On 24 January 1946, Jean Luchaire, former editor-in-chief of Les Nouveaux Temps newspaper, was sentenced to death, stripped of his civil rights and had his property confiscated by the French High Court.
Since the beginning of his career in journalism - even before the establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany - Luchaire advocated reconciliation between France and Germany. In 1930, he met Otto Abetz, the future German ambassador to Paris and one of the leaders of the German military administration in occupied France, and became friends with him.
After the regime change in Germany, Luchaire remained faithful to the idea of cooperation between the two powers. In November 1940, he founded a collaborationist newspaper Les Nouveaux Temps with the approval of Abetz and became the mouthpiece of the Third Reich in France. The newspaper was commercially unsuccessful - all expenses were covered by German funds.
In 1941, Luchaire became head of the so-called the Corporation nationale de la presse française (National Corporation of French Press), which brought together the entire collaborationist press in occupied France.
Shortly before the liberation of Paris, in August 1944, Luchaire left France with other supporters of the Vichy regime and settled in Sigmaringen Castle in Germany. There they declared a Vichy government in exile – the French Governmental Commission for the Defence of National Interests. Luchaire continued his journalistic activities as commissioner for information: he founded the collaborationist radio station, Ici la France, and the official newspaper, La France.
On 23 April 1945 Allied forces entered Sigmaringen. Luchaire managed to escape, but not for long. He tried to seek political asylum in Liechtenstein and Switzerland, but in May 1945, was arrested by the Americans in the Italian Alps, handed over to France and tried for collaborationism.
On 22 February 1946, Jean Luchaire was executed at the Fort de Châtillon near Paris.
Sources:
The newspaper “Izvestia”, No. 23 (8939) from 26 January 1946
