Doriot fought with the LVF and saw active duty on the Eastern Front when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 and was awarded the Iron Cross in 1943. In his absence leadership of the PPF officially passed to a directorate, although real power came to lie with Maurice-Yvan Sicard.[2] In December 1944, Doriot travelled to Germany and made contact with the former members of the Vichy regime and other collaborators who had gathered together in the Sigmaringen enclave. Doriot's PPF struggled to assume a leadership role within the French expatriate community, basing itself in Mainau and setting up its own radio station, Radio-Patrie, at Bad Mergentheim and publishing its own paper Le Petit Parisien.[3] The PPF was also involved in conducting intelligence and sabotage activities by supplying some volunteers whom the Germans dropped by parachute into liberated France.[4] He was killed on 22 February 1945 while traveling from Mainau to Sigmaringen when his car was strafed by Allied fighter planes.