Prison Journal, 1940-1945

by Edouard Daladier, Jean Daladier

Overview

Even after fifty years, and in spite of the reams of documents now available,it remains difficult-especially in France-to form an objective view of what things were like in the period between the wars and in 1940.The greater, the swifter, the more unexpected the disaster, the less people are willing to deal with it squarely. Once a certain threshold of suffering,shame, and humiliation is reached, actual facts become unimportant,analyses become bothersome. History falls prey to myth and rumor.People refuse to hear any more, but they still need someone to blame. In France, the strangest of bedfellows have come to speak about it in one voice, and the good people have remained mute.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367284268
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/13/2019
Pages:	406
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Edouard Daladier- Prime Minster of France, Seventeeth Century

Table of Contents

Foreword /Stanley Hoffmann — Preface to the English Edition /Jean Daladier — June 1940: The Departure for Morocco — 1940 — 1941 — 1942 — 1943 — 1944 — 1945 — Appendix A: France's Principal Modern Weaponry — Appendix B: The Riom Trial — Appendix C: Biographical Time line — About the Book — Name Index.

Editorial Reviews

Daladier was the hapless French premier who signed the infamous nonagression pact with Hitler in Munich in 1938 and was then obliged to declare war on him a year later. For his pains, he was arrested by the Vichy regime and imprisoned in France and Germany for the rest of the war. Throughout his captivity, the articulate politician kept a diary in which he brooded over his downfall, as he followed the progress of the fighting and speculated endlessly about the ins and outs of French governmental affairs. This diary, recently discovered by his family and published here for the first time, makes for fascinating reading both on the personal and the historical level. Daladier fully expected to be executed, but even so he could never repress his fascination with matters of government. As a result, he crafted a fine account of his imprisonment as well as an impressive document of the complexity and subtlety of French internal affairs.-Raymond L. Puffer, U.S. Air Force History Prog., Edwards AFB

Library Journal

Daladier was the French Prime Minister who signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, led his country to war against Hitler's Germany a year later, and was arrested and imprisoned by the Vichy regime for the duration of the war. He wrote about daily life and conditions in the French and German prisons, what he gleaned from newspapers about the resistance, visits of friends and family, his hidden radio receiver, and other aspects of captivity. His concern above all was for France, though he expressed surprising sympathy for the devastation in Germany by the war's end. His journal was not published until 1991, and is here translated into English for the first time. Indexed and annotated. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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