World War II and After
During World War II, members of the Cagoule were divided. Some of them joined various Fascist movements; Schueller and Deloncle founded the Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire, which conducted various pro-Nazi Germany activities in occupied France. It bombed seven synagogues in Paris in October 1941. Others became prominent members of Philippe Pétain's Vichy Regime. Darnand was the leader of the Milice, the Vichy paramilitary group who fought the French Resistance, and enforced anti-semitic policies. As such, he took an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, and had a Waffen SS rank.
Other cagoulards sided against the Germans, either as members of the Resistance (such as Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Pierre Guillain de Bénouville or Georges Loustaunau-Lacau) in the Maquis), or as members of Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces, such as General Henri Giraud or Colonel Passy. After the war, the writer Henri de Kérillis accused de Gaulle of having been a member of La Cagoule; he said that De Gaulle was ready to install a fascist government if the Allies let him become France's chief of state.
The cagoulards arrested for the 1937 conspiracy were not brought to trial for those charges until 1948, after the liberation of France. By then many had served in the Vichy government or the Resistance, and few were brought to trial.
Read more about this topic: La Cagoule
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