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See Also in
Notorious Lives

François Darlan

Jacques Doriot

Adolf Hitler

Pierre Laval

Philippe Pétain.

Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives

Joseph Darnand

by Shawncey Webb

Vichy head of the secret police

Major offense: Collaboration with the enemy

Active: July, 1941-June 25, 1945

Locale: France

Sentence: Death by firing squad

Early Life

Joseph Darnand (dahr-nahn) was born in Coligny; his father was a railroad employee. Darnand was eighteen years old and working as a cabinetmaker when World War I began and he volunteered for duty. During the course of the war he received seven citations for bravery, including a medal awarded personally by General Philippe Pétain. Darnand developed an intense loyalty to Pétain.

After the war, he worked again as a cabinetmaker, then founded a transportation company in Nice. During this time, he became a member of several right-wing political organizations, some of which were paramilitary. In 1925, he joined Action Française; then in 1928 he became a member of les Croix-de-Feux. In 1936, he became a member of the neo-fascist Parti Populaire Français, founded by Jacques Doriot.

Darnand once again volunteered for military service at the beginning of World War II. He was mobilized in 1939 and fought along the Maginot line. He was captured and was a prisoner of war in the camp at Pithiviers but managed to escape and rejoin Pétain’s forces. After the armistice, Darnand returned to Nice. There he was very active in the Légion Française des Combattants (French Legion of Veterans), which was approved by the Vichy government. He was in charge of a recruiting office for the Legion des Volontaires Françaises Contre le Bolchevisme (LVF).

Criminal Career

Soon Darnand found the organization’s policies too moderate and in July, 1941, established the Service d’ Ordre Legionnaire, whose purpose was to combat the opponents of Pétain’s National Revolution by fighting against the French Resistance and by aiding in the finding and arresting of Jews. On January 1, 1943, the organization was officially recognized and renamed the Milice Française, which was, in reality, the secret police of the Vichy government. In October, 1943, Darnand swore an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler and became a member of the Waffen Schutzstaffel (SS). Two months later, he was named head of the Milice. In this position, he worked with the German forces to strengthen the effort against the French Resistance (Maquis). The Milice, under his direction, carried out summary executions at random and assassinations of politicians opposed to Vichy and Hitler. Darnand also established a special force to combat the black market. He continued to play a major role in the Vichy regime and was named secretary of the interior in December of 1943. In September, 1944, he followed Pétain to Germany. There, at Sigmaringen, he joined Pétain’s government in exile.

Legal Action and Outcome

Darnand was captured by the English on June 25, 1945, in northern Italy, where he had been sent in pursuit of French partisans. French authorities, who returned him to France. He was brought to trial before the Haut Cour de Justice, where he was judged and condemned to death by firing squad on October 3, 1945. The sentence was carried out at Fort Châtillon on October 10, 1945.

Impact

Joseph Darnand made a major contribution to the Vichy government’s fight against the French Resistance. His establishment of the Milice, an all-French police force, strengthened the Vichy regime’s ability to find and interrogate those working in the resistance. Darnand provides insight into one aspect of the mentality of collaboration. He had heroically served France in World War I and had defended the Maginot line against the German invasion, yet during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, he had become convinced of the value of fascism as a political ideology and of its appropriateness as a form of government for France. Coupled with his devotion to Pétain, this belief inspired him to work with the Germans.

Further Reading

1 

Gildea, Robert. Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation, 1940-45. London: Pan, 2003. Looks at interaction between the army of occupation and local officials and how ordinary French citizens responded to the occupation. Archival and personal interview sources.

2 

Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 1940-44. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Comprehensive and detailed, this work discusses collaborators, resistance workers, the social and political atmosphere of the period, and the Vichy regime. Distinguishes between myths and realities of the war years.

3 

Ousby, Ian. Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940-1944. London: Pimlico, 1999. Extensive treatment of the Vichy regime, especially its policy of persecuting Jews, communists, and dissenters.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Webb, Shawncey. "Joseph Darnand." Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2007. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLN_1150.
APA 7th
Webb, S. (2007). Joseph Darnand. In C. L. Bankston III (Ed.), Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Webb, Shawncey. "Joseph Darnand." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2007. Accessed September 17, 2026. online.salempress.com.