Laval: ‘I hope Axis wins’ (6-22-42)

The Pittsburgh Press (June 22, 1942)

Laval: ‘I hope Axis wins’

French people urged to work for Nazis

Vichy, June 22 – (French broadcast recorded by UP in London)
Premier Pierre Laval told the French people in a radio speech tonight that:

I hope for a German victory, without which the danger of communism cannot be eliminated in Europe.

Laval also said that Adolf Hitler has refused to release any of 1,250,000 French prisoners of war unless proportionate numbers of French workers are sent to the Reich. He said:

Workers of France! I appeal to you. It is for the prisoners’ sake that you must go. It is for France’s sake.

Laval said that the recent escape of Gen. Henri Honoré Giraud from a German prison fortress to France by way of Switzerland had so angered the Germans that all efforts to obtain a mass liberation of French prisoners were frustrated.

The chief of government said that his government would strive to achieve a “reconciliation” with both Germany and Italy.

He said:

I hope for a German victory because of the Red peril.

Laval said that a “young and more human republic must be born” in France.

Laval spoke on the second anniversary of France’s signing of the armistice with Germany and France at Compiegne, in the same railroad car where the armistice of World War I had been signed 22 years before.

The Compiegne armistice two years ago today ended France’s 45 days of resistance and her military collapse.