The Collaborator by Alice Kaplan with a special introduction by Alan Dershowitz

Should a literary collaborator with the worst of evils be punished? Executed? Martyred? These are the questions raised by the remarkable case of Robert Brasillach who was executed by the de Gaulle government following the liberation of Paris in 1944.  Brasillach was one of France’s most respected young writers during the years leading up to World War II.  He was also a pro-German supporter of Hitler.  During the war, he edited a newspaper that glorified Nazism and supported the occupation.  Brasillach never killed anyone with his own hands, but his vitriolic pen may have contributed to the death of many.  He denounced numerous innocent people, for some of whom his public denunciations were the seal of death.