In 1935, British critic William Empson had written that C�line appeared to be "a

man ripe for fascism".[12] Two years later C�line began a series of pamphlets
containing antisemitic themes: Bagatelles pour un massacre (Trifles for a Massacre)
(1937), L'�cole des cadavres (The School of Corpses) (1938) and Les Beaux draps
(The Fine Mess) (1941). The Fine Mess was last published in France during the
German occupation. These works were characterized by a virulent antisemitism,
racism and bigotry. His Trifles for a Massacre is an endless litany critical of
French Jews and their influence on French society. Both The School of Corpses and
The Fine Mess contain antisemitic themes.[13]

Before the war, C�line campaigned for an alliance between France and Nazi Germany.
[14] In L'�cole des cadavres he contrasted Hitler with the French Communist party
leader Maurice Thorez, writing:

Who is the true friend of the people? Fascism is. Who has done the most for the
working man? The USSR or Hitler? Hitler has... Who has done the most for the small
businessman? Not Thorez but Hitler![15]

During the Occupation of France, he wrote letters to several collaborationist

journals, denouncing the Jews.[16] Even some Nazis thought C�line's antisemitic
pronouncements were so extreme as to be counter-productive. Bernhard Payr, the
German superintendent of propaganda in France, considered that C�line "started from
correct racial notions" but his "savage, filthy slang" and "brutal obscenities"
spoiled his "good intentions" with "hysterical wailing".[17][18]

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, he expressed his support for
Jacques Doriot's recently founded collaborationist force Legion of French
Volunteers Against Bolshevism (LVF):

We do not think enough about the protection of the white Aryan race. Now is the
time to act, because tomorrow will be too late. ... Doriot behaved as he always
has. This is a man ... one must work and campaign with. ... This Legion, so
maligned, so criticised, is proof of life. ... I tell you, the Legion it's very
good, it is all that is good.[19]

Despite this, C�line could also be critical of Hitler, and of what he called "Aryan
baloney".[20][21]

In February 1944, while C�line was having dinner in the German embassy in Paris
with his friends Jacques Benoist-M�chin, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle and Gen Paul, he
asserted to German ambassador Otto Abetz that Hitler was dead and had been replaced
by a Jewish double.[22]

After Germany's defeat in 1945, C�line fled to Denmark. Named a collaborator, in

1950 he was convicted in absentia in France, sentenced to one year of imprisonment
and declared a national disgrace. He was subsequently granted amnesty and returned
to France in 1951.