Simon Kitson

Simon Kitson is a British historian.

Born in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, Kitson was educated in Bath, doing his undergraduate studies at the University of Ulster and his post-graduate studies at the University of Sussex, under the supervision of Professor Roderick Kedward. His doctoral thesis on the Marseille Police, examined by Professors Mark Mazower and Clive Emsley, was given an award by the Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Sécurité Intérieure .

Kitson has worked for the Université de Paris-XII (Val de Marne) and the Open University. He lectured in French Studies at the University of Birmingham before becoming Director of Research at the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP) . He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is well known for the important web resource on Vichy France that he set up.

Kitson has worked extensively on the French police and counter-espionage services. He is also a specialist on Vichy France, on which he published Vichy et la Chasse aux Espions Nazis with Autrement of Paris in 2005 and The Hunt for Nazi Spies with the University of Chicago Press in 2008.

This book offered a new approach on the Vichy government's relationship with the Nazi occupying forces in France. It highlighted the complexity of these relations showing that the Vichy government arrested around 2000 agents spying for Germany and that 42 of these spies were subsequently shot. Kitson's work was not, however, an apology for the Vichy government. Its central thesis was that the government was torn between a desire to defend its sovereignty and a conviction that collaboration was a necessity. The book was widely reviewed.

Simon Kitson was used as an historical expert on the BBC television programme 'Who do you think you are?' which traces the genealogy of the family of celebrities. Kitson appeared in the first episode of the seventh series which was broadcast in July 2009. It retraced the family history of television presenter Davina McCall. He presented the career of her great-grandfather, Célestin Hennion, head of the French police who played a role in the Dreyfus Affair.

Publications

• The Hunt for Nazi Spies, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2008
• Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, Paris, Autrement, 2005
• (with Hanna Diamond) Vichy, Resistance, Liberation (essays in honour of Rod Kedward), Oxford, Berg, 2005
• 'The Marseille Police in their context from Popular Front to Liberation', D Phil thesis, University of Sussex, 1995

External links

• Review: Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, 1940-1942: complexités de la politique de collaboration
• H-Diplo Roundtable- Thomas (introduction) to Kitson roundtable retrieved 2008-05-14
• H-France Reviews
• Review: Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, 1940-1942: complexités de la politique de collaboration Review: Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, 1940-1942: complexités de la politique de collaboration]
• [1]
• Vichy vs. the Nazis - The New York Review of Books
• The Hunt for Nazi Spies | Simon Kitson, translated by Catherine Tihanyi | Review by The Spectator
• Spy Vs. Spy - January 2, 2008 - The New York Sun
• Vichy Web
• Kitson's review of Resistance in New York Sun

Sources

• Dr Simon Kitson, Birmingham
• Dr Simon Kitson, ULIP