[2] At the same time, he had avoided taking a pro-German stance and had even written an editorial defending Herschel Grynszpan, the Jewish teenager who had killed Ernst vom Rath at the German embassy in Paris, in retaliation for the treatment of Jews.
[2] Within six weeks of launch, Jeanson was ordered to write an editorial expressing his commitment to collaboration, but he refused,[3] and was subsequently arrested and forced out of the newspaper.
[9][7] He repeatedly called for more executions of Jews and Communists,[7] quoting Catholic writer Joseph de Maistre's saying that "The executioner is the keystone of modern society".
[5] Other contributors to Aujourd'hui included Paul Chack, former captain of the French Navy and decorated First World War veteran, who had authored patriotic children's books and was paid 68,000 francs a month by the Vichy government to write propaganda.
[10] His editorials characterized the American Army as "brutal gangsters...living on the fat of the land and raping women"; the White House as controlled by Jews; the English as "Bible in hand, seek[ing] to destroy Europe"; and Allied airmen as "flying assassins".
[11] Literary scholar Charles Nunley explains that "Desnos did on occasion find opportunity to incorporate into these ostensibly apolitical texts a subtle but unmistakably contestatory stance regarding the official culture of France's state of occupation".
[11] Working at Aujourd'hui gave Desnos access to pre-censored news reports and other valuable information which he was able to pass on to other members of the French Resistance.
[12] On 23 October 1944, managing director Georges Suarez was sentenced to death as a collaborationist in the first treason trial held by the Special Court of Justice of the Seine Department.