Petain Hero or Traitor: The Untold Story

by Herbert R. Lottman

Biography of Marceal Philippe petain, World War I French General and head of the Vichy France government ac the defeat to the Nazis in 1940

444 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Herbert Lottman was an American journalist and author who spend most of his life in France.
He majored in English and biology at the University of New York, graduating in 1948 and earned a master’s in English from Columbia in 1951.
In 1956 he moved to Paris and became the manager of the Paris branch of the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He also was writing for Publishers Weekly for four decades and wrote a novel, Detours From the Grand Tour.
But he is most reknowned for his biographies on French personalities and his writings on French intellectual life.

Reviews

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are inclined to having your blood boil, read this, or probably any other bio of General Petain. While not the best bio ever written, the author tried to show both sides of whether history will show that Petain is a hero or a traitor. While he clearly was a hero of WWI, his action in the 30's left much to be desire and his role as leader of Vichy France certainly was terrible, with his undoing of the previous constitution, his engagement of persecution of politicians and citizens and his collaboration with Hitler and the Nazis. He was spared the death sentence by de Gaulle, the man who Petain had sentenced to death just a few years earlier for being a traitor when de Gaulle left France to carry on the fight against Germany.