Jacques Benoist-Méchin
See also: Benoist
Jacques Benoist-Méchin , born on July 1st 1901 with Paris, dead the February 24th 1983 with Paris, is a Intellectuel, Journaliste, Historien, Musicologue and politician French.
The life of Jacques Benoist-Méchin can be divided into three distinct periods, whose pivot is the Second world war.
- Before 1939, it particularly leads the existence of a journalist to the fact of the international questions, whose parameters are deeply affected by the exit of the Great War.
- the period of its life which runs from 1939 to 1954 is marked by its role in the Vichyist policy of collaboration. Its action is particularly thorough in 1941, whereas he seeks to support the relations between Hitler and his hierarchically superior, François Darlan, in order to associate France with the direction of “New Europe”. He resigns in 1942 of the Vichy government, not being more in agreement with the ideas of Pierre Laval (who replaced François Darlan) on the Franco-German relations. That justifies its imprisonment in 1944, the behavior of its lawsuit in 1947 and its detention until 1954.
- its coming out of prison, it remains to him to live thirty years, during which it develops its work of writer and historian, focused in particular on the history of the Arab world. It is used besides there by various governments for the needs for the French policy in the Middle East.
Biography
Childhood and adolescence and youth
Benoist-Méchin was born in a very middle-class medium. His/her father is baron d' Empire, which undoubtedly contributes to develop its interest for the Napoleonean time. Its childhood is however difficult, in particular on the financial plan, from the inconsistent attitude of his/her father. It is on the other hand very close to his mother, to which there remains very attached until its death, at a advanced age, seeking to show itself always worthy of its waitings.It appears very gifted for the studies, able very young person to translate the old authors, and develops a literary and musical sensitivity acute. It leads it to obtain an interview with Proust in 1922 and to maintain the bonds with most famous representing musical school of Arcueil, Henri Sauguet, his exact contemporary.
The First World War
Benoist-Méchin is too young to take share with the engagements actively, but the war makes him become aware of the need for working with the pacification of Europe and, especially, with the Franco-German reconciliation. In 1923, whereas it fulfills its military obligations, it is marked by the French occupation of the Rhineland decided by Poincaré and which is obviously not, according to him, likely to support this reconciliation.
Journalist
From 1925 to 1927, he works for the agency of American information International News Service. He collaborates then in the new Europe of Louise Weiss. He is thus journalist at the time of the drafting of the Briand memorandum by Alexis Leger. Besides at the time of its lawsuit, Benoist-Méchin is denied the charges of germanophilie by evoking its sensitivity to the European questions:I was never germanophile in the direction where one would like to make it hear today, namely that I would have preferred Germany with my own country… When I am of passage to the SDN, in Geneva, with Briand, and that Briand speaks about European Federation, I listen to it and I think that it rightly… But as for knowknowing if I am germanophile, as from the moment when Germany occupies the three fifths of the French territory, that, Sirs, it are not possible, that does not existthe Benoist-Méchin lawsuit. Integral report of the debates. Jean-Louis Aujol, lawyer at the Court of Appeal of Paris, Albin-Michel. Nevertheless, which Louise Weiss reproaches him when it congédie, it is its admiration for Hitler, which is all the more obvious as he devotes a biography to him, recalling its irresistible rise. It is gradually led to see in Hitler a regenerator of Europe, then, this one once dominated, its federator. Führer appears thus as a misadventure of Alexandre the Great party with the conquest of the Persian Empire whose equivalent in 1941 is, mutatis-mutandis , the Soviet Union.
The second world war
Before working for the Vichy government, Benoist-Méchin is used by the services of Georges Scapini, charged with coming to assistance of the French prisoners held in Germany.
It takes a share with collaboration, at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. To justify its engagement, he states:
an overcome country has the choice to be submitted to its winner or to be with him; I choose to be with him
What is worth to him to be seen bringing a lawsuit in 1947, to be condemned to death, pardoned by Vincent Auriol, then to be imprisoned in Clairvaux, and finally released in 1954.
Benoist-Méchin and de Gaulle
It is not a paradox if the Général de Gaulle admired it much: in 1944 it will make reprint Histoire of the German army to several hundreds of specimens for the training of the staff officers. De Gaulle rightly sees in this work the best comprehension of the political history of Germany and the military problems of the century.
De Gaulle “would have forgiven” in Benoist-Méchin her error, setting with the account of one disturbed time a typical blindness. Moreover, Benoist-Méchin had not committed crimes. (One could distinguish his case from that of Robert Brasillach, fascinated by " the virile force 1" of Germany fascistic, that the de Gaulle general refused of gracier because it had confused it, on a photograph, with Jacques Doriot, the chief of the French Popular party, covered German uniform). It seems besides that de Gaulle, however very restive with respect to people having played the German chart, used Benoist-Méchin for certain activities of parallel diplomacy for her Arab policy and in reasons of sympathies which he had kept in several countries of the area.
Work of historian
After its coming out of prison, it is devoted to the drafting of biographies, initially on the dynasty of Saudi Arabia, then with large characters of European origin having had activities out of Europe. The common topic of this biographical work, it is the role of the individual of exception which changes the course of the History and tries to create an empire to give form and duration to the union of the men of a civilization. Like Lawrence of Arabia, its deep sympathy to the Arab world, which appears in the biographies of Lyautey, of Lawrence or Ibn Séoud, expresses its respect and its admiration for a rich and creative civilization, victim of the schemes of the European imperialism. Contrary to part of the European right-hand side, it does not assign to him the destiny of colonies of the occident.The French government will be able to use with opportunism the relationships of trust that its work and its friendships enabled him to weave in the Arab world.
It should be said that, although being let take with the trap sirens Nazis, Benoist-Méchin was a very cultivated spirit; writer, it admires Proust, of which it could obtain a maintenance of several hours right in 1922, the year of his death; distinguished musicologist, he is the friend of Henri Sauguet, of the school of Arcueil.
His/her friends
- Marcel Proust
- Pierre Drieu La Rochelle
- Arno Breker
- Otto Abetz
- Ernst Jünger
Publications
-
Series of the the longest Dream of the History :
- History of the German army (1936)
- Explanations on Mein Kampf d' Adolphe Hitler, the Book which changed the face of the World (1939)
- the harvest of forty. Newspaper of a prisoner of war (1941)
- Ukraine, origins with Stalin (1941)
- What remains. Letters of soldiers fallen to the field from honor, 1914-1918. (1942)
- Mustapha Kemal. The death of an Empire (1954)
- Ibn Séoud. Birth of a Kingdom (1955)
- Sixty days which shook the occident (1956)
- One spring Arab (1959)
- king Saud, or the East per hour of the changings (1960)
- Two African summers (1972)
- With broken destinies (1974)
- Fayçal, king d' Arabie (1975)
- the man and his gardens. Metamorphoses of the terrestrial paradise (1975)
- With Marcel Proust (1977)
- Of the defeat to the disaster (1984-1985, posthumous)
- the time proof (1989-1993, posthumous)
- History of Alaouites (1994, posthumous)
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