Henri Béraud (French pronunciation:[ɑ̃ʁibeʁo]; 21 September 1885 in
Lyon – 24 October 1958 in
Saint-Clément-des-Baleines,
Ré Island), also known as Tristan Audebert, was a French novelist and journalist. He was sentenced to death in 1945, which was later commuted to life imprisonment, for
collaboration with Germany.
He later became known as one of France's best-selling novelists and reporters, and won the
Prix Goncourt in 1922. He was virulently
Anglophobic and to a lesser extent
antisemitic. These factors led him to support
Vichy France.[2] He did this by contributing pieces to the fascist weekly paper Gringoire, indicating his hatred of British forces and criticism of the
Free French.
Typical of Vichy anti-British propaganda was the widely distributed pamphlet published in August 1940 and written by self-proclaimed "professional Anglophobe" Henri Béraud entitled, Faut-il réduire l'Angleterre en esclavage? ("Should England Be Reduced to Slavery?"); the question in the title was merely rhetorical.[3] Additionally, Vichy mixed Anglophobia with racism and
antisemitism to portray the British as a racially degenerate "mixed race" working for Jewish capitalists, in contrast to the "racially pure" peoples on the continent of Europe who were building a "New Order".[4]
His aid of the
Vichy government caused him to be sentenced to death in 1945, but several writers, including
François Mauriac intervened on his behalf. The sentence was commuted by
Charles de Gaulle to life imprisonment. By 1950, he was freed for health reasons. He died eight years later.[5]
^Holman, Valerie; Kelly, Debra (January 2000). France at War in the Twentieth Century: Propaganda, Myth, and Metaphor. Contemporary France (Providence, R.I.). New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-57181-701-3. OCLC 41497185.
^Holman, Valerie; Kelly, Debra (January 2000). France at War in the Twentieth Century: Propaganda, Myth, and Metaphor. Contemporary France (Providence, R.I.). New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-57181-701-3. OCLC 41497185.