Priory of Sion and Jean Cocteau

Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Chérisey concocted a fictitious "List of Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion" that appeared in Les
Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau in 1967.
Jean Cocteau was named as one of the Grand Masters from 1918 up to his death in 1963.
There are several reasons why Jean Cocteau's name was included in the 1967 Grand Masters List - Philippe de Chérisey had an
interest in surrealism and decorated Plantard's beliefs about his Priory of Sion in that way - another reason being that Godfrey de
Bouillon was depicted as the founder of the Priory of Sion - and Jean Cocteau's last work - unfinished - was a fresco that he did for the
Chapel Notre-Dame-de-Jérusalem in Fréjus (situated between Nice and St Tropez).
Cocteau's fresco depicts the Crusades, the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, the Cross of Jerusalem and the slogan of the
Crusaders: "God Wills It". (Godfrey de Bouillon captured Jerusalem on 15 July 1099 through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.)
But there is another reason why Cocteau's name was included on the List - during wartime occupied France, Cocteau was sympathetic
towards the occupation of his country by the Nazis; he wrote:
"The honour of France may one day lie in the fact that it refused to fight" (Cocteau's Journal, dated 5 may 1942).
And Cocteau's Journal also reveals that he was an admirer of Adolf Hitler:
"In Hitler, we have a poet beyond the comprehension of the souls of drudges" (Cocteau's Journal, dated 24 July 1942).
Arno Breker, Hitler's sculptor, held an exhibition of his works in France in the Summer of 1942 and Cocteau wrote the following
'Salut à Breker' which was published in the paper 'Comoedia':
"I salute you, Breker. I salute you from the lofty land of poets, a land where countries do not exist except in so far as each individual
brings the treasure of his national work to it."
In 1943, the Film Director Jean Delannoy offered an updating of the legend of Tristan and Isolde in his L'Éternel Retour - with
Cocteau being the screenwriter - about which film critics have commented "for all its brilliance nonetheless tainted by racist ideas
that made it acceptable to the Nazi occupiers of wartime France."
However,by 1943 Jean Cocteau began renewing his friendships with artists like Pablo Picasso,when the Germans started losing the war.
For Pierre Plantard's activities during wartime France, see here.