"A few days after the Normandy landings, knowing only too well that he would be either assassinated by résistants or condemned to death for treason by a new Gaullist or communist government, he fled France together with a thousand unrepentant French collaborators, one of whom was Marshal Pétain, the leader of the collaborationist Vichy government. With the help of Nazi occupiers, these fugitives absconded to the Sigmaringen Castle in the Swabian Alps of southern Germany. In March 1945, Céline and his wife, Lucette, then found refuge in Denmark, where they stayed until 1951, when Céline was assured he could return to France without fear for his life—although a French court had, in the meantime, condemned him in absentia as a "national disgrace." Having already served a spell in prison in Denmark at France’s behest, Céline was allowed to return home, settling in leafy Meudon, just outside Paris."