Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

  39 Galtier-Boissière (1944), p. 251. For more on Galtier-Boissière and his scurrilous magazine, Le Crapouillot, see Hewitt (2007).

  40 Flora Groult, Benoîte’s sister, wrote in her diary: ‘In the clear sky there is a continuous, low background noise. Papa says it is gunfire twenty miles away.’ Groult & Groult (1965), p. 298.

  41 Tournoux (1982), p. 317.

  42 Armand’s real name was René Dumont, or more precisely René Dumont-Guillemet (Cumont, 1991, p. 37). But see also his post-war recommendation for a Distinguished Service Order, where his name is given as ‘Dumont-Guillement’ (NA WO 373/98).

  43 OSS War Diary, 3:769.

  44 OSS War Diary, 3:774.

  45 Galtier-Boissière (1944), p. 251.

  46 BAM VV, 15.8.

  47 See for example, Tuffrau (2002), p. 73; Vilain (1945), p. 6; AN 72AJ/62/III/4, p. 10.

  48 All quotes from Mesnil-Amar (2009), diary entry for 15 August, pp. 80–2. Mesnil-Amar’s pet name for her daughter was, confusingly, ‘Sylvio’.

  49 Rougeyron (1996), p. 122.

  50 The carefully folded note got to its destination. It is reproduced as Plate 9 in Litoff (2006). For Virginia d’Albert-Lake’s description of being taken from Romainville, and the role of the bus driver in delivering her note and several others, see Litoff (2006), pp. 142–4.

  51 OSS War Diary 3:232. At the time the War Diary was written, in 1945, it was thought that Clément was still alive.

  52 Houssin (2004), p. 260.

  53 Bachelier (1996), section 7-3-12.

  54 AN 72AJ/67/IV/18, p. 10.

  55 Nordling (2002), pp. 94–5.

  56 Kinnis & Booker (1999), Childers (2004).

  57 The stories of many of these 168 men are gathered in Kinnis & Booker (1999), and have recently been the subject of a documentary film, Lost Airmen of Buchenwald (2011). See also chapter 5.

  58 Alix d’Unienville (a.k.a. ‘Myrtil’) is still alive, so her SOE personnel file (NA HS 9/1498/2) is closed until 2019. The details of her activity can be found in Rémy (1994). Sadly, her family tells me she is not well enough to be interviewed.

  59 Paillat & Boulnois (1989), p. 618, n. 13; Duchemin (2011).

  60 For example, in 1951 Pierre Lefaucheux stated that he was one of 1468 male deportees, of whom only 34 returned (AN 72AJ/67/IV/18, p. 7). Krivopisco & Porrin (2004) reproduce a 1965 claim from a survivor of the convoy that there were 2080 male deportees, of whom only 27 survived (p. 12). Blond (2005) claims that there were a total of 2400 deportees, of whom less than 800 survived. More details can be found at www.bddm.org [accessed July 2012] which suggests that there were 1654 men and 543 women on the train, of whom 48 per cent either died in deportation or disappeared. Thirty-eight per cent (838 deportees) returned from the camps; the fate of 14 per cent is unknown. Only six people escaped, and five were freed by the Germans.

  61 For details of Rondenay’s life, see AN 72AJ/237/I/7. It was Rondenay who found Pierre Lefaucheux on the train so that Marie-Hélène could speak to him.

  62 Albertelli (2010a) mistakenly suggests they were killed at Pantin. There is a monument at the Domont site, on the road that is now called la route des Fusillés, commemorating all those who were murdered there (see chapter 5). Hagen and Heinrichsohn, who were both heavily involved in the deportation of Jews from France, were each tried in absentia by French courts in the 1950s and were sentenced to life imprisonment and death, respectively. In 1979 they were finally tracked down and tried by a German court, and sentenced to twelve and six years in prison, respectively. For a powerful account of the trial, see Pryce-Jones (1981) pp. 269–72. The details of the ‘executioners’ banquet’ are taken from the French indictment of Heinrichsohn in 1956 (Pryce-Jones, 1981, p. 271).

  63 Rougeyron (1996), pp. 122–3. When shouts of protest against the shootings came from some of the wagons, the prisoners from those wagons were made to strip and had to spend the rest of the journey naked.

  64 Hénocque (1947), p. 39.

  65 Riffaud (1994), p. 129.

  66 It is not clear why the Germans had this change of heart, but Raoul Nordling’s repeated attempts to see Abetz in the previous days may have been responsible.

  67 All details from Riffaud (1994), pp. 113–115. There was another successful operation to free prisoners this day: in the late afternoon, a group of armed résistants arrived at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital by Notre Dame cathedral and barged their way into one of the wards on the fifth floor of the building, where they took away a number of patients who were members of the Resistance and were being treated there under German guard (Cazaux, 1975, p. 137).

  68 ML 99/211, p. 2.

  69 Galtier-Boissière (1944), p. 251.

  70 de Saint-Pierre (1945), p. 27.

  71 Pryce-Jones (1981), p. 197.

  72 Trentesaux’s unpublished diary is available on Gilles Primout’s excellent website: www.liberation-de-paris.gilles-primout.fr/tfrancoise.htm [accessed May 2011].

  73 Castetbon (2004), p. 48.

  74 Cazaux (1975), p. 133.

  75 de Saint-Pierre (1945), p. 27.

  CHAPTER 5

  1 Crémieux-Brilhac (1976), p. 176.

  2 See Virginia d’Albert-Lake’s memoir of this phase of the journey, written in 1946; Litoff (2006), pp. 146–7. To ease the tension while the train was trapped in the tunnel, one of the women in d’Albert-Lake’s wagon told a series of shockingly filthy jokes. See also the graphic descriptions of the Allied prisoners, in Kinnis & Booker (1999), and those of the résistants in ANACR (n.d.).

  3 Goglin & Roux (2004), p. 148.

  4 Litoff (2006), p. 148.

  5 Litoff (2006), p. 148. Rémy (1994) gives her name as ‘Vitasse’; ANACR (n.d.), which reproduces Alix’s account from Rémy, gives ‘Witasse’.

  6 Rémy (1994). The full account of Alix d’Unienville’s time in the villages of the Marne is fascinating. After the war, she went on to become an air hostess (this was highly unusual and glamorous at the time) and wrote a very successful book about her new career. For many eye-witness accounts of how the population supported and responded to the prisoners, see ANACR (n.d.).

  7 Details of Madame Lefaucheux from AN 72AJ/67/IV/18, pp. 10–11. Bachelier (1996), section 7-3-12 suggests that Nordling was following the convoy and tried to convince the Germans to release the prisoners at Nanteuil-Saâcy. There is no evidence from Nordling’s account that this happened – he described receiving a phone call from the Red Cross letting him know that the train was stopped at Nanteuil-Saâcy and resolved to take action first thing the next morning (Nordling, 2002, p. 97).

  8 Rougeyron (1996), p. 124. Details of the arrival in the tunnel and the transfer to the new train are from Rougeyron’s account. There is now a plaque at Nanteuil-Saâcy station commemorating the event, and a ceremony is held there each year on 16 August.

  9 Nordling (2002), p. 97.

  10 Nordling (2002), p. 96.

  11 Simmonet (2010).

  12 Commemorative plaque on the outside of Collège Pierre Alviset, rue Monge, Paris.

  13 After Action Report, p. 33; B-741, p. 9; Blumenson (1996), p. 513. On 17 August, Colonel Bruce of OSS was unable to get to the centre of Chartres because of German snipers (Lankford, 1991, pp. 152–3).

  14 Cumberlege (1946), pp. 188–9.

  15 Blumenson (1998). Curiously, there is no mention of this in the entry for 16 August in Blumenson (1996), pp. 521–4.

  16 Fourcade (1972), vol. 2, pp. 285–7.

  17 This is an extrapolation on my part. On 18 August, the head of regional FFI intelligence, L’Arcouest, wrote to Rol explaining that two unnamed agents had been sent by motorbike to Le Mans; the motorcyclist was then ordered by the Allies to bring back ‘Lieutenant P’ (Rol-Tanguy & Bourderon, 1994, p. 182). Although it is possible that this mission was entirely separate from that of Sainteny and de Billy, involving two different men, the proximity in time and place, and the fact that both missions used motorcycles, makes it more likely that they were in fact the same mission
. In his description of these events, Rol refers to a liaison officer from the FFI in Brittany, a Lieutenant Mallet, who arrived on 16 August (Rol-Tanguy & Bourderon, 1994, p. 196). Lieutenant P and Lieutenant Mallet could be the same person, but the situation is complicated by the presence of another man moving between Le Mans and Paris at this time, ‘Le Goff’ (see chapter 7). There may have been one, two or three such agents.

  18 B-728, p. 3.

  19 Bradley (1951), pp. 386–7.

  20 Kriegel-Valrimont (1964), p. 182; see also AN 72AJ/49/III/31, p. 6. The text was allegedly a quote from Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz and read: ‘It is generally believed that, by treating prisoners in a barbaric fashion, the enemy will destroy our courage. What a pointless idea! We can decide to meet barbarity with barbarity, and ferocity with ferocity. It would be easy for us to surpass the enemy and to bring them back into reasonable, human limits.’ I have been unable to identify this alleged quote from von Clausewitz; I presume it is incorrect or there is a confusion in the minutes of the COMAC meeting.

  21 AN 72 AJ/62/I/6, p. 1; Dansette (1946), p. 160.

  22 Schramm (1982), p. 201.

  23 ‘Lehr’ was a term shared by a number of German divisions and referred to the original training function of these units (Steinhardt, 2008, p. 16).

  24 ETHINT 67, p. 18. See also Steinhardt (2008), pp. 152–3.

  25 AN 72AJ/61/II/8.

  26 Although these posters carried the French flag and were headlined in the name of the Republic, the ‘French Army’, and the FFI, they were signed by the (unnamed) ‘Chief of Staff’ of the FTP. They were certainly not issued by the Free French. The Germans appear to have been unaware of the tensions and contradictions that existed between the various wings of the Resistance and the Free French in Algiers – if they had known, they would surely have sought to exploit them.

  27 von Choltitz (1969), pp. 221–2.

  28 Yves Cazaux saw one of the posters and wrote in his diary: ‘Intrigued, I ran my finger and nail over the edges, where you should have felt the raised edge of the paper. Nothing – I felt nothing. The poster has a false sticker printed on it.’ (Cazaux, 1975, p. 137). Similarly, Henri Rebière was surprised to see that the posters had not been destroyed, but instead had a sticker on them: ‘A passerby pointed out to me that the strip was not a sticker, but had been directly printed onto the poster.’ (AN 72AJ/62/I/16, p. 1.) Rebière concluded that the fact that the sticker was apparently printed on the whole poster indicated that the poster was the work of German provocateurs and therefore dismissed the Resistance appeal as well (AN 72AJ/62/I/16, p. 2).

  29 Crémieux-Brilhac (1976), opp. p. 176, has a photograph of one of these posters, carrying the red strip added by the Germans, which clearly looks like a sticker rather than part of the poster itself. At its meeting on 16 August COMAC also discussed the issue: ‘It is significant that, on the posters calling for mobilisation, they have stuck red strips threatening reprisals.’ (AN72AJ/49/III/31, p. 7.) It is possible that the Germans used both stickers and specially printed posters in this strange campaign.

  30 AN 72AJ/49/III/31, p. 2. It is not known who the officer was, nor what ‘service’ he proposed.

  31 Lankford (1991), p. 152. According to the diary of Colonel Bruce of OSS, some of the leaflets were hidden in the spare tyre of a ‘wood-burning seven-ton truck’ which was driven towards Paris, but broke down as it crossed the German lines (Lankford, 1991, p. 154).

  32 AN 72AJ/61/I/14, p. 1.

  33 Bobkowski (1991), p. 605.

  34 de Saint-Pierre (1945), p. 29.

  35 de Saint-Pierre (1945), p. 28.

  36 Bood (1974), p. 314.

  37 Boegner (1992), p. 281.

  38 Institut Hoover (1958), p. 682.

  39 Institut Hoover (1958), p. 1194.

  40 Institut Hoover (1958), p. 1041.

  41 Dansette (1946), p. 113.

  42 Institut Hoover (1958), pp. 1075–6.

  43 Dansette (1946), pp. 114–115. Himmler had been alerted by Déat, who was determined to stop Laval’s scheme.

  44 AN 72AJ/62/I/6, p. 2.

  45 Galtier-Boissière (1944), pp. 252–3.

  46 The description that follows is based on Bourget (1984), Krivopisco & Porrin (2004) and an anonymous, undated (internal evidence suggests 1946–8), archival account of the events, focusing on the experience of the group led by Michelle Boursier (AN 72AJ/61/I/21). This archival account is the basis of a dossier by Adam Rayski which is available online: clioweb.free.fr/dossiers/39-45/rayski/cascade.htm [Accessed May 2011]. There is also a good summary of events in Ouzoulias (1972), pp. 420–2. The fullest account is in Bourget (1984), pp. 281–307. However, although Bourget uses a great deal of detailed archival evidence (in particular from the trials of those involved), his presentation of events is extremely convoluted. Krivopisco & Porrin (2004) present a much clearer account, although lacking in detail. For the sake of clarity, I have not referred to the role of Rehbein, a.k.a. ‘Charles’, a.k.a. ‘Porel’, who also claimed to be an Intelligence Service agent, or to that of his partner, Lydia Tscherwiska (‘Katherine’). Sabine Zatlin (‘Jeanne’) who had been the headmistress at the Izieu Jewish refuge that was raided by Klaus Barbie in April 1944 (Cobb, 2009a, p. 208) was also involved in the affair, inadvertently helping to introduce the Gestapo agents to the résistants (Krivopisco & Porrin, 2004, p. 5).

  47 AN 72AJ/62/I/8, p. 1.

  48 Bood (1974), pp. 313–314.

  49 AN 72AJ/61/I/21, p. 8.

  50 Bourget (1984), p. 294. Because of the unlikely circumstances of Favé’s escape, he was suspected of complicity, arrested in 1945 and imprisoned for three years. The case was eventually dismissed (Bourget, 1984, p. 298, n. 2).

  51 AN 72AJ/62/I/8, p. 1.

  52 Bourget (1984), p. 298.

  53 Krivopisco & Porrin (2004), pp. 14–15. It is sometimes said that those killed were ‘adolescents’; although many were in their early twenties, the eldest victim of the massacre at the Cascades was Luigi Vannini, aged forty-five.

  54 Pauwels (2004), pp. 117–118.

  55 AN 72AJ/71/IX/7, p. 6. For an account of the experience of USAAF bomber pilot Roy Allen, who met ‘Captain Jack’, was arrested in the 11 August raid on the boulevard Sébastopol and was deported to Buchenwald on 15 August, see Childers (2004), pp. 198–249. I found Childers’ work hard to use as it is impossible to distinguish fact from imagination; he admits: ‘in telling the story, I have relied on literary devices more commonly associated with fiction’ (p. 421). Masquerading as an Intelligence Service officer seems to have been a widespread Gestapo technique. André Amar, Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar’s husband, was arrested following a similar ploy by the Germans (Chaigneau, 1981, p. 160). Dufresne (Massiet, 1945, pp. 58–60) describes his encounters with a ‘Marquis de Wiet’, a corpulent man who claimed to be an Intelligence Service agent and offered to supply the FFI staff officer with hundreds of machine guns. Dufresne smelt a rat and did not go through with the contact; de Wiet turned out to be a Gestapo agent.

  56 Bourget (1984), pp. 300–301.

  57 Bourget (1984), p. 299; Krivopisco & Porrin (2004), pp. 32–3.

  58 In 1949, a commemorative plaque was placed at 65 rue Chardon-Lagache, where the bodies of all those killed were gathered on 17 August. It stated that they had been ‘shot by order of General von Choltitz’. In 1966 it was replaced by a version that read ‘shot on the orders of the Gestapo’. There are conflicting accounts of this change: Krivopisco & Porrin (2004), p. 34 state that it was made ‘on the sole instructions of the Prefect of the Seine, Maurice Papon’ (despite his elevated post-war position, Papon had been a notorious collaborator in Bordeaux; he was finally convicted for his involvement of the deportation of the Jews in 1998). This contains at least a minor error: Papon was never Prefect of the Seine, rather he was the Prefect of Police in Paris (1958–67). More seriously, Bourget (1984), p. 303 shows that von Choltitz himself took the initiative to get the inscription altered in 1963, and that the Pre
fect of the Seine, the socialist Raymond Haas-Picard, who was in post 1963–6, made the decision. There is no evidence that von Choltitz directly and specifically ordered the killings. However, although the general order to shoot ‘terrorists’ had been adopted before von Choltitz’s arrival, he had clearly upped the stakes with his declarations on 15 August: ‘All means, including the most harsh, that can repress disorder, will be utilised . . . Everything will be done to maintain order and to pitilessly repress disorder.’ (Cazaux, 1975, pp. 131–2.)

  CHAPTER 6

  1 Galtier-Boissière (1944), pp. 253–4.

  2 Institut Hoover (1958), p. 1295.

  3 Tournoux (1982), p. 318.

  4 All details from von Arnim (1995), pp. 241–2.

  5 ETHINT 67, p. 18. See also Carell (1962), p. 259, and Speidel (1971), p. 137. Speidel – who greeted Model at La Roche-Guyon – states that Model arrived on the afternoon of 16 August.

  6 Details from Speidel (1971), p. 137 and Carell (1962), pp. 259–60.

  7 Nordling (2002), p. 100.

  8 AN 72AJ/62/VIII/3, p. 2.

  9 AN 72AJ/61/I/13. Note that the Santé prison was not under German control.

  10 Nordling (2002), p. 101.

  11 All details from AN 72AJ/62/VIII/3; Nordling (2002), pp. 100–101; von Choltitz (1969), pp. 229–30. The accounts are reasonably concordant.

  12 Nordling (2002), p. 104; Riffaud (1994), pp. 115–116.

  13 Nordling (2002), p. 105–106.

  14 Details of the convoy from www.bddm.org [accessed July 2012]. See also Nordling (2002), p. 109.

  15 AN 72AJ/42/IV/3, p. 4.

  16 Noguères & Degliame-Fouché (1981), p. 465.

  17 Felstiner (1987), p. 37. Brunner had left earlier in the day, but had unexpectedly returned to collect something he had forgotten. It is not known what this was. Nordling (2002), p. 105; Rajsfus (1996), p. 357.