TRUE STORY REFERENCE - Francois Mitterrand
François Mitterrand has been called a "Vichysto-résistant" (an expression used by the historian Jean-Pierre Azéma to describe people who supported Marshal Philippe Pétain, the head of the Vichy Regime (Nazi proxy), before 1943, but subsequently rejected the Vichy Regime).
The war career of Francois Mitterrand, later president of France, gives a clear understanding of what pragmatic political-mindedness looked like within the non-German leaders in Nazi occupied Europe.
"[Francois Mitterrand] served Vichy - the government that collaborated with the Nazis - but also kept his options open by spying for the Free French. Only in 1943 when he finally saw which way the war was going did he commit himself wholeheartedly to the Resistance. He played his hand carefully and pragmatically: if the Nazis had triumphed, he could have carried on and risen up the ranks to become a senior figure in the Vichy government; if the Nazis faltered, he could - as indeed he did - claim that he had been a devoted member of the Resistance."
"Their Darkest Hour: People Tested to the Extreme in WWII" by Laurence Rees.
The war career of Francois Mitterrand, later president of France, gives a clear understanding of what pragmatic political-mindedness looked like within the non-German leaders in Nazi occupied Europe.
"[Francois Mitterrand] served Vichy - the government that collaborated with the Nazis - but also kept his options open by spying for the Free French. Only in 1943 when he finally saw which way the war was going did he commit himself wholeheartedly to the Resistance. He played his hand carefully and pragmatically: if the Nazis had triumphed, he could have carried on and risen up the ranks to become a senior figure in the Vichy government; if the Nazis faltered, he could - as indeed he did - claim that he had been a devoted member of the Resistance."
"Their Darkest Hour: People Tested to the Extreme in WWII" by Laurence Rees.
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