Céline, fabrication d’une légende victimaire et découverte du négationnisme (1944-1951)

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From his escape to Germany (June 17, 1944) until his amnesty (April 20, 1951), a result of judicial trickery, Céline worked overtime to construct his legend of victimhood, before discovering, in Autumn 1950, a passionate interest for Holocaust denial in its early phases. Three major elements of his legend- the persecuted innocent, the pacifistic patriot, and the cursed writerwould play a major role in the rehabilitation of the writer-pamphleteer, who engaged in anti-Jewish propaganda from late 1937 through the Collaboration. These elements have oriented even recent journalistic and academic writing on Céline, shaping public opinion on his “literary genius.” He was the first recognized writer to cast doubt upon the Nazi extermination of European Jews. This “powerful anti-Jewish visionary,” to use the expression of Jean Drault, quickly perceived in Holocaust denial a symbolic weapon, capable of reigniting the hatred of Jews for new reasons.