawyers
and they were duly found guilty of treason.

At the appointed hour they were walked out
to the spot where a few weeks before 23 Maquis were shot by the French Militia on Nazi Orders.

Three died well, which is to say they died
at once.

Three did not.

They sagged on their stakes and one even stood
erect shaking his head from side to side as if uncomprehending.

He and two others receiving final pistol bullets
in their heads.

There was a crowd of 5000 that had come to
see the spectacle and there was laughter and shouting and pushing and noise.

There were men, women, children and women
with infants in their arms.

They cheered when at last the volley came
from the Maquis rifles.

The Millice were seen as a serious threat
to the French Resistance and their expert local knowledge made them more feared than
German Soldiers.

But following the liberation of France there
were many executions of them that took place and they were seen as people in the pockets
of the nazis.

Many were disgusted at their acts as they
were considered the worst traitor’s preferring to support the Nazi regime rather than act
against it.

But they were torturers and executioners themselves,
and still in the recent years there have been members of the group decades after the war
who were brought to trial.

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