![LIFE has a series of photographs taken in post-war France when liberators were hunting soldiers of the Vichy government for execution. They also have new pictures of Paris on August 25, when German military in the city surrendered.
A Nazi Collaborator Is Bound To A Post:
In this photograph, the first of six members of the ruthless Milice — who served as the police force for the Nazi collaborationist Vichy government — is tied to a post by guards moments before being shot to death by a firing squad. Carl Mydans’ lens is one of the last things he will see. As John Osborne, LIFE’s on-the-scene writer, described the moment: “The place chosen for these first legal executions in Southern France was an open lot beside a brick factory in Grenoble’s extreme outskirt. In the same lot, the Germans had shot 23 [French] patriots in July and it was deliberately selected for the Milice’s executions. But, said the morning paper, Les Allobroges, they were to be shot in a different part of the lot. It would not be fitting for the blood of traitors to sully the ground hallowed by partriots’ blood.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l83gbifTvV1qz7si7o1_400.jpg)
LIFE has a series of photographs taken in post-war France when liberators were hunting soldiers of the Vichy government for execution. They also have new pictures of Paris on August 25, when German military in the city surrendered.
A Nazi Collaborator Is Bound To A Post:
In this photograph, the first of six members of the ruthless Milice — who served as the police force for the Nazi collaborationist Vichy government — is tied to a post by guards moments before being shot to death by a firing squad. Carl Mydans’ lens is one of the last things he will see. As John Osborne, LIFE’s on-the-scene writer, described the moment: “The place chosen for these first legal executions in Southern France was an open lot beside a brick factory in Grenoble’s extreme outskirt. In the same lot, the Germans had shot 23 [French] patriots in July and it was deliberately selected for the Milice’s executions. But, said the morning paper, Les Allobroges, they were to be shot in a different part of the lot. It would not be fitting for the blood of traitors to sully the ground hallowed by partriots’ blood.”
