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97-457: Rassemblement National Français (RNF) (French, 'French National Rally') was a French far-right party active between 1954 and 1957. Rassemblement National Français was founded on 20 May 1954 by Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour and Maurice Bardèche , with the project of "[bringing] together all French people who wish to defend and propagate the ideas of national recovery, social reform and reconciliation among French people." It presented candidates in

194-555: A military alliance in 1939 under the so-called " Pact of Steel ", with the Tripartite Pact of 1940 formally integrating the military aims of Germany, Italy, Japan, and later followed by other nations. The three pacts formed the foundation of the Axis alliance. At its zenith in 1942, the Axis presided over large parts of Europe, North Africa, and East Asia, either through occupation, annexation, or puppet states . In contrast to

291-675: A 10-year Non-Aggression Pact in 1934, revealing his plans to only to his closest associates. Relations between Germany and Poland altered from the early to the late 1930s, as Germany sought rapprochement with Poland to avoid the risk of Poland entering the Soviet sphere of influence, and appealed to anti-Soviet sentiment in Poland. Hitler even tried to convince Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact. The Soviet Union in turn at this time competed with Germany for influence in Poland. At

388-542: A campaign director. Some 80 local "comités T.V." were set up throughout France and the Comité Jeunes ("Youth Committee"), directed by Roger Holeindre and supported by the group Occident , quickly attracted several hundred members. The first meeting in Paris gathered some 4,000 militants and led to violent clashes between Occident and the police. After a disagreement between Le Pen and Occident's founder Pierre Sidos ,

485-473: A disparate and sometimes hostile alliance of far-rights groups, and lacking the necessary party structure, Tixier-Vignancour's failed at 5.2% of the votes in December 1965 After that, he publicly called for a vote in favor of Socialist candidate François Mitterrand in the second round. Deceived by his multiple renunciations—from the moderation of stance to his support of Mitterrand—, Le Pen decided to quit

582-611: A faction of ultra-nationalists within the government supporting the pact while the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Japanese Foreign Ministry were staunchly opposed to the pact. There was great concern in the Japanese government that such a pact with Germany could disrupt Japan's relations with Britain, endangering years of a beneficial Anglo-Japanese accord , that had allowed Japan to ascend in

679-444: A first-round score of up to 25%, and a victory in the second round. Acting as if he was already president, Tixier-Vignancour traveled during the campaign to Saigon , Bonn , Rome and London. He abandoned his radical far-right rhetoric to court the moderate right, his campaign managers labeling him the "national and liberal opposition" against the extremist Charles de Gaulle . A former Vichy collaborator, Tixier-Vignancour yet invoked

776-709: A goodwill gesture to Germany, Italy secretly delivered weapons for the Reichswehr , which had faced major disarmament under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles . Since the 1920s Italy had identified the year 1935 as a crucial date for preparing for a war against France, as 1935 was the year when Germany's obligations under the Treaty of Versailles were scheduled to expire. Meetings took place in Berlin in 1924 between Italian General Luigi Capello and prominent figures in

873-663: A local Nazi government that sought incorporation into Germany) in 1939. Poland rejected Germany's demands and Germany in response prepared a general mobilization on the morning of 30 August 1939. Germany justified its invasion of the Low Countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in May 1940 by claiming that it suspected that Britain and France were preparing to use the Low Countries to launch an invasion of

970-671: A major power and create a Greater Germany that would include Alsace-Lorraine , Austria, Sudetenland , and other German-populated territories in Europe. The Nazis also aimed to occupy and colonize non-German territories in Poland, the Baltic states , and the Soviet Union, as part of the Nazi policy of seeking Lebensraum ("living space") in Central and Eastern Europe . Germany renounced

1067-548: A member of parliament and senator. Tixier-Vignancour earned a degree in law in 1926 and the following year qualified as a barrister at the Paris Court of Appeal. He was an activist in the youth wing of the royalist movement Action Française , the Camelots du Roi . He took part in the anti-parliamentary riots of 6 February 1934 . Tixier-Vignancour entered politics and defeated the independent leftist Georges Moutet in

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1164-487: A more accommodating stance towards Italy in the Mediterranean. In the summer of 1936, Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano informed Japanese Ambassador to Italy, Sugimura Yotaro, "I have heard that a Japanese–German agreement concerning the Soviet Union has been reached, and I think it would be natural for a similar agreement to be made between Italy and Japan." Initially Japan's attitude towards Italy's proposal

1261-497: A population of 47.5 million and France (excluding its colonies) 42 million. The wartime gross domestic product (GDP) of the Axis was $ 911 billion at its highest in 1941 in international dollars by 1990 prices. The GDP of the Allied powers was $ 1,798 billion. The United States stood at $ 1,094 billion, more than the Axis combined. The burden of the war upon participating countries has been measured through

1358-465: A relationship between Destouches and his pen name, Céline. While waiting for his electoral ban period to end, Tixier-Vignancou joined the neo-fascist party Jeune Nation soon after its creation in 1949. He helped Maurice Bardèche establish the magazine Défense de l'Occident (an important arena for the discussion of right-wing ideas and Holocaust denial text) and the neo-fascist coalition European Social Movement in 1951-52. Tixier-Vignancour

1455-448: A result of Italy's economic difficulties its soldiers were poorly paid, often being poorly equipped and poorly supplied, and animosity arose between soldiers and class-conscious officers; these contributed to low morale amongst Italian soldiers. By early 1940, Italy was still a non-belligerent, and Mussolini communicated to Hitler that Italy was not prepared to intervene soon. By March 1940, Mussolini decided that Italy would intervene, but

1552-476: A result of Italy's support for Japan against international condemnation, Japan took a more positive attitude towards Italy and offered proposals for a non-aggression or neutrality pact with Italy. The Tripartite Pact was signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan on 27 September 1940, in Berlin. The pact was subsequently joined by Hungary (20 November 1940), Romania (23 November 1940), Slovakia (24 November 1940), and Bulgaria (1 March 1941). The Axis powers' primary goal

1649-474: A war with Germany should Hitler dare to attack Austria. Relations between Germany and Italy recovered due to Hitler's support of Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, while other countries condemned the invasion and advocated sanctions against Italy. Interest in Germany and Japan in forming an alliance began when Japanese diplomat Hiroshi Ōshima visited Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin in 1935. Although at

1746-620: Is normally understood as including Japan. The term "axis" was first applied to the Italo-German relationship by the Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini in September 1923, when he wrote in the preface to Roberto Suster's La Germania Repubblicana that "there is no doubt that in this moment the axis of European history passes through Berlin" ( non v'ha dubbio che in questo momento l'asse della storia europea passa per Berlino ). At

1843-449: The 1956 French legislative election , resulting in the election of Tixier-Vignancour. Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour Tixier-Vignancour was a candidate during the 1965 French presidential election , with Jean-Marie Le Pen as a campaign director, and received 5.2% of the votes, the biggest result for a far-right candidate since the war. He had also served as a lawyer for Louis-Ferdinand Céline in 1948, and for Raoul Salan during

1940-582: The Allies . Its principal members were Nazi Germany , Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan . The Axis were united in their far-right positions and general opposition to the Allies, but otherwise lacked comparable coordination and ideological cohesion. The Axis grew out of successive diplomatic efforts by Germany, Italy, and Japan to secure their own specific expansionist interests in the mid-1930s. The first step

2037-554: The British Conservative Party and potentially use it as an example for a new conservative-nationalist party in France. Tixier-Vignancour's movement participated in the municipal elections of March 1965 and received 9.6% of the votes in Paris. This encouraging result was followed, in the summer of 1965, by poll predictions crediting Tixier-Vignancour with 19% of the presidential vote. The latter began to imagine

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2134-758: The Eastern Front , Vlasov's forces were recognized by Germany as an ally, particularly by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler . After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of war between Japan and the United States, Germany supported Japan by declaring war on the US. During the war Germany denounced the Atlantic Charter and the Lend-Lease Act that the US adopted to support

2231-667: The French Committee of National Liberation before being cleared of the worst charges of collaboration in October 1945 but being declared ineligible to hold public office for ten years on 4 December 1945. In 1948, Tixier-Vignancour became the lawyer of French novelist Louis-Ferdinand Céline , accused of "collaboration with the enemy" for his antisemitic and pro- occupation writings. He obtained Céline's amnesty on 26 April 1951, after he presented his client under his real name, Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, with no judge able to draw

2328-608: The French legislative election of the department of Basses-Pyrénées in May 1936. His election was however declared non-valid after suspicions of fraud. Tixier-Vignancour was eventually re-elected on 27 September 1936. He was part of a parliamentary group which traveled to Spain to congratulate Francisco Franco on his fight against the Spanish Popular Front . Tixier-Vignancour married Janine Auriol in January 1938,

2425-545: The May 1968 crisis , he endorsed re-elected president De Gaulle to put an end to the general disorder. In the 1969 presidential election , he supported Gaullist candidate Georges Pompidou . He was the main instigator in the theft of Philippe Pétain's coffin of February 1973. He joined the far-right Party of New Forces (PFN) in June 1978, of which he became the honorary president and spokesman. In 1979, he unsuccessfully ran for

2522-502: The Petit-Clamart attack of August 1962. In November 1963, Tixier-Vignancour publicly announced his candidacy for the 1965 presidential election , presenting himself as the "militant of all the nationalist parties whichever they may be". On 17 July 1964, he established the "Tixier-Vignancour committees" ( comités T.V. ), a grassroots movement to support his candidacy for president the following year, with Jean-Marie Le Pen as

2619-526: The Poujadists . Following the May 1958 crisis and the return of Charles de Gaulle to power, he refused to vote a law that would temporarily authorize the president to revise the constitution until a referendum occurs on a new one. Tixier-Vignancour declared ironically in parliament: "I would never have thought that, twice in my life, I will be asked to delegate the fraction of constituting power I held, and—even better—never would I have imagined that, for

2716-637: The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the country of Slovakia . On 23 August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , which contained a secret protocol dividing eastern Europe into spheres of influence. Germany's invasion of its part of Poland under the Pact eight days later triggered the beginning of World War II. By the end of 1941, Germany occupied a large part of Europe and its military forces were fighting

2813-526: The Soviet Union in 1941, the Nazi regime's stance towards an independent, territorially-reduced Russia was affected by pressure beginning in 1942 from the German Army on Hitler to endorse a " Russian Liberation Army " led by Andrey Vlasov . Initially the proposal to support an anti-communist Russian army was met with outright rejection by Hitler, however by 1944 as Germany faced mounting losses on

2910-893: The West who have invariably hindered the progress and often threatened the very existence of the Italian people ". Italy condemned the Western powers for enacting sanctions on Italy in 1935 for its actions in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War that Italy claimed was a response to an act of Ethiopian aggression against tribesmen in Italian Eritrea in the Walwal incident of 1934. Italy, like Germany, also justified its actions by claiming that Italy needed to territorially expand to provide spazio vitale ("vital space") for

3007-551: The "humanist and Christian West" against "communism and its Trojan horse, Gaullism ". Arguing that France should reduce development aid towards its former colonies, he coined the slogan "la Corrèze passe avant le Zambèze" (" Corrèze comes before the Zambezi "). Tixier-Vignancour was also fervently opposed to immigration , labeling himself a supporter of "French Algeria" rather than "Algerian France". He argued for "strict and rigorously selected quotas" for Algerian immigrants to "avoid

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3104-444: The 1962 OAS trials. In his later life, he became known as the main instigator in the theft of Philippe Pétain's coffin in 1973, and as a spokesman for the far-right Party of New Forces in the late 1970s. Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour died on 17 September 1989 at 81. Jean-Louis Tixier was born on 12 October 1907 in Paris, the son of Léon Tixier, a doctor, and Andrée Vignancour. His maternal grand-father, Louis Vignancour , had been

3201-501: The Allied powers prior to entry into the alliance, as imperialism directed at dominating and exploiting countries outside of the continental Americas . Hitler denounced American President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's invoking of the term "freedom" to describe US actions in the war, and accused the American meaning of "freedom" to be the freedom for democracy to exploit the world and the freedom for plutocrats within such democracy to exploit

3298-406: The Allies, there were no three-way summit meetings, and cooperation and coordination were minimal; on occasion, the interests of the major Axis powers were even at variance with each other. The Axis ultimately came to an end with its defeat in 1945. Particularly within Europe, the use of the term "the Axis" sometimes refers solely to the alliance between Italy and Germany, though outside Europe it

3395-565: The Directorate and avoiding an immediate armed conflict. The Four Power Directorate proposal stipulated that Germany would no longer be required to have limited arms and would be granted the right to re-armament under foreign supervision in stages. Hitler completely rejected the idea of controlled rearmament under foreign supervision. Mussolini did not trust Hitler's intentions regarding Anschluss nor Hitler's promise of no territorial claims on South Tyrol. Mussolini informed Hitler that he

3492-917: The Fascist regime's support prior to intervention against Yugoslavia. The intention of the Fascist regime was to create a " New Roman Empire " in which Italy would dominate the Mediterranean . In 1935–1936 Italy invaded and annexed Ethiopia and the Fascist government proclaimed the creation of the " Italian Empire ". Protests by the League of Nations , especially the British, who had interests in that area, led to no serious action, although The League did try to enforce economic sanctions upon Italy, but to no avail. The incident highlighted French and British weakness, exemplified by their reluctance to alienate Italy and lose her as their ally. The limited actions taken by

3589-545: The German military, such as von Seeckt and Erich Ludendorff , over military collaboration between Germany and Italy. The discussions concluded that Germans still wanted a war of revenge against France but were short on weapons and hoped that Italy could assist Germany. However at this time Mussolini stressed one important condition that Italy must pursue in an alliance with Germany: that Italy "must ... tow them, not be towed by them". Italian foreign minister Dino Grandi in

3686-598: The Italian nation. In October 1938 in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement, Italy demanded concessions from France to yield to Italy in Africa. Relations between Italy and France deteriorated with France's refusal to accept Italy's demands. France responded to Italy's demands with threatening naval manoeuvres as a warning to Italy. As tensions between Italy and France grew, Hitler made a major speech on 30 January 1939 in which he promised German military support in

3783-536: The Nazi Party came to power in Germany. Hitler had advocated an alliance between Germany and Italy since the 1920s. Shortly after being appointed Chancellor of Germany , Hitler sent a personal message to Mussolini, declaring "admiration and homage" and declaring his anticipation of the prospects of German–Italian friendship and even alliance. Hitler was aware that Italy held concerns over potential German land claims on South Tyrol, and assured Mussolini that Germany

3880-534: The Nazi Party publicly promoted the expansion of Germany into territories held by the Soviet Union. Germany justified its war against Poland on the issues of German minority within Poland and Polish opposition to the incorporation of the ethnically German-majority Free City of Danzig into Germany. While Hitler and the Nazi party before taking power openly talked about destroying Poland and were hostile to Poles, after gaining power until February 1939 Hitler tried to conceal his true intentions towards Poland, and signed

3977-826: The PFN in the European elections and eventually left the party in February 1982. He died on 17 September 1989 at 81 in Paris. His funeral was celebrated in Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet church, a stronghold of the Christian traditionalist Society of Saint Pius X . Strongly anti-communist , he endorsed during his 1965 campaign the NATO military and nuclear alliance with the United States , to defend

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4074-780: The Reichskommissariats established in the east ( Reichskommissariat Ostland in the Baltics, Reichskommissariat Ukraine in Ukraine) were established as colonies for settlement by Germans. In Norway, under Reichskommissariat Norwegen , the Quisling regime , headed by Vidkun Quisling , was installed by the Germans as a client regime during the occupation , while king Haakon VII and the legal government were in exile . Quisling encouraged Norwegians to serve as volunteers in

4171-530: The Ruhr", and said that "If England and France push through Belgium and Holland into the Ruhr, we shall be in the greatest danger", and thus claimed that Belgium and the Netherlands had to be occupied by Germany to protect Germany from a British-French offensive against the Ruhr, irrespective of their claims to neutrality. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 involved issues of lebensraum , anti-communism , and Soviet foreign policy. After Germany invaded

4268-513: The Soviet Union, nearly capturing Moscow. However, crushing defeats at the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk devastated the German armed forces. This, combined with Western Allied landings in France and Italy , led to a three-front war that depleted Germany's armed forces and resulted in Germany's defeat in 1945. The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was created from the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Shortly after Germany annexed

4365-621: The Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, the Slovak Republic declared its independence from the rump Second Czechoslovak Republic . The new Slovak State allied itself with Germany. The remainder of the country was occupied by German military forces and organized into the Protectorate. Czech civil institutions were preserved but the Protectorate was considered within the sovereign territory of Germany. The General Government

4462-611: The United Kingdom. Romania 's oil gave the country a disproportionate importance in the global conflict. In 1940 and 1941, Romania supplied 94% and 75% of Germany's oil imports respectively. Italy – which lacked both natural and synthetic output – was even more reliant on Romanian oil than Germany. The loss of Romania's oil – following the country's defection from the Axis in August 1944 – resulted in Hitler's first admission that

4559-601: The Venice meeting, on 25 July 1934, Austrian Nazis assassinated Dollfuss. Mussolini was outraged as he held Hitler directly responsible for the assassination that violated Hitler's promise made only weeks ago to respect Austrian independence. Mussolini rapidly deployed several army divisions and air squadrons to the Brenner Pass , and warned that a German move against Austria would result in war between Germany and Italy. Hitler responded by both denying Nazi responsibility for

4656-810: The Versailles treaty and remilitarized the Rhineland in March 1936. Germany had already resumed conscription and announced the existence of a German air force, the Luftwaffe , and naval force, the Kriegsmarine in 1935. Germany annexed Austria in 1938 , the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, and the Memel territory from Lithuania in 1939. Germany then invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia in 1939, creating

4753-403: The Waffen-SS , collaborated in the deportation of Jews, and was responsible for the executions of members of the Norwegian resistance movement . About 45,000 Norwegian collaborators joined the pro-Nazi party Nasjonal Samling (National Union), and some police units helped arrest many Jews. However, Norway was one of the first countries where resistance during World War II was widespread before

4850-400: The Western powers pushed Mussolini's Italy towards alliance with Hitler's Germany anyway. In 1937 Italy left the League of Nations and joined the Anti-Comintern Pact , which had been signed by Germany and Japan the preceding year. In March/April 1939 Italian troops invaded and annexed Albania . Germany and Italy signed the Pact of Steel on May 22. Italy was ill-prepared for war, in spite of

4947-428: The arrival of Kálmán Darányi , his successor, ended Hungary's involvement in pursuing a trilateral axis. Contentious negotiations between the Italian foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano , and the German ambassador, Ulrich von Hassell , resulted in a Nine-Point Protocol , signed by Ciano and his German counterpart, Konstantin von Neurath , in 1936. When Mussolini publicly announced the signing on 1 November, he proclaimed

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5044-465: The assassination and issuing orders to dissolve all ties between the German Nazi Party and its Austrian branch, which Germany claimed was responsible for the political crisis. Italy effectively abandoned diplomatic relations with Germany while turning to France in order to challenge Germany's intransigence by signing a Franco–Italian accord to protect Austrian independence. French and Italian military staff discussed possible military cooperation involving

5141-423: The banning of movies like The Great Illusion or Entente cordiale , accused of "incitement to hatred against Germany". Tixier-Vignancour served as the under-Secretary of State for Information under Nazi-collaborationist Vichy France and as director of Pétain’s "Propaganda Committee". As the head of Radio-Vichy , he offered a large broadcast time to collaborationist Marcel Déat . On 20 July 1941, he

5238-405: The campaign. Votes for Tixier-Vignancour were heavily concentrated in the south of France, a region which had already seen the highest levels of "no" votes in the Évian Agreements referendum and where many Pieds-noirs had settled after their recent repatriation from Algeria in 1962. Tixier-Vignancour participated in a pro-Israel demonstration in 1967 in Paris during the Six-Day War . During

5335-497: The case of an unprovoked war against Italy. Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940. Italy justified its intervention against Greece in October 1940 on the allegation that the Kingdom of Greece was being used by Britain against Italy, Mussolini informed this to Hitler, saying: "Greece is one of the main points of English maritime strategy in the Mediterranean". Italy justified its intervention against Yugoslavia in April 1941 by appealing to both Italian irredentist claims and

5432-508: The creation of a Rome–Berlin axis. Italy under Duce Benito Mussolini had pursued a strategic alliance of Italy with Germany against France since the early 1920s. Prior to becoming head of government in Italy as leader of the Italian Fascist movement, Mussolini had advocated alliance with defeated Germany after the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920) settled World War I . He believed that Italy could expand its influence in Europe by allying with Germany against France. In early 1923, as

5529-436: The date was not yet chosen. His senior military leadership unanimously opposed the action because Italy was unprepared. No raw materials had been stockpiled and the reserves it did have would soon be exhausted, Italy's industrial base was only one-tenth of Germany's, and even with supplies the Italian military was not organized to provide the equipment needed to fight a modern war of a long duration. An ambitious rearmament program

5626-408: The daughter of a lawyer and member of parliament for Haute-Garonne . Enlisted in the army in 1939, he took part in fights near Beuvraignes during the Battle of France in 1940, before voting for the law that gave full powers ( pleins pouvoirs ) to Philippe Pétain on July, 10 of the same year. On 6 October 1940, in charge of "applying the instructions of the armistice commission", he confirmed

5723-464: The demand. In response, Hitler promised that he would accept Austria's independence for the time being, saying that due to the internal tensions in Germany (referring to sections of the Nazi Sturmabteilung that Hitler would soon kill in the Night of the Long Knives ) that Germany could not afford to provoke Italy. Galeazzo Ciano told the press that the two leaders had made a "gentleman's agreement" to avoid interfering in Austria. Several weeks after

5820-497: The early 1920s . In 1923 the French occupied the Ruhr region when Germany defaulted on its reparations payments. Although Germany began to improve economically in the mid-1920s, the Great Depression created more economic hardship and a rise in political forces that advocated radical solutions to Germany's woes. The Nazis, under Hitler, promoted the nationalist stab-in-the-back legend stating that Germany had been betrayed by Jews and Communists. The party promised to rebuild Germany as

5917-425: The early 1930s stressed the importance of "decisive weight", involving Italy's relations between France and Germany, in which he recognized that Italy was not yet a major power, but perceived that Italy did have strong enough influence to alter the political situation in Europe by placing the weight of its support onto one side or another, and sought to balance relations between the three. In 1933, Adolf Hitler and

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6014-502: The ejection of the Axis powers from North Africa by the Allies in May 1943. After his liberation, Tixier-Vignancour joined the French Expeditionary Corps in Italy as a lieutenant but was recalled to Tunis in January 1944 and placed under house arrest by senior offices suspicious of his previous activities in the Vichy government. Released in April he joined an Anglo-French unit before being arrested again on account of his collaborationist past and eventually being imprisoned in Paris by

6111-404: The fact of Albanian , Croatian , and Macedonian separatists not wishing to be part of Yugoslavia . Croatian separatism soared after the assassination of Croatian political leaders in the National Assembly of Yugoslavia in 1928 including the death of Stjepan Radić , and Italy endorsed Croatian separatist Ante Pavelić and his fascist Ustaše movement that was based and trained in Italy with

6208-488: The fact that it had continuously been involved in conflict since 1935, first with Ethiopia in 1935–1936 and then in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Francisco Franco 's Nationalists . Mussolini refused to heed warnings from his minister of exchange and currency, Felice Guarneri , who said that Italy's actions in Ethiopia and Spain meant that Italy was on the verge of bankruptcy. By 1939 military expenditures by Britain and France far exceeded what Italy could afford. As

6305-413: The group's magazine, launched on 5 July 1958 as an attempt to revive the banned movement. Opposed to decolonization and independence during the Algerian war (1954–1962), Tixier-Vignancour was, along with Jean-Marie Le Pen , one of the founders of the National Front for French Algeria ( Front National pour l'Algérie Française ) in July 1960. As a lawyer, he defended Raoul Salan in 1962, the founder of

6402-414: The impasse with Italy over Austria by sending Hermann Göring to negotiate with Mussolini in 1933 to convince Mussolini to press Austria to appoint Austrian Nazis to the government. Göring claimed that Nazi domination of Austria was inevitable and that Italy should accept this, as well as repeating to Mussolini of Hitler's promise to "regard the question of the South Tyrol frontier as finally liquidated by

6499-449: The industrial Ruhr region of Germany. When war between Germany versus Britain and France appeared likely in May 1939, Hitler declared that the Netherlands and Belgium would need to be occupied, saying: "Dutch and Belgian air bases must be occupied ... Declarations of neutrality must be ignored". In a conference with Germany's military leaders on 23 November 1939, Hitler declared to the military leaders that "We have an Achilles heel ,

6596-631: The international community in the first place. The response to the pact was met with similar division in Germany; while the proposed pact was popular amongst the upper echelons of the Nazi Party, it was opposed by many in the Foreign Ministry, the Army, and the business community who held financial interests in the Republic of China to which Japan was hostile. On learning of German–Japanese negotiations, Italy also began to take an interest in forming an alliance with Japan. Italy had hoped that due to Japan's long-term close relations with Britain, that an Italo-Japanese alliance could pressure Britain into adopting

6693-417: The invasion of France by a multitude of starving mouths, undesirables and invalids with no technical or social education". Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour was the godfather of Jean-Marie Le Pen 's daughter Caroline. Axis powers The Axis powers , originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis , was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against

6790-407: The masses. At the end of World War I, German citizens felt that their country had been humiliated as a result of the Treaty of Versailles , which included a war guilt clause and forced Germany to pay enormous reparations payments and forfeit territories formerly controlled by the German Empire and all its colonies. The pressure of the reparations on the German economy led to hyperinflation during

6887-484: The movement was replaced with Dominique Venner 's Europe-Action volunteers, despite their own initial skepticism regarding Tixier-Vignancour’s candidacy. Tixier-Vignancour managed to rally diverse leanings that existed within the far-right, all united against Gaullism : the young revolutionaries of Occident and Europe-Action were present, along with "those nostalgic for Vichy , descendants of Action Française , fundamentalist Catholics, Algérie française ultras,

6984-416: The name of French WWII resister Jean Moulin to serve his campaign. Despite this calculated attempts at moderating his positions, commentators portrayed Tixier-Vignancour as "the alliance of Algérie française , Poujadism and the spirit of Vichy ", and he was only endorsed in the media by the radical right-wing press: Rivarol , Europe-Action , Aspects de la France and Minute . Supported by

7081-764: The peace treaties". In response to Göring's visit with Mussolini, Dollfuss immediately went to Italy to counter any German diplomatic headway. Dollfuss claimed that his government was actively challenging Marxists in Austria and claimed that once the Marxists were defeated in Austria, that support for Austria's Nazis would decline. In June 1934, Hitler and Mussolini met for the first time, in Venice . The meeting did not proceed amicably. Hitler demanded that Mussolini compromise on Austria by pressuring Dollfuss to appoint Austrian Nazis to his cabinet, to which Mussolini flatly refused

7178-476: The percentage of gross national product (GNP) devoted to military expenditures. Nearly one-quarter of Germany's GNP was committed to the war effort in 1939, and this rose to three-quarters of GNP in 1944, prior to the collapse of the economy. In 1939, Japan committed 22 percent of its GNP to its war effort in China; this rose to three-quarters of GNP in 1944. Italy did not mobilize its economy; its GNP committed to

7275-495: The pro-colonial paramilitary organization OAS and one of the four generals who directed the Algiers putsch of 1961 . Salan was spared the death penalty and instead condemned to prison. Tixier-Vignancour’s defense credited for "saving Salan’s neck", this event boosted his standing among nationalists. He served also as a defense counsel for colonel Jean Bastien-Thiry , executed for attempting to assassinate Charles de Gaulle during

7372-458: The residue of Poujadism , embryonic fascists, and representatives of the liberal right ". Despite his conservative stance, the then president Charles de Gaulle embodied in their eyes "‘the loss of Algeria, the end of the Empire, the weakening of the army, and closer ties with the communist world." At the height of the campaign, Le Pen and Tixier-Vignancour even went to London to meet members of

7469-541: The same time Germany was preparing for a war with Poland and was secretly preparing the German minority in Poland for a war. A diplomatic crisis erupted following Hitler demanding that the Free City of Danzig be annexed to Germany, as it was led by a Nazi government seeking annexation to Germany. Germany used legal precedents to justify its intervention against Poland and annexation of the Free City of Danzig (led by

7566-530: The second time, the man who asks for it will be the very same man who punished me for having delegated this power a first time." The Fifth Republic was eventually established on 4 October 1958, approved by 82% of the French in September. On 30 November 1958, Tixier-Vignancour lost his siege to a Radical candidate in the first legislative elections of the new regime. After the dissolution of Jeune Nation by official decree earlier that year, he wrote articles for

7663-519: The time Japan was unwilling to make an alliance against the United Kingdom and France, Oshima informed von Ribbentrop of Japan's interest in forming a German–Japanese alliance against the Soviet Union. Von Ribbentrop expanded on Oshima's proposal by advocating that the alliance be based in a political context of a pact to oppose the Comintern . The proposed pact was met with mixed reviews in Japan, with

7760-693: The time, he was seeking an alliance with the Weimar Republic against Yugoslavia and France in the dispute over the Free State of Fiume . The term was used by Hungary 's prime minister Gyula Gömbös when advocating an alliance of Hungary with Germany and Italy in the early 1930s. Gömbös' efforts did affect the Italo-Hungarian Rome Protocols , but his sudden death in 1936 while negotiating with Germany in Munich and

7857-463: The turning point of the war in 1943. After the war, Quisling and other collaborators were executed . Quisling's name has become an international eponym for traitor . Duce Benito Mussolini described Italy's declaration of war against the Western Allies of Britain and France in June 1940 as the following: "We are going to war against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of

7954-421: The war effort remained at prewar levels. Italy and Japan lacked industrial capacity; their economies were small, dependent on international trade , external sources of fuel and other industrial resources. As a result, Italian and Japanese mobilization remained low, even by 1943. Among the three major Axis powers, Japan had the lowest per capita income, while Germany and Italy had an income level comparable to

8051-698: The war was lost. Hitler in 1941 described the outbreak of World War II as the fault of the intervention of Western powers against Germany during its war with Poland, describing it as the result of "the European and American warmongers". Hitler had designs for Germany to become the dominant and leading state in the world, such as his intention for Germany's capital of Berlin to become the Welthauptstadt ("World Capital"), renamed Germania . The German government also justified its actions by claiming that Germany inevitably needed to territorially expand because it

8148-578: Was 258.9 million, while the Allied population (excluding the Soviet Union and the United States, which later joined the Allies) was 689.7 million. Thus the Allied powers outnumbered the Axis powers by 2.7 to 1. The leading Axis states had the following domestic populations: Germany 75.5 million (including 6.8 million from recently annexed Austria), Japan 71.9 million (excluding its colonies), and Italy 43.4 million (excluding its colonies). The United Kingdom (excluding its colonies) had

8245-480: Was disappointed with the Italian military's performance, he maintained overall favorable relations with Italy because of his personal friendship with Mussolini. On 25 July 1943, following the Allied invasion of Sicily , King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini, placed him under arrest, and began secret negotiations with the Western Allies. An armistice was signed on 8 September 1943, and four days later Mussolini

8342-406: Was facing an overpopulation crisis that Hitler described: "We are overpopulated and cannot feed ourselves from our own resources". Thus expansion was justified as an inevitable necessity to provide lebensraum ("living space") for the German nation and end the country's overpopulation within existing confined territory, and provide resources necessary to its people's well-being. Since the 1920s,

8439-659: Was forced to accept German dominance in the two occupied countries. Furthermore, by 1941, German forces in North Africa under Erwin Rommel effectively took charge of the military effort ousting Allied forces from the Italian colony of Libya , and German forces were stationed in Sicily in that year. Germany's insolence towards Italy as an ally was demonstrated that year when Italy was pressured to send 350,000 "guest workers" to Germany who were used as forced labour. While Hitler

8536-539: Was generally dismissive, viewing a German–Japanese alliance against the Soviet Union as imperative while regarding an Italo-Japanese alliance as secondary, as Japan anticipated that an Italo-Japanese alliance would antagonize Britain that had condemned Italy's invasion of Ethiopia. This attitude by Japan towards Italy altered in 1937 after the League of Nations condemned Japan for aggression in China and faced international isolation, while Italy remained favourable to Japan. As

8633-625: Was granted amnesty in 1953 and became once again able to run for public office. Opposing the use of street violence promoted by Jeune Nation , he left the group to found his own party with Bardèche in May 1954: the Rassemblement National Français . Re-elected in the department of Basses-Pyrénées , Tixier-Vignancour served as a Non-Inscrit ("non-attached member") in the National Assembly between January 1956 and December 1958, where he allied himself with

8730-626: Was impossible because of Italy's limited reserves in gold and foreign currencies and lack of raw materials. Mussolini ignored the negative advice. By 1941, Italy's attempts to run an autonomous campaign from Germany's, collapsed as a result of military setbacks in Greece, North Africa , and Eastern Africa ; and the country became dependent and effectively subordinate to Germany. After the German-led invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia and Greece, that had both been targets of Italy's war aims, Italy

8827-610: Was interned in Vals-les-Bains after he resigned from the Vichy regime over its increasingly pro-collaborationist stance, but was freed by highly-placed friends and in December moved to Tunisia . In early November 1942, the Allies invaded the German-occupied Maghreb during Operation Torch , and Tixier-Vignancour was interned by the German authorities for his links to the resistance. He was released following

8924-725: Was not interested in South Tyrol. Hitler in Mein Kampf had declared that South Tyrol was a non-issue considering the advantages that would be gained from a German–Italian alliance. After Hitler's rise to power, the Four Power Directorate proposal by Italy had been looked at with interest by Britain, but Hitler was not committed to it, resulting in Mussolini urging Hitler to consider the diplomatic advantages Germany would gain by breaking out of isolation by entering

9021-679: Was rescued by the Germans in Operation Oak and placed in charge of a puppet state called the Italian Social Republic ( Repubblica Sociale Italiana /RSI, or Repubblica di Salò ) in northern Italy . In order to liberate the country from the Germans and Fascists, Italy became a co-belligerent of the Allies; as result, the country descended in Civil War , with the Italian Co-Belligerent Army and

9118-487: Was satisfied with the presence of the anti-Marxist government of Engelbert Dollfuss in the First Austrian Republic , and warned Hitler that he was adamantly opposed to Anschluss. Hitler responded in contempt to Mussolini that he intended "to throw Dollfuss into the sea". With this disagreement over Austria, relations between Hitler and Mussolini steadily became more distant. Hitler attempted to break

9215-456: Was territorial expansion at the expense of their neighbors. In ideological terms, the Axis described their goals as breaking the hegemony of the plutocratic Western powers and defending civilization from communism . The Axis championed a number of variants on fascism , militarism , conservatism and autarky . Creation of territorially contiguous autarkic empires was a common goal of all three major Axis powers. The Axis population in 1938

9312-589: Was the protocol signed by Germany and Italy in October 1936, after which Italian leader Benito Mussolini declared that all other European countries would thereafter rotate on the Rome–Berlin axis, thus creating the term "Axis". The following November saw the ratification of the Anti-Comintern Pact , an anti-communist treaty between Germany and Japan; Italy joined the Pact in 1937, followed by Hungary and Spain in 1939. The "Rome–Berlin Axis" became

9409-441: Was the name given to the territories of occupied Poland that were not directly annexed into German provinces , but like Bohemia and Moravia was considered within the sovereign territory of Germany by the Nazi authorities. Reichskommissariats were established in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Norway, designated as places the "Germanic" populations of which were to be incorporated into the planned Greater Germanic Reich. By contrast

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