Paul Baudouin
Paul Baudouin[1] (19 December 1894 – 10 February 1964)[2] was a French banker[3] with the Banque d'Indochine[4] who became a politician and Foreign Minister of France in 1940. He was instrumental in the relocation of the French Government to Vichy and for arranging a cessation of hostilities between France and Germany in June that year, resulting in an Armistice.
Enters government
Following the fall of the troubled French Government of Édouard Daladier, on 20 March 1940, his Finance Minister Paul Reynard was asked by President Albert Lebrun to form a new Cabinet, even though he only had a majority of one. Daladier remained, for a few more months, as Minister of Defence. One of the civilian members appointed to the new Cabinet was Paul Baudouin, a known opponent of France's declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939, as Under-Secretary of State to the Prime Minister.[5][6] On 16 June 1940 following the resignation of Reynard, after just two and a half months in office, Baudouin joined Marshal Philippe Petain's new Cabinet as Foreign Minister.
Soon, this young technocrat, attentive to the rising generation, would be the centre of a Roman Catholic/Action Française cohort set on re-educating French young people, inspired by a host of new programmes of Marshal Pétain's government, drawing upon his Catholic scout or Revue des jeunes contacts.
Armistice
On 17 June 1940 the Spanish Ambassador to France telegraphed his Foreign Ministry in Madrid:
- At midnight, M. Baudouin, the new Foreign Minister in the Pétain Government, telephoned asking me to come at once to the President's Palace where he was awaiting me. I was received by M. Charles-Roux, Secretary-General of the Foreign Minister, and taken to Baudouin. The latter said that at this, the most critical and the saddest moment in the history of France, he wished to entrust a decisive mission to the Spanish Government, in particular to Generalissimo Franco, who was held in such high esteem by Marshal Pétain. As further bloodshed would serve no military purpose now, the French Government wished the Spanish Government to transmit to Germany with all speed the request to cease hostilities at once and at the same time make known the peace terms proposed by Germany. I asked him to specify whether he meant terms for an armistice or peace terms, or both. He replied that armistice terms were, of course, always a temporary expedient (circunstanciales) and that the French Government was interested in knowing the peace terms. It should be understood that although France was in a state of complete military defeat and faced with a numerically superior enemy she could, nevertheless, not accept terms incompatible with her dignity and honour but would, in that case, prefer to yield to superior force and transfer her Government abroad. The Minister again stressed the extreme urgency of the message. I replied in a manner compatible with the serious nature of his statements and assured him that I would convey the message to the Spanish Government at once. Baudouin will be in his office awaiting a reply from 10 o'clock this morning.[7]
This request was in the hands of the German Government, and Hitler, on the same day, and was acknowledged by the German Foreign Ministry Secretary of State, Baron von Weizsacker, who drew up fifteen points to be considered in any armistice negotiations.[8]
From November 1940 Baudouin was also briefly Minister of Information. He resigned from the government of his own accord on 2 January 1941.
Post-government
Between 1941 and 1944 he returned to the Bank of Indo-China, as Chairman. However, after the war he was charged with collaborating with the Germans, and on 3 March 1947 he was sentenced to five years hard labour. The sentence was commuted in 1949.
Sources
- Baudouin, Paul, The Private Diaries of Paul Baudouin, London, 1948, p.153.
References
- ↑ Association X-Résistance, Ministres de Vichy issus de l'École polytechnique, Paul Baudouin (Archive)
- ↑ Chan,C.Peter, @ http://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=533
- ↑ Williams, Charles, Pétain, Little Brown (Time Warner Book Group UK), London, 2005, p.306, ISBN|0-316-86127-8.
- ↑ Werth, Alexander, France 1940-1955, Robert Hale, London, 1957, p.32.
- ↑ Williams, 2005, p. 306
- ↑ Warner, Geoffrey, Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1968, p. 163.
- ↑ Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945 by an editorial board, Series D, vol.ix, Her Majesty's Stationary Office, London, 1956, p.590.
- ↑ German Documents, 1956, p.591.
