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

在战争时期，对信息的控制和对思想的影响的争夺，就像战区本身一样，是整个冲突的核心战场。在1939年至1945年的战争舞台上，宣传发挥了最强大的作用。当时，盟军与维希和柏林之间展开了一场持续不断的宣传战，电台是其主要武器。在这个舞台上，在这场口水战中，最臭名昭著、最娴熟的法国声音来自菲利普·亨利奥，他被称为“法国戈培尔”。要理解维希政府宣传的复杂性、方法论和影响，就必须分析和评价亨里奥特作为政府官方代言人所发挥的重要作用。1944年1月，当维希政府进入最后也是最不光彩的阶段时，亨利奥特升任新闻和宣传部长。从那时起，直到1944年6月28日被抵抗组织暗杀，他在维希广播电台连续播发了270篇自编的广播节目，持续地利用人们的恐惧和偏见，这些人正遭受着正在展开的事件所带来的压力和焦虑，并与他在伦敦和阿尔及尔的广播对手坦率地交谈。这是亨利奥特最为人所知的角色，因为他迷人的修辞和表达。这些广播为我们提供了一扇宝贵的窗口，让我们得以了解维希政府的最后阶段，也让我们得以深入了解其宣传的主题和策略。在1944年，亨里奥特的公众形象是巨大的，他是一个媒体明星早在现代概念还没有发展。不管他们是钦佩他还是厌恶他，法国人都逃不掉他。尽管亨利奥特的战时地位和宣传战的重要性，他是一个至关重要的球员，他的角色几乎没有得到严格的学术关注，因此在法国的历史研究中存在一个显著的差距。该项目解决了这一不足，并将一个关键话题带入学术领域。详细的档案调查和对主要材料的仔细阅读是该项目的基础，并通过大量关于占领法国和宣传及其在冲突时期的应用的批评文献进行背景化和了解。该研究金将出版两项产出。首先，一个主要的批评版——亨里奥特1944年广播的第一个完整集合——由一个广泛的批评框架支持，并作为一个免费的在线资源传播。它的引言将探讨亨利奥特对法国和对协约国的口水战。它将展示他对维希计划的宣传的中心地位，检查其方法和传播，并评估其在国内和国际舞台上的重要性和接受程度。这不仅有助于我们了解亨利奥特战时的具体角色和他所处的环境，还有助于我们理解战时宣传的功能、应用和影响。该版本的另一个主要好处是，它将把目前罕见和脆弱的资源转变为永久的公共文件，供学者在他们自己的研究中利用，以提高专业知识，并在学生教育中应用（见学术受益人）。第二，该奖学金将编写一篇3000字的文章，这篇文章将来自为该版所进行的研究，但其目的是让非专业读者参与。这篇文章将为流行的法语历史杂志（目标是L'Histoire）撰写，因此将补充目前为更广泛的法语读者准备的影响活动（见影响计划）。

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.)