Horizontal collaboration

With the Release (1944-1945), the Horizontal , the Tondues are shown by the crowd of horizontal collaboration . This fact does not exist in the penal code. Horizontal collaboration indicates the sexual relationships which maintained the women with the German occupant during the Second world war. That the relations between these women and the Germans are of sexual nature or not, shearing is often used as discharge system for a population controlled during four years. Among: 20000 Mowed, truths collaborators côtoient the women in love, as these women who refuse to leave their boyfriend or their German husband, during the evacuations of civilians, those who made only their trade (prostitutes), and of the women delivered to themselves during the conflict and which had to be generally put at the service of the occupant like linen maid or cleaning lady.

Mowed in France (1944-45)

Historical background

The practice of the shearing of the women is found everywhere in occident at each time. This punishment was already applied to the Middle Ages with the adulteresses. The Nazis also made of it a legal sanction by the ordinance of January 31st, 1940 which punished shearing all the women convinced to have had sexual relationships in company theAryan ones. Shearing is also used against the women having collaborated with the occupants. Thus, each release has its batch of mowed. " When one arrived in these countries, they regulated their accounts, of old quarrels of the time of the Germans. They cut the hair of good the femmes" , Ephraïm Grenadou in connection with the end of the first world war tells. Republican Spanish undergoes also this punishment on behalf of the phalangists of Franco. A novel of Ernest Hemingway on the Spanish Révolution begins this way: " It has a beautiful face, thought Robert Jordan. It would be so beautiful if one did not have it tondue". The image of mowed is recurring during all the time of the release and symbolizes at the same time the jubilation and excesses of these moments.

When and where the " take place; tontes" ?

The majority of shearings very early takes place after the advertisement of the release. As soon as the released French territory of the German occupation, begins hunting for the “Kollabos”, and with “horizontal” when the first miss or do not exist. However, in some cases shearing does not take place in the effervescence of the days of the Libération but one week after, or later. One knows the case of Craon, a small town of Mayenne, where shearing took place with the return of the deportees, in September 1945. The two mowed young girls do not have anything to reproach themselves as for the denunciation of resistant returned of deportation, but their fate not having been sealed with the Libération, of aucuns had to find the occasion beautiful to catch up with wasted time.

At the national level, mowed find themselves everywhere, that it is in the areas released by the Alliés, or the Résistance. The urban ones and the rural ones carry out shearings, it does not exist " sanctuaire". Shearing is carried out generally outside. On a estrade, by ground, upright, sitted. All the cases are indexed. It is sometimes carried out into private. Even, in this case, shearing is accompanied by an exhibition, mowed is walked through the city or the village. Carrioles, cars, carts are sometimes used to show mowed.

Mowed

The mowed women are generally young girls not very favoured economically, or woman alones, divorced, widowed or whose husband is still in captivity. The majority had, to survive, do the housework, to wash the linen, or to do all other work of the Germans. Others were mowed for prostitution with the occupant. However, an love affair sometimes preceded shearing. But shearing touches also true collaborators, women preaching the victory of the Nazis, or having used their relations with the occupant to obtain advantages.

The case of the women of Lorient is particular. The pocket of Lorient, which shelters a base of submarines, is besieged by French troops mainly, but is released only the May 8th, 1945. The women and German concubines of the base are not made evacuate when truces make it possible to deal with the civilians. With the Release, the civic Room of the Court of justice of the Morbihan judge 189 women out of 194 for " collaboration sentimentale" (Virgili, Books of IHTP). It will not be mowed but will of course not be judged in due form.

Shearers

It is possible to define two categories of shearers by using the criterion of the “legality” of shearing. Initially, by resistant, FFI, accompanies or carries out a shearing. It as should be said as FFI are of a higher number when the Germans left, and of the actions perpetrated by the resistant ones of the twenty-fifth hour cannot flash back on the whole of the resistant troops. However, FFI can be with the orders of their hierarchy, even if the choice of the people to be mowed does not seem to fall to the officers, but more with the public rumor. In which case, FFI act on behalf of the " justice populaire" , as it was the case of several summary executions at the time of the Libération of Paris.

In the second place, a second category of people also returns justice but by a personal initiative, where the retributive citizens are generally accompanied by a crowd, but not necessarily. These people, without having to be able or of hierarchy, decide they-even shearing and designation of mowed.

Motivation of the shearers

The principal reproach makes with mowed remains to have had relationship with the occupant. The reports/ratios do not need to be intimate to become reprehensible. The fact on their premises of working for the Germans, or, satisfied without evil those which make truths with the easy means of amalgams. That they are supposed, or proven, the most various reports/ratios become intimate in the public rumor. This charge allows all the overflows, the “pecheress” being lowered of itself to the row of the occupants.

The Libération is one moment of jubilation but it is also the moment of the revenge on a whole people against those which could appreciate or help the occupants, in any way, during four long years. Shearings practiced at this time do not call a motivation other than revenge. The shearers generally ensure to have done nothing but owe them, whether they are in uniform or not. Others do not embarrass a justification with their gesture, which would be natural at the end of an occupation.

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