Darnand, André Joseph Auguste (1897–1945)

French admiral and extreme-rightwing activist, founder of the Service d'Ordre L'gionnaire (SOL) in 1941 and its successor, the Milice Française in 1943, whose security police collaborated with the German army and Gestapo. Decorated for bravery in World War I, Darnand moved in the inter-war period between the Action Française's leagues, Jacques Doriot's fascistic Parti Populaire Français, and the Cagoule. After the 1940 Armistice he supported Pétain and joined the Waffen SS as an officer in 1943, taking the oath of allegiance to Hitler before becoming the Vichy minister of interior in 1944. At the Liberation he fled to Germany, was captured in Italy and returned to France, where he was tried and executed by firing squad in October 1945.