Pierre-Antoine Cousteau
Encyclopedia
Pierre-Antoine Cousteau was a French far right polemicist and journalist. He was the brother of the famous explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau
.
, Gironde
, and educated in the United States
as well as the Lycée Louis-le-Grand
, Cousteau served in the military before working as a translator and a meteorologist and for New York
's Credit Alliance Corporation. He then became a journalist for left-wing papers such as Regards or Monde and was associated with pacifism
and the Anti-Stalinist left
.
in the early 1930s, and was drawn to anti-Semitism
and anti-democracy, writing for Coup de Patte and then Je suis partout
, a journal of which he became editor in 1932. In this role he was close to Pierre Gaxotte
, who convinced him of fascism.
He went to Nazi Germany
in 1936 with Robert Brasillach
and Georges Blond
and then Spain
in 1938 with Brasillach and Maurice Bardèche
. Whilst the trips helped to develop his fascism, his attendance at the Nuremberg Rally
of 1937 left him of the opinion that Nazism
was impressive but not without its flaws.
he sought internment
for the Jews
and justified his stance by stating in 1943 that 'we are not opportunists. We remain just plain fascists'. His other wartime roles included a spell as editor of Paris-Soir
in 1941, service on the general secretariat of Milice
from 1942 and a series of written works for a variety of journals, including Combats, the militant journal of Henry Charbonneau
. He was particularly noted for both his anti-Semitism
and his anti-Americanism
and in 1942 he produced his most notorious work L'Amérique juive in which he sought to demonstrate how the United States
was controlled by Jews
and how these Jews were bent on controlling the world.
In August 1944, he relocated to Bad Mergentheim
where he helped run a French newspaper and radio station, before ultimately fleeing to Switzerland
. Arrested at Innsbruck
he was condemned to death in November 1946 before the sentence was commuted to life with hard labour. Cousteau would later justify his collabration by stating that "I wanted a German victory because it represented the last chance of the white man, while the democracies represented the end of the white man".
in 1954 he went on to edit the extreme nationalist journal Rivarol, as well as contributing to Henry Coston
's Lectures Françaises, Jeune Nation, Charivari, Dimanche-Matin and others. He was also associated with the minor Union des Intellectuels Indépendants movement. His brother, whose fame was growing at the time, had begged Cousteau to retire from public life following his release from prison but he refused, insisting that it was a matter of honour that he continue to agitate. His most well-known post-war work was Les lois de l'hospitalité in which he justified collaboration, arguing "we [the collaborators] did not commit an error of judgement. There were just too many tanks and too many planes against us".
He fell seriously ill in the late 1950s and had to withdraw from politics, requiring regular blood transfusions to survive. He died age 52 in Paris
.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water...
.
Leftist activism
He was born in Saint-André-de-CubzacSaint-André-de-Cubzac
Saint-André-de-Cubzac is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in south-western France.-Population:-Personalities:Jacques-Yves Cousteau is buried in the Cousteau family plot.It is also the birthplace of Jean Marie Antoine de Lanessan....
, Gironde
Gironde
For the Revolutionary party, see Girondists.Gironde is a common name for the Gironde estuary, where the mouths of the Garonne and Dordogne rivers merge, and for a department in the Aquitaine region situated in southwest France.-History:...
, and educated in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as well as the Lycée Louis-le-Grand
Lycée Louis-le-Grand
The Lycée Louis-le-Grand is a public secondary school located in Paris, widely regarded as one of the most rigorous in France. Formerly known as the Collège de Clermont, it was named in king Louis XIV of France's honor after he visited the school and offered his patronage.It offers both a...
, Cousteau served in the military before working as a translator and a meteorologist and for New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's Credit Alliance Corporation. He then became a journalist for left-wing papers such as Regards or Monde and was associated with pacifism
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
and the Anti-Stalinist left
Anti-Stalinist left
The anti-Stalinist left is an element of left-wing politics that is critical of Joseph Stalin's policies and the political system that developed in the Soviet Union under his rule...
.
Move right
Cousteau abandoned his communismCommunism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in the early 1930s, and was drawn to anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
and anti-democracy, writing for Coup de Patte and then Je suis partout
Je suis partout
Je suis partout was a French newspaper founded by Jean Fayard, first published on 29 November 1930. It was placed under the direction of Pierre Gaxotte until 1939...
, a journal of which he became editor in 1932. In this role he was close to Pierre Gaxotte
Pierre Gaxotte
-Biography:Gaxotte was born in Revigny-sur-Ornain, Meuse. He began his career as a history teacher at the Lycée Charlemagne and later worked as a columnist for Le Figaro...
, who convinced him of fascism.
He went to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in 1936 with Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...
and Georges Blond
Georges Blond
Georges Blond Georges Blond Georges Blond (born Jean-Marie Hoedick 11 July 1906 in Marseille - died 16 March 1989 in Paris, was a French writer. A prolific writer of mostly history but also other topics including fiction, Blond was also involved in far right political activity....
and then Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in 1938 with Brasillach and Maurice Bardèche
Maurice Bardèche
Maurice Bardèche was a French essayist, literary and art critic, journalist, and one of the leading exponents of Neo-Fascism in post-World War II Europe...
. Whilst the trips helped to develop his fascism, his attendance at the Nuremberg Rally
Nuremberg Rally
The Nuremberg Rally was the annual rally of the NSDAP in Germany, held from 1923 to 1938. Especially after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, they were large Nazi propaganda events...
of 1937 left him of the opinion that Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
was impressive but not without its flaws.
Collaboration
Cousteau was called back to the army in 1939 and captured in 1940, although Brasillach secured his release and he returned to Je suis partout, eventually succeeding Brasillach as political director in 1943. A strong believer in collaborationCollaboration
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
he sought internment
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
for the Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and justified his stance by stating in 1943 that 'we are not opportunists. We remain just plain fascists'. His other wartime roles included a spell as editor of Paris-Soir
Paris-Soir
Paris-Soir was a large-circulation daily newspaper in Paris, France from 1923-1944.Its first issue came out in 4 October 1923. After June 11, 1940, the same publisher, Jean Prouvost, continued its publication in Vichy France: Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon, Marseille, and Vichy while in occupied Paris, it...
in 1941, service on the general secretariat of Milice
Milice
The Milice française , generally called simply Milice, was a paramilitary force created on January 30, 1943 by the Vichy Regime, with German aid, to help fight the French Resistance. The Milice's formal leader was Prime Minister Pierre Laval, though its chief of operations, and actual leader, was...
from 1942 and a series of written works for a variety of journals, including Combats, the militant journal of Henry Charbonneau
Henry Charbonneau
Henry Charbonneau was a French far right politician and writer....
. He was particularly noted for both his anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
and his anti-Americanism
Anti-Americanism
The term Anti-Americanism, or Anti-American Sentiment, refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, culture or government of the United States...
and in 1942 he produced his most notorious work L'Amérique juive in which he sought to demonstrate how the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
was controlled by Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and how these Jews were bent on controlling the world.
In August 1944, he relocated to Bad Mergentheim
Bad Mergentheim
Bad Mergentheim is a town in the Main-Tauber district in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.-History:Mergentheim is mentioned in chronicles as early as 1058, as the residence of the family of the counts of Hohenlohe, who early in the 13th century assigned the greater part of their estates in...
where he helped run a French newspaper and radio station, before ultimately fleeing to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Arrested at Innsbruck
Innsbruck
- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...
he was condemned to death in November 1946 before the sentence was commuted to life with hard labour. Cousteau would later justify his collabration by stating that "I wanted a German victory because it represented the last chance of the white man, while the democracies represented the end of the white man".
Post-war activity
Released under an amnestyAmnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
in 1954 he went on to edit the extreme nationalist journal Rivarol, as well as contributing to Henry Coston
Henry Coston
Henry Coston was a French far right and anti-Semitic journalist, collaborationist and conspiracy theorist....
's Lectures Françaises, Jeune Nation, Charivari, Dimanche-Matin and others. He was also associated with the minor Union des Intellectuels Indépendants movement. His brother, whose fame was growing at the time, had begged Cousteau to retire from public life following his release from prison but he refused, insisting that it was a matter of honour that he continue to agitate. His most well-known post-war work was Les lois de l'hospitalité in which he justified collaboration, arguing "we [the collaborators] did not commit an error of judgement. There were just too many tanks and too many planes against us".
He fell seriously ill in the late 1950s and had to withdraw from politics, requiring regular blood transfusions to survive. He died age 52 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.