Brinon's importance to the Nazis was such that he was able to obtain a special pass for his Jewish-born wife that exempted her from deportation to a German concentration camp. Katyn Massacre De Brinon was invited by the German supreme general staff to the Eastern Front, as president of the committee of the Legion of French Volunteers against Bolschevism (LVF), to visit the exhumation of the bodies of the Polish victims in the Katyn forest in April 1943. Vichy government in exile In the face of the Allied invasion of France in June 1944, the remnants of the Vichy regime fled to Sigmaringen, Germany, in September 1944, where the Germans set up the French Governmental Commission for the Defense of National Interests as a government in exile. The Germans wished to project a facade of legality for the commission, and enlisted de Brinon to serve as president, and other Vichy officials, including Joseph Darnand, Jean Luchaire, Eugène Bridoux, and Marcel Déat as members. Arrest and trial De Brinon was eventually arrested by the advancing Allied troops. He and his wife were both held in Fresnes prison, but she was eventually released. De Brinon was tried in the épuration légale by the French Court of Justice for war crimes, found guilty and sentenced to death on 6 March 1947. He was executed by firing squad on 15 April at the military fort in the Paris suburb of Montrouge. In 2002, French historian Gilbert Joseph published Fernand de Brinon : L'Aristocrate de la collaboration. In 2004, Bernard Ullmann, Lisette de Brinon's son from her first marriage, broke his 60-year silence and told his family's story in his book, Lisette de Brinon, Ma Mère. References Works cited Mauthner, Martin: Otto Abetz and His Paris Acolytes - French Writers Who Flirted with Fascism, 1930–1945. Sussex Academic Press, 2016, External links 1885 births 1947 deaths French fascists French nobility French politicians convicted of crimes Socialites from Paris People from Libourne People of Vichy France Executed people from Aquitaine French male non-fiction writers Heads of government convicted of war crimes Nazi collaborators shot at the Fort de Montrouge 20th-century French lawyers 20th-century French journalists 20th-century French male writers