Louis Darquier de Pellepoix

Who was Louis Darquier de Pellepoix?

Louis Darquier, better known under his assumed name Louis Darquier de Pellepoix was Commissioner for Jewish Affairs under the Vichy Régime.

A veteran of World War I, Darquier had been active in Fascist and antisemitic politics in France in the 1930s, being a member, at various times, of Action Française, Croix-de-Feu and Jeunesses Patriotes. On 6 February 1934 he was injured at the Place de la Concorde riot, and, according to the Janet Maslin, writing in The New York Times in 2006, "parlayed new status as a 'man of 6 February' into a leadership role." During this period he began collaborating with the noted antisemitic publisher Ulrich Fleischhauer's Welt-Dienst organization based in Erfurt, Germany.

Darquier's extreme views were well-publicized. In 1937, he said, at a public meeting, "We must, with all urgency, resolve the Jewish problem, whether by expulsion, or massacre." A British report in 1942 called him "one of the most notorious anti-semites in France". At Nazi Germany's behest, he was appointed to head Vichy's Commissariat General aux Questions Juives in May 1942, succeeding Xavier Vallat, whom the SS in France found too moderate.