Pierre Etienne Laval

Pierre Laval was born in Châteldon, near [about:blank Vichy]. He served as French prime minister from 1931 to 1932 and from 1935 to 1936. After the Nazis occupied the northern part of France in June 1940, Laval became the second-in-command to Marshal Philippe Pétain, who agreed to a policy of collaboration with the Nazis and the establishment of a government in the unoccupied zone of France. Pétain fired Laval on 13 December 1940. The Nazis demanded that Pétain reinstate Laval and on 18 April 1942 he was appointed prime minister. Laval abetted the arrests of thousands of Jews and their deportation to Nazi extermination centers while maintaining a public fiction that they were resettled to work in labor camps in Eastern Europe. Pierre Laval allowed the CGQJ (Commissariat général aux questions juives) to search for the Schloss Collection. He supported the arrest of Henry Schloss in Nice and Lucien Schloss in Lamastre (Ardèche) in April 1943 in order to locate their father’s collection. On 16 April 1943, after the seizure of the collection, Laval insisted that it be returned to its storage facility at the Château de Chambon once the Germans had had an opportunity to inspect it. Instead, Rudolf Schleier of the German embassy in Paris met with Laval to inform him of Hitler’s interest in the Schloss Collection for his museum project in Linz. Laval agreed to sell all or parts of the collection to Hitler and authorized his minister of National Education, Abel Bonnard, to oversee negotiations for its sale, provided that France’s interest in the collection would be respected through the exercise of preemption by the Louvre on parts of the collection. Laval agreed to Hitler’s acquisition of 262 Schloss paintings for the Linz museum while the Louvre acquired for France through pre-emption 49 Dutch and Flemish paintings for its permanent collection. After the war, Laval was sentenced to death on 9 October 1945 and executed by firing squad two days later. Literature: Yad Vashem, Shoah Resource Center. “Pierre Laval” [about:blank https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206402.pdf]. Karlsgodt, Elizabeth. [about:blank Defending National Treasures: French Art and Heritage Under Vichy]. Stanford University Press 2011.

Warner, Geoffrey. Pierre Laval and the Eclipse of France, 1931-1945. Mcmillan 1969.