A Good Place to Hide

by Peter Grose

  By the time they had reached Saint-Paulien, five kilometres short of Saint-Geneys, Schmahling’s car began to overheat. They kept moving, slowly. Two kilometres further on, they stopped again. The cars were overloaded. Metger ordered Schmahling to continue with his men on foot. They set off. Every time the column halted, Schmahling had to run 500 metres to the front to see what was going on. When they got close to Bellevue-la-Montagne, they came under fire for the first time. That led to a delay of an hour. By four in the afternoon they made it to the approach to the village of Estables, a few kilometres north of Bellevue-la-Montagne. They were attacked again, and again the column halted.

  Schmähling was now ordered to clear his way through the village. He had a few Russians with him, and he chose them to support him. This didn’t work out well: the Russians refused to attack, and instead fired their guns aimlessly in the air. Schmahling picked twenty German troops and tried again. They were continuously under fire, without being able to see the enemy. They moved ahead in stages. Schmahling saw the first of his German soldiers fall, screaming, a few steps ahead of him. The soldier had been shot in the stomach and died quickly. They continued as far as the first house in the village, which was taking heavy fire. In the village itself, they linked up with a second group of Germans. Schmahling wrote later: ‘I surprised myself with what I could do!’

  Meanwhile, Colonel Metger had managed to force the attacking maquisards back. The guns fell silent. Metger ordered the vehicles to reassemble in the village. Everyone should try to get some sleep, he said, while sentries kept the enemy away.

  20 August: The day dawned bright and sunny. The village seemed completely dead. Not even a cat appeared on the street. The population had left because of yesterday’s fighting.

  The convoy prepared to move off, but progress was far from smooth. The vehicles continued to break down, and the convoy did not get moving until around 10 am. When they finally reached the next village, they were told that the road ahead was blocked. The maquis had blown up one of the bridges. The convoy crawled forward, not knowing how far it could continue.

  In the evening we arrived at a village. A peasant complained that his only horse had been requisitioned without any compensation. I promised him Yd do something.

  In a house near Usson the Russians smashed all the furniture. The owner complained that a German had taken the only water bucket he owned. Although I was exhausted, I tried to find the bucket, but no luck.

  Progress was equally slow the next day, 21 August. Schmahling decided to reduce the loads on the vehicles in the hope that they would stop overheating. As a fine example of the surreal nature of the journey, the Germans wrapped up non-essential supplies in parcels and took them to the nearest post office, where they posted them on to themselves. There were 200 parcels in all.

  It was 11 am when we finally got away. A few kilometres further on, we stopped again. Our troops needed to repair a bridge destroyed during the night by the enemy. The maquisards did not let up: they fired at the troops working on the bridge. All day we tried to respond. The road towards Estivareilles [eight kilometres after Usson] was under constant fire. Our column was now completely encircled.

  We were stuck. I had taken the Estivareilles road twice in the past, so I knew that without the bridge we could not move forward. The Resistance had us trapped.

  • • •

  After the ambush at Saint-Geneys, Pierre Fayol returned with his men to the command post at the Château de Vaux, not far from Yssingeaux, to await new orders. Next day, 19 August, he discussed the situation with Captain Perre from the Lafayette group of the Resistance. Perre told him they had already attacked the German barracks in Le Puy, but his small group was on its own and it had proved too much for them. Could Fayol help? Fayol was willing, but he was still awaiting orders.

  However, André Gévolde, one of the senior Resistance figures, returned soon after from Estivareilles to announce that the fight to the northwest was practically over. Fayol was free to take whatever action he thought fit.

  Fayol quickly assembled his troops and headed for Le Puy to join the Lafayette group. It did not take him long to realise that the position of the remaining German troops—mostly Russians anyway, and all of them trapped inside Le Puy’s Romeuf barracks—was hopeless. He decided to head down to the prefecture to see what was happening there. He wandered around the deserted corridors until he found the prefect’s office, and installed himself in the prefect’s chair.

  He did not have to wait long. A group of Germans arrived in the form of a delegation. Fayol received them in the office, flanked by Commander Montagnon from the André network of the Resistance and two officers from the Lafayette group. The Germans had a request. Would Fayol agree to a ceasefire while they collected their wounded? Fayol wasn’t having it. The Germans had fifteen minutes to surrender unconditionally, or face the consequences. Fayol assured them that they would be treated as prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Rules.

  On the button of fifteen minutes, Captain Coelle, accompanied by a French-speaking German nun, Sister Elze Pelse, emerged from the barracks and surrendered on behalf of his remaining troops. The Resistance now had 170 prisoners of war: seven German officers and 163 other soldiers. They also had their guns, and their ammunition. With Schmahling’s column now camped in the neighbouring French department of the Loire, the whole of the Haute-Loire was officially in Resistance hands.

  • • •

  Major Schmähling, still stuck on the Estivareilles road, had no difficulty assessing his position. There was no way out. He sent a messenger to Colonel Metger to tell him that a maquisard prisoner had assured them that if they surrendered they would be treated properly in accordance with the rules of war. At 7 pm Metger asked Schmahling to join him to discuss the situation with a French Member of Parliament who had arrived on the scene. The Frenchman was accompanied by Sister Elze Pelse, who could act as interpreter and who could also vouch for the facts. The Frenchman informed them that Captain Coelle had been taken prisoner in Le Puy, and that he and his soldiers had been correctly treated. The Frenchman offered them a time and place to meet to discuss their surrender.

  The Germans had a serious problem. Clearly they would be correctly treated themselves, but what about the civilians’ in the convoy? These were mostly French Milice and their families, and there was little love lost between the Milice and the Resistance. Might the maquisards want to settle a few old scores? That would have to be discussed as part of any surrender deal. ‘Half an hour later,’ continues Schmahling,

  Colonel Metger and Captain Neukirchen55 went with me to a farmhouse, where we found a captain and some officers. The captain explained the situation very kindly, humanely and sensibly: all the hills around us were occupied. It would be impossible for us to get out of the valley. Some 1200 men were ready to attack our column. He was well informed about our situation: we could not count on the morale of the Russians, and we had civilian women and children with us, as well as the sick.

  Colonel Metger asked for time to think it over—until ten o’clock the next morning. The Frenchman insisted: for a reason which he was not able to give us, serious consequences would follow if the surrender was not completed by eleven o’clock that night. The implication was clear: they would use bomber aircraft against us.

  Our principal condition was that they should treat the civilians, the miliciens and their families, and the men and women who had put their faith in us, in the same way that they treated us. We asked that they would not hold it against the miliciens in general and they would take action against only miliciens who had committed acts that were against the law, and that this would be judged by a proper court.

  The French captain agreed, and offered to send the miliciens to Montbrison, where the atmosphere was calmer.

  Metger asked for a little more time, until eleven thirty, so that he could talk to his officers and the civilians. The French agreed. The German officers now sat down to assess their situation.
They had a mere 80 combat-ready German soldiers, and most of these were needed to drive the vehicles. True, they also had some Russians, but they were likely to refuse to fight. They had twenty badly wounded German soldiers, a further twenty seriously ill Russians, plus 50 women and children to protect. They also had precious medical supplies like X-ray machines, surgical instruments and medicines, which they were reluctant to abandon. It was theoretically possible for the 80 fit Germans to try to make a break for it, but with 1200 maquisards raining fire down on them, the odds did not look good.

  Metger then talked to the leaders of the milice, and to some representatives of the civilians. He explained the situation to them, underlining the fact that the surrender would not go ahead without their approval. Following a discussion, they agreed that they would go along with Metger. He then took the decision.

  Sometime around midnight on 21 August, Metger surrendered. In the final battle, the Germans had lost seventeen men killed, while Resistance losses were seven dead. It was as inexpensive a result as either side could have hoped for.

  For Pierre Fayol, the job was not yet done. His orders included ensuring that some sort of civil government filled the gap left by the departing Germans. Clément Charbonnier had already been appointed prefect-in-waiting for the Haute-Loire. Fayol went to Charbonniers house and told him his time had come. Fayol says simply: ‘I escorted him to the prefecture, and installed him.’

  • • •

  General de Lattre de Tassigny’s Free French Army forces wasted no time. They had landed on the Mediterranean coast of France, 200 kilometres south of Le Chambon, on 16 August, a day after the first American forces. On 31 August a young Swiss volunteer, Hans-Reudi Weber, was making his way from a Bible class in Le Chambon to his home at the guesthouse Faïdoli. To his astonishment, he found a solitary French tank parked at the side of the road. The tank commander was waiting for a radio message from an overflying plane. The message would give him his next destination. Meanwhile, he was the first Free French regular soldier on the Plateau.

  On 3 September, five years to the day since the outbreak of war, General de Lattre de Tassigny’s main force reached Saint-Agrève and drove on to Tence, by way of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Contemporary photographs show scenes of wild rejoicing, with French tricolour flags flying from every building, crowds lining the streets cheering and waving, and soldiers in Free French Army uniforms waving back at them from trucks and tanks. The Plateau was now in the hands of not just the Resistance but the government of General de Gaulle. The German occupiers, and their Vichy French stooges, were no more. The next day, 4 September, the Free French Minister for the Interior, André Philip, spoke to the people of Le Chambon from the steps of the war memorial. His wife, Mireille, who had been one of the leading Resistance figures in Le Chambon, and had stayed there through most of the Occupation, stood in the crowd. Now they were reunited, and the Plateau was free. It was a great day.

  For the Jews, mostly children, still in Le Chambon, it was not such a joyful time, however. A week earlier, on 27 August, the Russians had led the world’s press into Maidanek camp in Poland. This was the first of the Nazi death factories to be liberated. What had previously been a terrible rumour had become an even more terrible fact: the Nazis had been systematically murdering people on an industrial scale. Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions. Here was the proof: a stunned and horrified press inspected gas chambers and crematoria inside an electrified barbed-wire fence and guarded by fourteen machine-gun towers. The handful of survivors told stories of bodies stripped then burned to ashes.

  The raiding gendarmes had told the hostel managers in Le Chambon that the Jews were being ‘transferred’ to Poland where they could ‘live in peace’, and the children still on the Plateau had clung to a dream of being reunited with their families after the war. Now many of them would have to face the fact that their parents and grandparents, older brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, all of those packed off in trains heading ‘east’, might have been murdered. Would they ever see their families again?

  • • •

  On 9 September Hitler unleashed his second ‘secret weapon’, the fifteen-ton V-2 rocket. It was bigger and deadlier than the V-l ‘doodlebug’ flying bomb, and it began its destructive career by falling into the London suburb of Chiswick. The V-2 was another fearsome weapon, but it was never going to win the war. The Germans were well and truly on the run all over Europe.

  When the Germans surrendered at Le Puy and Estivareilles, the FFI found itself with 120 German prisoners on its hands. They were handed over to the French police, who were told they should be treated as prisoners of war. The police housed them in the Château du Pont-de-Mars, a few kilometres south of Le Chambon. Although it was closer to the village of Mars, the chateau was still in the parish of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

  André Trocmé was never other than consistent. In the Weapons of the Spirit sermon, he had said: ‘To love, to forgive, to show kindness to our enemies, that is our duty.’ Now he proceeded to live up to his word. He went to the chateau and asked to speak to the most senior German officer. This turned out to be Julius Schmahling, whom he had met when pleading for the release of Roger Le Forestier. Major Schmähling was polite to the point of being obsequious. According to Trocmé: ‘He saluted me and clicked his heels and called me Herr Pfarrer [Mr Pastor].’ However, Schmahling was not yet ready to admit total defeat. ‘The fortune of war will change,’ he told Trocmé. ‘Our Führer has more than one trick up his sleeve. For now, strategic retreat. Then, one of those offensives—and he knows their secret—that throws everybody back into the sea. Like at Dunkirk! Haha!’ This was not the point of the visit, so Trocmé changed the subject. Would the major like Trocmé to conduct Protestant services for the prisoners? Schmahling could see no reason why not. ‘Excellent,’ he told Trocmé. Tm a Catholic, but I will give the orders and everyone will come along.’

  So Trocmé began a regular routine. He would conduct his usual service in the church at Le Chambon on Sunday morning, then repeat the service in the afternoon at the chateau. He would even use the same sermon in both places, spoken in French in the morning and in German in the afternoon. The German prisoners packed the services, although that was probably attributable more to being ordered to turn up than to any burning desire to hear messages of peace and reconciliation.

  Trocmé’s actions went down badly with both the Germans and the people of the Plateau. On the French side, the mood of the time was vengeful. All over France, ‘collaborators’ were attacked, even killed. Women accused of fraternising with the Germans had their hair shaved off, or worse. German prisoners made easy targets. In the popular view, Trocmé s actions were tantamount to aiding the enemy.

  On the German side, the soldiers listening to Trocmé’s message were dismissive. The French would be sorry. The Germans had been fighting communism. The day was fast coming when the Germans would not be around to protect them any longer from Stalin’s hordes.

  The Germans were also unhappy about their food. While they had been running the country, they ate well. Now they complained that they were being starved, although in fact they were receiving the same rations as the civilian population of France. Nevertheless, Trocmé decided a little relief work might be in order. It was September, and in France the grape harvest was looming. Trocmé managed to lay his hands on a crate of grapes from the Midi, which he distributed among the German prisoners. This went down particularly badly with his parishioners. ‘The “tourists” started muttering again that, after all, I was a “Boche”,’ Trocmé wrote subsequently.

  • • •

  Paris fell to the French 2nd Armoured Division on 25 August 1944. By the beginning of September, nearly all of France had been cleared of Germans, and the Allies were pushing on into Belgium. By 9 September they had taken Brussels and were closing in on Germany itself. However, there was an oddity: a handful of German enclaves clung on in France. The Germans had well-defended submarine bases in the French ports of
Lorient (on the south Brittany coast), at Saint-Nazaire (at the mouth of the River Loire), and at La Rochelle, on the Atlantic coast of France north of Bordeaux. The German garrisons in all three ports decided to hang on, and the Allies simply bypassed them. All three clung to their positions until the last day of the war, 8 May 1945, and then surrendered without a fight.

  The island of Oléron, where I live, guards the entrance to the port of La Rochelle. The Germans hung on here, too. I have the front page of Le Monde dated Thursday, 3 May 1945, framed and hanging over my desk. The splash headline says HITLER EST MORT (’Hitler is dead’). Down below, but still on the front page, a headline reads: L’ίle d’Oléron entièrement libérée (’The island of Oléron totally liberated’). The story reads:

  On the island of Oléron, the strongest resistance was met in Saint-Pierre from the SS. From Tuesday evening the whole island has been in the hands of our soldiers. 1,500 prisoners were taken, including the commander of the garrison. Our losses were small. The local people suffered very little.

  So my home, in Saint-Pierre, must have been within earshot of what may have been the last battle on French soil of World War II. Happily, my neighbours appear to have escaped unscathed.

  • • •

  Virginia Hall’s movements after the liberation of the Plateau are not easy to trace (not surprisingly; spies tend not to leave a forwarding address). However, we know that on 25 September 1944 she asked to retire from the US Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, saying that her mission was now completed. A note in the files shows that on 28 September her resignation was accepted. Not for long, though: a second note, written the same day, suggests that she be rehired. Hall replied by reminding them that her six languages—English, Spanish, Russian, Italian, French and German—must surely come in handy somewhere; if ever the US government wanted to create some sort of central intelligence agency to replace the OSS, she would be happy to serve with it in some overseas post. The CIA was yet to be established, but it had at least one talented volunteer waiting in the wings.