‘Courage doesn't consist in forgiveness, we always forgive too much.’ (Journey to the End of the Night).
Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s status as one of the most important writers of the 20th century has always been tainted by his rabid anti-semitism and collaboration with the Nazi occupation of France.
Haunted by his experiences of the Great War – during which he was wounded, received the Médaille militaire for bravery and was discharged in September 1915 with the rank of sergeant – and his belief that France and Germany should never go to war again, Céline imagined a Franco-German union to dominate Europe and insisted it was Jews and communists – who, in Céline’s mind, were interchangeable – standing in the way of this necessary outcome.
Echoing tropes from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Céline, having come to prominence with his novels Journey to the End of the Night and Death on the Instalment Plan, wrote, from 1937 to 1941, a series of pamphlets – Trifles for a Massacre, School for Corpses and A Fine Mess – that railed against ‘International Jewry’ and claimed it was dragging France into war with Hitler, a ‘Jewish war’ that would end with millions of lives lost and the death of France and Europe, which would be overwhelmed by ‘Bolshevism, blacks and Asiatics’. Before it was too late, Céline pleaded, Jews should be ‘grabbed by their pursestrings and strangled with them’.
These scandalous views informed Céline’s appeasement, then hope that Germany would win the war and transparent collaboration with the Nazi occupiers of France, though his virulent anti-semitism often proved too much even for German officials, who regarded him either as ridiculous or insane.
Inevitably, as the conflict drew to a close with German defeat imminent, Céline fled France, with other ‘refugees’ (collaborators, Pétainists, informers) traversing Hitler’s Germany in its death throes, eventually making it to Copenhagen, still under Nazi occupation. When Europe was liberated, Céline found himself the target of a retributive French government, which put in a request with the Danes for Céline’s extradition on treason charges.
Céline was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months while the extradition request was dealt with. Eventually, the Danish courts declined to send Céline back to France and he was released in June 1947. Céline remained in Denmark for the next four years as prosecutors in France continued to gather evidence to bring him to trial for his wartime activities.
Céline and his sympathisers tried to justify his anti-semitism by arguing it was simply the same grotesque hyperbole found in his novels; and that when he spoke of Jews he didn’t really mean Jews but Jews as a metaphor for all those whose avaricious, war-mongering narcissism had driven Europe towards the Apocalypse. Thus, Hitler and the Pope were as much Jews as the industrialist, the banker and journalist.
Others were less generous in their understanding, asserting it wasn’t possible to separate the Spenglerian writer railing against Europe’s decline and France’s decadence with the violent anti-semitic pamphleteer. One fed into the other.
The communist press maintained an unrelenting campaign for harsh punishment. ‘Let Céline come back!’ Le Droit de vivre declared. ‘We’re waiting for him at the station. And we promise him a fine welcome!’
However, the prevailing view was that the ailing, ageing, possibly mad Céline cut a pathetic figure, no longer worthy of arousing feelings of anger or forgiveness.
Andre Breton wrote: ‘I became nauseated by Céline pretty early on: I didn’t need to read further than the first third of Journey to the End of the Night, where I came to grief against some flattering characterisation of a colonial infantry NCO. It seemed to be an outline of some sordid train of thought. As the war approached, I was shown other texts by him that justified my predispositions. I loathe the sensationalist literature that inevitably and quickly descends into slander and calumny, appealing to all that is base in the world.’
While Albert Camus said: ‘Political injustice disgusts me. That is why I believe the trial should be stopped and Céline left in peace. But allow me to add that anti-Semitism and particularly the anti-Semitism of the 1940s, disgusts me every bit as much. That is why I believe that, when Céline gets what he wants, we should stop being bothered with his “case”’
A trial in absentia in February 1951 found Céline guilty on lesser charges of harming national defence (rather than treason), and he was sentenced to a year in prison, a fine of 50,000 francs and denounced as a national disgrace, all of which were superseded by an amnesty that allowed for Céline’s return to France in July 1951.
Céline spent the remaining 10 years of his life trying to manage the contempt and opprobrium that became attached to him, rescue his reputation as a writer of the first order and explain how this could be reconciled with his horrific descent into anti-semitic pathology.
Echoing tropes from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Céline, having come to prominence with his novels Journey to the End of the Night and Death on the Instalment Plan, wrote, from 1937 to 1941, a series of pamphlets – Trifles for a Massacre, School for Corpses and A Fine Mess – that railed against ‘International Jewry’ and claimed it was dragging France into war with Hitler, a ‘Jewish war’ that would end with millions of lives lost and the death of France and Europe, which would be overwhelmed by ‘Bolshevism, blacks and Asiatics’. Before it was too late, Céline pleaded, Jews should be ‘grabbed by their pursestrings and strangled with them’.
These scandalous views informed Céline’s appeasement, then hope that Germany would win the war and transparent collaboration with the Nazi occupiers of France, though his virulent anti-semitism often proved too much even for German officials, who regarded him either as ridiculous or insane.
Inevitably, as the conflict drew to a close with German defeat imminent, Céline fled France, with other ‘refugees’ (collaborators, Pétainists, informers) traversing Hitler’s Germany in its death throes, eventually making it to Copenhagen, still under Nazi occupation. When Europe was liberated, Céline found himself the target of a retributive French government, which put in a request with the Danes for Céline’s extradition on treason charges.
Céline was arrested and imprisoned for 18 months while the extradition request was dealt with. Eventually, the Danish courts declined to send Céline back to France and he was released in June 1947. Céline remained in Denmark for the next four years as prosecutors in France continued to gather evidence to bring him to trial for his wartime activities.
Céline and his sympathisers tried to justify his anti-semitism by arguing it was simply the same grotesque hyperbole found in his novels; and that when he spoke of Jews he didn’t really mean Jews but Jews as a metaphor for all those whose avaricious, war-mongering narcissism had driven Europe towards the Apocalypse. Thus, Hitler and the Pope were as much Jews as the industrialist, the banker and journalist.
Others were less generous in their understanding, asserting it wasn’t possible to separate the Spenglerian writer railing against Europe’s decline and France’s decadence with the violent anti-semitic pamphleteer. One fed into the other.
The communist press maintained an unrelenting campaign for harsh punishment. ‘Let Céline come back!’ Le Droit de vivre declared. ‘We’re waiting for him at the station. And we promise him a fine welcome!’
However, the prevailing view was that the ailing, ageing, possibly mad Céline cut a pathetic figure, no longer worthy of arousing feelings of anger or forgiveness.
Andre Breton wrote: ‘I became nauseated by Céline pretty early on: I didn’t need to read further than the first third of Journey to the End of the Night, where I came to grief against some flattering characterisation of a colonial infantry NCO. It seemed to be an outline of some sordid train of thought. As the war approached, I was shown other texts by him that justified my predispositions. I loathe the sensationalist literature that inevitably and quickly descends into slander and calumny, appealing to all that is base in the world.’
While Albert Camus said: ‘Political injustice disgusts me. That is why I believe the trial should be stopped and Céline left in peace. But allow me to add that anti-Semitism and particularly the anti-Semitism of the 1940s, disgusts me every bit as much. That is why I believe that, when Céline gets what he wants, we should stop being bothered with his “case”’
A trial in absentia in February 1951 found Céline guilty on lesser charges of harming national defence (rather than treason), and he was sentenced to a year in prison, a fine of 50,000 francs and denounced as a national disgrace, all of which were superseded by an amnesty that allowed for Céline’s return to France in July 1951.
Céline spent the remaining 10 years of his life trying to manage the contempt and opprobrium that became attached to him, rescue his reputation as a writer of the first order and explain how this could be reconciled with his horrific descent into anti-semitic pathology.