Masons helped cause the Fall of France?

Point taken. I have the impression that they were strongly pro secular state and freedom of conscience, however.

 

Its what Petain believed.
The Freemasions, along with Jews, Communists, Socialists and other assorted liberals were the people blamed by the Vichy regime for France's weakness in 1940.
It should also be noted that the Vichy regime was supported to a large extent by the leadership of the Catholic church in France, and they did see the Freemasions as anti-clerical in that they viewed that the Freemasions were behind the increasing secularization of French life in the early 20th century.

 

Well, If I can be pedantic for a moment. They're pro-freedom of conscience, but not particularly pro-secular state. Freemasonry is neither a political/religious movement nor a substitute for either.
It does seem strange that an organisation which only admits religious/spiritual people keeps being accused of promoting secularization.

 

This is off topic, but you reminded me of something that happened here in Billings a couple of years ago. Just as a new bride and groom exited a local church, the steeple was struck by lightning and set afire! Not an auspicious beginning to a marriage, if that is seen as a message from above!

 

Gods a funny geezer really...I aint quite made me mind up about him yet...Maybe he wants us all to be masons.

 

Just as an aside, and I remember asking this a long time ago; there are documented cases from WW1 of soldiers avoiding death by giving a masonic sign called the sign of grief and distress, which resulted in them being captured rather than killed.
Now, obviously it's a hit-and-miss affair which depends on the guy with the bayonet actually being a Mason, but has anyone heard of anything similar from WW2?
My last attempt at pulling the thread off-topic, honest!

 

Following on from Gordon's remarks, is there any recorded evidence that shot down aircrew may have been helped by Masons in France, through giving the sign? Were Masons particularly active in the Resistance movements?

 

Think we'll have to take that as a 'no', unfortunately.
Might do some more delving into this myself.

 

Before I either say "yes" or "no", allow me some time. I'd be tempted to say "yes" in the same way Communists joined the Maquis because they were persecuted by the Nazis and by Vichy. Therefore it would be logic to have some of the persecuted Masons help the Maquis, but I want to find sources and if possible names before I confirm this.

 

and the answer is "yes" !

Le blog de philippe poisson -

Antimaçonnisme, Francs-maçons et Résistance dans le Midi toulousain - Memoresist

http://www.godf.org/files/webform/fichier/dp_500FM.pdf

Jean Zay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (this man invented the Cannes festival)

http://edm.emedina.org/prodcult/expo/expo_fm.pdf this is the Vichy doctrice about hatred towards the Masons. If you speak French you'll read that they hate dthe Masons even more than the Jews becasue according to them being a Mason is "free choice"

 

and since you wanted names of famous Resistant Masons:

Brossolette returned to Paris for a third mission to reorganize the Parisian Resistance which was in disarray after successive Gestapo raids. By then his role was already well known to the Gestapo services and he was the most wanted man in France. He escaped arrest many times and was summoned to return to Britain by late 1943 to introduce the newly-appointed CNR chief, Émile Bollaert, to De Gaulle. The bad winter weather cancelled many Lysander exfiltration attempts (conducted only under moonlight) or Lysanders would be shot down as in a December attempt, so in February 1944 they decided to return by boat from Brittany. But the vessel, hit by a storm, shipwrecked at Pointe du Raz. They managed to reach the coast and to be hidden by local Resistance, but were betrayed by a local woman at a checkpoint.

Pierre Brossolette - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia





and Jean Zay murdered by the Milice in 1944

 

Cheers Skip. A lot of good info there.

 

I do have my own apron.....

 

I recall the same described during the Napoleonic wars. One specific case during the Waterloo battle & another in Spain.

 

Petain was a crusty old conservative and Catholic who had not much contact with Free masonry. The Army was his social group & he bought off on a number of ultra conservative ideas concerning the Free Masons and many other social, ethnic, and political groups. If you can find a copy Robert Paxtons's 'Vichy France ' is a good English language analysis of the political/social/ & national goals of Petains government.

While the refusal of Germany to negotiate a permanent peace treaty with France post 1940 & the continued occupation brought the collaborationits to the fore in Vichy. Petains long term goal was the independance of France and economic revival. He hoped that with the residual strength in the French colonies and a revival of national will & purpose in France a nuetral and independant France could be had. After the formation of Petains government he, Laval, & the others genuinely thought they could soon begin negotiation for a permanent peace treaty with Germany. As unrealisitc as it sounds now they thought a treaty ending the occupation could be made by the late Winter or Spring of 1941.

After it became clear the Germans intended to put off negotiations until the 'English' war, & then the Bolshivik war, were settled. Petain begain approving cheating on the rearmament restrictions, and negotiations with the US concerning a eventual invasion of the continent. That all ended after the political & military debacle of the French reaction to the Allied Torch operation.

Stripped of its overseas connections and any benefits of 'nuetrality', and without any military force the Vichy government sank into irrelevancy. It members maintained the illusion that after the Allied victory they would still be active & important in French politics.

Petains idea of congealing French national will and politics in a single focused entity was not well served by excluding and persecuting a wide variety of groups. Rather it backfired by encouraging & forcing the members into seeking security & poltical solutions outside the Vichy regime.

 

one point about Petain :he was not that catholic:in 1919 he contracted a civil marriage with a divorced woman;only in 1940 he had a religious marriage (with the same woman),the church of course regularizering his situation

 

Everyone in France is political! even the politically neutral!

 

I don't know about then, but while living in France in 2000-2001, the government didn't recognize the marrriage of the church. You had to have a civil marriage as well to be legally wed.