Doomed... Hitler’s other desperately devoted dupes
PIERRE Laval was instrumental in negotiating France’s armistice with the conquering Germans which led to the creation of the unoccupied Vichy zone in 1940.
While the old soldier Marshal Philippe Petain was the figurehead of the puppet government, Laval was its real leader. His administration was responsible for the deportation of hundreds of thousands of French Jews to their deaths.
After the Allied victory, Laval fled to Spain and then Austria where he was arrested by American troops and handed over to Charles de Gaulle’s new government.
He was convicted of treason, but sought to cheat the firing squad on the day of his execution by ingesting a vial of poison.
It proved too old to be effective, and after being revived Laval, 62, was shot on October 15, 1945.
Petain was also convicted of treason, but his death sentence was commuted to life in prison because of his age and First
World War service. He died in 1951, aged 95.
There was also John Amery. A pro-nazi British fascist living in Germany, Amery sought to form a British volunteer force from prisoners of war, which eventually became the British Free Corps unit of the SS.
His attempts to recruit in POW camps failed utterly, with only two men initially joining up, and never more than 27 members in the unit at one time throughout its brief existence.
Amery later went to Italy to support Mussolini, where he was captured by partisans and handed over to a British Army captain called Alan Whicker, who would later become the worldfamous broadcaster.
Amery admitted treason and was hanged in Wandsworth jail on December 19, 1945, aged 33.