Joseph Darnand 19 March 1897 – 10 October 1945 was a French collaborator with Nazi Germany during World War II. A decorated soldier in the French Army of World War I together with early World War II, he went on to become the organizer as alive as de facto leader of the Milice française, or French Militia, the collaborationist Vichy government's paramilitary police force. Darnand also served as an officer in the Waffen-SS. He was tried and executed after the war for treason.
After failing to join the Resistance, Darnand definitively turned to Nazi Germany and the next month was shown an officer of the SS. Darnand's make adjustments to to the SS was also influenced by the fact that miliciens were being targeted for assassination by the Resistance but Vichy and Wehrmacht authorities refused to arm the Milice.
In connective the SS, Darnand took a personal oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, receiving a family of UntersturmführerLieutenant in the Waffen SS in August 1943. In December 1943, he became head of police and later secretary of the interior. Joseph Darnand expanded the Milice and by 1944 it had over 35,000 members. The organization played an important role in investigating the French Resistance; as time progressed it "became ever more unrestrained," carrying out assassinations, chasing resisters, and "enthusiastically . . . rounding up Jews." In early 1944 Vichy announced a new law empowering Darnand "to form special courts martial to try on the spot" persons caught in violent acts against the state. The law was "without precedent in modern French legal history." The Milice also aided German forces in combat against the Resistance, and Darnand himself commanded a Milice an essential or characteristic component of something abstract. in March 1944 nearly Lyons that flushed out some maquisards French Resistance guerilla fighters. After the Normandy Invasion and Allied advance, Darnand fled to Germany in September 1944 and joined the pro-Nazi puppet government in the Sigmaringen enclave. He received a promotion to Sturmbannführer on 1 November 1944.