A proud page in recent French history.

The Battle of Marseille took place in the Old Port of Marseille, under the Vichy regime, on 22, 23 and 24 January 1943. Assisted by the French police, which was directed by René Bousquet, the Nazis organized a raid in order to arrest Jewish people. The police controlled the identity of 40,000 people, and the operation succeeded in sending 2,000 Marseillese people first to Fréjus, then to the camp of Royallieu near Compiègne, in the Northern Zone of France, and then to Drancy internment camp, last stop before the extermination camps. The operation also encompassed the expulsion of an entire neighborhood (30,000 persons) before its destruction. Located in the Old Port, the 1st arrondissement was considered by the Germans as a "terrorist nest" because of its small, windy and curvy streets[1] For this occasion, SS Karl Oberg, in charge of the German Police in France, made the trip from Paris, and transmitted to Bousquet orders directly received from Himmler himself. It is a notable case of the French police's willful collaboration with the Nazis.

The operation had as aim to reshape the neighborhood of the Old Port, a popular neighborhood which small, curvy and windy streets were considered as dangerous by the German authorities. The German used for this an urbanist plan prepared by French architects who supported the ideology of the "National Revolution" (Révolution nationale) supported by Vichy. They decided the quasi-total destruction of the 1st arrondissement of Marseille. Furthermore, according to Himmler's orders, the arrested population was to be evacuated to the concentration camps in the Northern Zone of France, in particular Compiègne. The Old Port itself was to be searched house by house by the German police, assisted by their French homologues, and then the buildings dynamited.

Mandated by the head of Vichy, Pierre Laval, Bousquet demanded on 14 January 1943 that the operation be postponed for a week, in order to better organize it and have reinforcement from police force. Furthermore, while the Nazis were about to limit themselves to the 1st arrondissement of Marseille, Bousquet spontaneously proposed to extend the operation to the entire city. According to historian Maurice Rajsfus, he also requested complete freedom of action for the French police, which he obtained from SS Karl Oberg.

According to historian Jacques Delarue, who was a witness of the operation, 200 police inspectors from Paris and elsewhere, 15 compagnies of GMR (the ancestors of the current CRS anti-riot police), and squads of constabularies (Gendarmerie) and of mobile guards (guardes mobiles) were brought to Marseille for the operation. In total, "approximatively 12,000 police men found themselves concentrated in Marseille.".[2] On 22 January 1943, the Old Port was completely locked-out. The city was searched house by house, apart of the more wealthy, residential, neighborhoods, during 36 hours. "In total, following tens of thousands of controls, nearly 2,000 Marseillese... found themselves in the death trains." wrote historian Maurice Rajsfus. 1,500 buildings were destroyed.

The Prefecture of the Bouches-du-Rhône published a public statement on 24 January 1943:

"Because of military reasons, and in order to guarantee the security of the population, the German military authorities have notified to the French administration the order to immediately proceed to the evacuation of the North neighborhood of the Old Port. Because of motives of interior security, the French administration had decided, on its side, to effectuate a vast police operation in order to get rid, for Marseille, of certain elements whose activities endangered the population. The French administration did its best to avoid that the two operations be confused. A very important number of police forces have proceeded in the city to multiple searches. Entire neighborhoods have been surrounded, and identity verifications done. More than 6,000 individuals have been arrested, and 40,000 identities checked."[3]

The newspaper Le Petit Marseillais of 30 January 1943 added:

"We precise that the evacuation operations of the North neighborhood of the Old Port have been exclusively done by the French police and that they did not let place to any incident.[4]

On the other hand, German newspapers also acclaimed the operation. Walther Kiaulehn wrote in Signal, a German military newspaper:

"In the future, when we shall write the history of Marseille, we will underline this remarkable feat that by having evacuated the old patrician neighborhood, which had been dishonoured by the 20th century, the organisator had used French and German policemen, as a group of engineers and physicians."[5]

A photo taken during this operation, and known since the beginning of the 1980s, show head of the French police René Bousquet posing alongside the SS Bernhard Griese, head of the German police in that region, of Totenkopf, a high level officer, of Marcel Lemoine, regional prefect, and of Pierre Barraud, delegate prefect to the prefectoral administration of Marseille.[6]

While 30,000 were expelled from their neighborhood, people from the criminal underground, such as Paul Carbone, had voluntarily surrendered in the beginning of the week, in order to be jailed while the "horrible show" happenned[7] Several hundreds of Jews of Marseille, whether French citizens or foreign, were first sent to Fréjus, than to the camp of Royallieu near Compiègne, and finally to Drancy interment camp, from where they were sent to the extermination camps. In total, 2,000 Jews founded themselves on the death trains. On 23 March 1943, SS Röthke note that the French Jews arrested in Marseille were almost all "criminal scoundrels" ("canaille criminelle"), "as the French police repeatedly told me without being asked for", and that "when they were transferred from Compiègne to Drancy, they first had to be submitted to a special cleaning operation because they were so dirty and flea-bitten that the French direction of the camp judged an immediate intervention necessary in order to avoid epidemics in the camp"[8]

en.wikipedia.org . . .

Nazi Collaborators !


Fuck france Imbeciles, the lot of 'em !

Much appreciated, that article flies in the face of everything that the French are taught about everybody in France being fierce resistance fighters against the Nazis, but I doubt that the brainwashed French sheep here will finally wake up and smell the coffee.

When not busy killing poor Africans or irradiating Pacific islanders, the French always have that old standby, the Jews, to satisfy their unquenchable desire to dip their foul hands into the blood of others.

everyone was guilty.

www.ushmm.org . . .

When not busy killing poor Africans or irradiating Pacific islanders, the French always have that old standby, the Jews, to satisfy their unquenchable desire to dip their foul hands into the blood of others.

VoxAmericaVoxDei today's diary:
French nuclear test -> failure
France in Africa -> failure

ahhh Vichy's good old time
en.wikipedia.org . . .

Now it's time to go to bed.

If americans are so obsessed with Vichy France maybe they should come to France and study the subject in our universities with real historians first hand instead of copypasting stuff they can't possibly comprehend.

If Americans are so obsessed with Vichy France, they might wanna consider moving to France and study the subject in our universities with real historians instead of copypasting stuff they can't possily comprehend.

Oh by the way what lessons in tolerancc we could possibly receive from someone with a confederate flag (a symbol of racism) as his avatar is beyond me.

The arrogance to blame others for sending their own to the nazi death camps. It will it be the same when the islamic fascists control colabo france.

FUCK france!

Just think how the capitulating french will obey their islamic fascist masters.

Vichy and Antisemitism
Co-operating with Nazi antisemitism was not new to Vichy. As early as October 1940 it introduced the infamous `statut des Juifs', that produced a new legal definition of Jewishness and which barred Jews from certain public offices. Worse still, in May 1941 the Parisian police force had collaborated in the internment of foreign Jews. As a means of identifying Jews, the German authorities required all Jews in the occupied zone to wear the Star of David on their clothing. On the 11th June, they demanded that 100, 000 Jews be handed over for deportation.

The most infamous of these mass arrests was the so-called grande rafle du Vél' d'Hiv' which took place in Paris on the 16th and 17th July 1942. The Vélodrome d'Hiver was a large indoor sports arena situated on the rue Nélaton near the Quai de Grenelle in the 15th arrondissment of Paris. In a vast operation codenamed vent printanier, the French police rounded up 12, 884 Jews from Paris and its surrounding suburbs. These were mostly adult men and women but there were around 4,000 children amongst them. The rounding up was made easier by the large number of files on Jews complied and held by Vichy authorities since 1940. The French police, headed by René Bousquet, were entirely resonsible for this operation and not one German soldier assisted.

FUCK france!

If americans are so obsessed with Vichy France maybe they should come to France and study the subject in our universities with real historians first hand instead of copypasting stuff they can't possibly comprehend.

Oh, we can comprehend it alright. It's stomaching such cowardice and collaboration that we have a hard time with. However, the French are superior to us in that they had no such trouble.

Oh by the way what lessons in tolerancc we could possibly receive from someone with a confederate flag (a symbol of racism) as his avatar is beyond me.

ahh the old chestnut "racism" raises it's ugly head just because someone is proud to be from the southern states of america.fuck you and france from an englishman and proud of it.

Oh by the way what lessons in tolerancc we could possibly receive from someone with a confederate flag (a symbol of racism) as his avatar is beyond me.

The French gave succor to the Confederacy through monetary aid and support to the South both directly and indirectly in many ways, the most famous of which was the assistance in efforts to put commerce raiders and blockade runners to sea, so France has a long tradition of helping its so-called moral adversaries only to deny it later or plead total ignorance, a logical approach for you in every case anyway. If you want to compare symbols of racism, the French flag is without compare. French soldier with the French flag at their side have been responsible for the genocide of countless indigenous people throughout the world, a feat never even attempted by the honorable southerners in their supporter for their noble states' rights cause.