Two months earlier, in November 1941, La Légion des Combattants had been renamed Légion des Combattants et Volontaires de la Révolution Nationale, with membership open to all, whether ex-servicemen or not. This made it effectively the only political party in the Vichy state. To create an ultra force prepared to stamp out the left-wing Resistance using its own methods of kidnapping and murder, members of the Légion were invited in January to join a new Service d’Ordre Légionnaire, vaunted as a modern order of chivalry with uniforms like those of the SS (except for the inevitable French berets), torchlight oath-taking ceremonies and parades with waving banners. This forerunner of the Milice was set on course by the appointment of Joseph Darnand as its inspector-general.In Paris, the trial of the Musée de l’Homme network ended with ten death sentences. His spirit undiminished by long confinement, Léon-Maurice Nordmann retorted to the judges, ‘We risked death every day on this battlefield.
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