Philippe Henriot and the Last Act of Vichy: Radio Broadcasts, January-June 1944

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In times of war, the struggle for the control of information and for influence over minds represents a battleground just as central to the overall conflict as the combat zones themselves. Nowhere has propaganda played a more powerful role than in the theatre of war of 1939-1945, when a sustained propaganda war was fought between the Allies on the one hand, and Vichy and Berlin on the other, with radio as its principal weapon. On that stage, the most notorious and skilful French voice in the war of words belonged to Philippe Henriot, known as the 'French Goebbels'. Understanding the complexities, the methodology and the impact of Vichy's propaganda necessitates analysis and evaluation of the prominent part played by Henriot as the regime's official voice. A high-profile pro-collaboration propagandist from the early days of the Occupation, Henriot rose in January 1944 to become Minister for Information and Propaganda, just as Vichy entered its final and most disreputable stage. From then until his assassination by the Resistance on 28 June 1944, he delivered a relentless programme of 270 self-authored broadcasts on Radio Vichy, playing persistently on the fears and prejudices of a people suffering the pressures and anxieties inflicted by the events that were unfolding, and conversing in forthright terms with his broadcasting adversaries in London and Algiers. This is the role for which Henriot remains best known, on account of his mesmerising rhetoric and delivery. The broadcasts provide a valuable window on Vichy's endgame and an important insight into the themes and strategies of its propaganda. In 1944, Henriot's public presence was huge and he was a media star well before the modern concept had been developed. Whether they admired him or loathed him, the French, quite simply, could not escape him.Notwithstanding both Henriot's wartime status and the importance of the propaganda war in which he was a crucial player, his role has received little rigorous academic attention to date, and a significant gap therefore exists in French historical studies on the Second World War. This project addresses this deficiency and brings a key topic into the scholarly arena. Detailed archival investigations and the close reading of primary materials underpin the project, and are contextualised and informed by the extensive critical literature which exists both on Occupation France and on propaganda and its application in times of conflict. The Fellowship will produce two published outputs. First, a major Critical Edition - the first-ever complete collection of Henriot's 1944 broadcasts - supported by an extensive critical framework and disseminated as a freely accessible online resource. Its Introduction will explore Henriot's war of words directed both at the French and against the Allies. It will demonstrate the centrality of his propaganda to Vichy's programme, examine its methodology and dissemination, and evaluate its significance and reception both nationally and on the international stage. It will advance not only our knowledge of Henriot's specific wartime role and of the context in which he operated, but also our understanding of the function, application and impact of propaganda in wartime generally. A further major benefit of the Edition is that it will transform a currently rare and fragile resource into a permanent, public document, available for exploitation by scholars both within their own research for the advancement of specialist knowledge and for application within the education of students (see Academic Beneficiaries). Second, the Fellowship will produce a 3,000-word article, which will derive from the research undertaken for the Edition but which will be designed to engage with non-specialist audiences. The article will be written for a popular Francophone History magazine (the target is L'Histoire), and will thus complement the impact activity currently in preparation for wider Agnlophone audiences (see Impact Plan.)