Pierre Laval
- Category : 1883-births
- Type : MGE
- Profile : 3/5 - Martyr / Heretic
- Definition : Split - Small (34,41,55,57)
- Incarnation Cross : RAX Service 2
Biography
French lawyer and socialist politician. The Prime Minister of Vichy France, executed in October 1945. He was called "the Evil Genius of France."
As a child he was small, heavy and slovenly and as a youth, hated his one year in the Army. He became an attorney and a socialist, but was not known as an intellectual. He was Prime Minister from 1931-32, again in 1935-36, and finally under the Vichy regime from 1942-44.
After the liberation of France, he fled to Nazi Germany; when Hitler fell, he fled to Franco's Spain. Extradited back to France, he was shot as a major collaborator and war criminal for his deportation of French Jews.
Laval was executed by the firing squad on 15 October 1945 in Paris.