Paul Ferdonnet (28 April 1901 – 4 August 1945), dubbed "the Stuttgart traitor" () by the French press, was a French

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

and Nazi sympathizer who was executed for

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

in 1945.

Biography

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

sympathizer, Ferdonnet was known for having published an

anti-semitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

book, ''La Guerre Juive'' (''The Jewish War''). He relocated to

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

in the 1930s and was an employee of Radio-Stuttgart, where he worked on

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

broadcasts in French aimed at promoting the Nazi regime and demoralizing French troops and civilians. Ferdonnet was identified in 1939 by French intelligence as the leading French speaker of Radio-Stuttgart. The previously obscure Ferdonnet became famous and notorious, claiming that Britain would let France fight and die on its behalf: "Britain provides the machines, France provides the bodies." After the fall of France, transmissions in French were progressively discontinued, and Ferdonnet stopped working for Radio-Stuttgart around 1942. He was arrested after the fall of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and executed for

in 1945. During his trial, Ferdonnet vainly asserted that he had not been the speaker. Some historians consider that he might have merely worked for Radio-Stuttgart as a translator of the scripts submitted by the Germans, his translations being read by another Frenchman. According to writer Maurice-Yvan Sicard (writing under the pseudonym Saint-Paulien and himself as a former collaborationist), the actual speaker was "a former actor named Obrecht," an actor who was never found. Experts on this subject considered this evidence void.Saint-Paulien, ''Histoire de la Collaboration'', L'Esprit Nouveau, 1964

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferdonnet, Paul 1901 births 1945 deaths French broadcasters for Nazi Germany French male non-fiction writers French radio presenters Nazi collaborators shot at the Fort de Montrouge 20th-century French male writers