The Resistance

by Matthew Cobb

  530 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/timewatch/feigl_diary_03.shtml (accessed August 2008).

  531 In 1946 Feigl emigrated to the United States, where he still lives. Substantial extracts from Peter’s diary were published in Zapruder (2004). Peter’s diary – written in French and German – is held at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Much of this paragraph (and this note) is based on the information on the USHMM website. There were two volumes to the diary; the first – dedicated to his parents – was lost when Peter left Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Amazingly, it was discovered in a flea market at the end of the 1940s and eventually published in France in 1970 by a historian of Jews in the Resistance, David Diamant. It was finally returned to Feigl in 1987. An hour-long video testimony by Peter Feigl can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DayKPRAaho (accessed January 2009).

  532 See Philip P. Hallie’s moving account of Le Chambon and of Trocmé’s work (Hallie, 1979, p. 103).

  533 Hallie (1979), p. 171.

  534 See plate section.

  535 Teissier du Cros (1962), p. 288.

  536 Heslop (1970), p. 151.

  537 Romans-Petit (1974), p. 27.

  538 Romans-Petit (1974), pp. 30–1.

  539 Foot (2004), p. 315.

  540 The high quality of Bir-Hakeim led to unfounded suspicions from other sections of the Resistance that it was produced and funded in Switzerland. Further problems arose when it began to publish blacklists of supposed collaborators, some of whom were completely innocent. As a result, the CNR made clear that it took no responsibility for the material in Bir-Hakeim, while Franc-Tireur criticized its ‘stupid and provocative campaigns’ and Front National went so far as to describe it as ‘an organ of the enemy’. Bellanger (1961), pp. 150–1. The film, together with a dramatic reconstruction (irritatingly filmed in high summer), can be seen in the film La Lutte armée, as part of the DVD La Résistance (2008).

  541 Pictures of the demonstration and of the spoof issue of Le Nouvelliste can be found in Romans-Petit (1974) between pp. 96 and 97.

  542 Guingouin (1974), pp. 107–9, and Kedward (1993), p. 97.

  543 Taubman (2004), p. 80.

  544 Guingouin (1974), p. 109.

  545 Kedward (1993), p. 97.

  546 Guingouin (1974), p. 100.

  547 Guingouin (1974), p. 157.

  548 Marcot (1996), p. 221.

  549 Parent (2006), p. 71.

  550 Guingouin (1974), p. 140.

  551 Guingouin (1974), p. 72.

  552 Serbat (2001), p. 38. A slightly different version of these words is given by Taubmann (2004), p. 92. Although Taubmann gives no reference, the context indicates it is based on an interview by Serbat (Taubmann, 2004, p. 94 n. 1). Taubmann (2004), p. 94, states that Faure was a member of the PCF’s clandestine ‘service des cadres’. However, his name does not appear in the recent extensive history of this shadowy group (Berlière & Liaigre, 2007). According to Taubmann (2004), p. 94, Guingouin was convinced that the order came from PCF leader Léon Mauvais, who was on the fringes of the service des cadres (Berlière & Liaigre, 2007, pp. 409–10, n. 109). See Chapter 10 for further conflicts between Guingouin and the PCF, over the liberation of Limoges. After the war the PCF leadership continued to persecute Guingouin, playing an important role in framing him in a trial during the 1950s, which saw him unjustly imprisoned. See Taubmann (2004) for a full account of the post-war ‘Guingouin affair’. The PCF generously ‘rehabilitated’ him in 1998, but even in 2005, his obituary in the PCF daily L’Humanité carefully avoided any mention of the attempts to kill him during the war, or of the PCF’s role in the ‘judicial machination that sent him to prison, into a coma and into a psychiatric hospital’ (L’Humanité, 31 October 2005).

  553 Berlière & Liaigre (2007). See especially pp. 39–49.

  554 Since the Moscow show trials of the 1930s, Trotskyists were considered fair game by the Stalinists – Trotsky was murdered by a Stalinist assassin in August 1940, as were several leading Trotskyists in France and Switzerland, including Trotsky’s son. Two other notorious victims, both killed by the KGB in 1938, were Rudolf Klement, assassinated outside Paris, and Ignace Reiss, the KGB agent who went over to Trotskyism, whose assassination involved Noel Field (see Chapter 4, note 9). The differences between the Stalinists and Trotskyists related to how each group saw the socialist future, and above all how to get there. For the Stalinists, the USSR would be the motor of all future change, and protecting its interests – or, rather, the interests of the bureaucrats who controlled it – was paramount. On the other hand, the Trotskyists held to Marx’s view that ‘the emancipation of the working class will be the act of the working class itself’, and thought that Stalin’s dictatorship had to be overthrown.

  555 See Vichy document of 24 June 1942, reproduced in Broué & Vacheron (1997), pp. 21–2. Broué & Vacheron make a reasonable insinuation, but do not prove (p. 24), that the raid was linked to the activities of KGB agent Noel Field (see Chapter 4, note 9), who took a close interest in the lists of refugees helped by the CAS, and in particular their political affiliations. Passy reports that in 1941 he sent an agent to contact the Trotskyists in Marseilles, perhaps in the CAS (Passy, 1947a, p. 156).

  556 Chapelle claimed to have been in contact with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Although this may have been the case, Chapelle was probably in contact with SOE (Broué & Vacheron, 1997, p. 117).

  557 Broué & Vacheron (1997), p. 151; see note 43 above.

  558 This occurred through the publication of Meurtres au maquis (Broué & Vacheron, 1997). The breakout was well known, but the subsequent events were not. In November 1943 Demazière described the escape in glowing terms in the Trotskyists’ underground newspaper, La Vérité (no 54, 20 November 1943 – reproduced in Anonymous, 1978). Because Demazière was unaware of what had happened about a month earlier, there was no mention of the assassination of his four comrades. The article closed at the point they arrived at the Wodli maquis camp, and described their friendship with the PCF militants: ‘The feeling of solidarity which unites us in the same combat was stronger than the scheming and odious calculations of some bureaucrats: shoulder to shoulder with the comrades of the PC, our life as partisans began.’ After the war, the Trotskyists realized what had happened to Tresso and the three others. In 1973 Demazière indicated to Henri Noguères that his four comrades had been assassinated, and this appeared in volume 4 of Noguères’ monumental Histoire de la Résistance en France (Noguères & Degliame-Fouché, 1976, p. 29).

  559 Broué & Vacheron (1997) provide a detailed account, including many interviews with maquisards, which forms the basis of the preceding paragraphs. Pages 145–66 contain the description of the execution. On 7 May 1996 then-PCF leader Robert Hue responded to a letter from Demazière, supported by fifty signatories, including Germaine Tillion of the Musée de l’Homme group (reproduced in Broué & Vacheron, 1997, pp. 253–4). L’Humanité, 24 March 1997, contains a review of Broué & Vacheron’s book, which includes quotes from Hue’s letter.

  560 Estimates of the total number of résistants (not just Communists) who were executed during the Occupation vary from 9,800 to 30,000. For a discussion of these figures, and how the PCF’s claim took root in the post-war years, see Besse (2007).

  561 For an overall discussion of the MOI, see Courtois et al. (1989).

  562 Holban (1989). Holban’s real name was Boris Bruhman. After the war he returned to Romania, where he had been brought up, and became a general in the Romanian army before falling victim to a Stalinist purge. He emigrated to France in 1984 and was given the Légion d’Honneur. He died in 2004.

  563 Holban (1989), pp. 146 and 157.

  564 Holban (1989), p. 161.

  565 Despite subsequent legends, it appears that no one was injured in the operation. Holban (1989), pp. 163–8, gives a sober account of what actually happened. The fact that Schaumburg was not killed in the attack was revealed in an article in Le Monde (27 February 1965).

>   566 Raymond (1975), p. 230; Holban (1989), pp. 168–71.

  567 The reasons for this change of leadership remain unclear. The most balanced (and completely inconclusive) account of the reasons that may have been involved can be found in Bourderon (2004), pp. 228–33.

  568 One of the police reports on these tailing operations is reproduced in Peschanski (2002), p. 96.

  569 Holban (1989), pp. 205–6.

  570 Holban (1989), p. 205.

  571 See entry on L’Affiche rouge in Marcot et al. (2006), p. 996.

  572 Krivopissko (2006), p. 250.

  573 In 1941, aged only twenty-six, Scamaroni had set up a short-lived Corsican intelligence network, COPERNIC. Before the war, Scamaroni had been on the way to becoming a prefect, like Jean Moulin – the two men had met in Marseilles in March 1941 (Piquet-Wicks, 1957, p. 101). Piquet-Wicks was an SOE officer who knew Scamaroni. His account of Scamaroni’s work is very imaginative, but is backed up by (unreferenced) quotes from messages sent by Scamaroni back to London. M. R. D. Foot sums up Piquet-Wicks’ book thus: ‘Essentially true; colours touched up a little.’ (Foot, 2004, p. 409). There is a recent biography by one of Scamaroni’s relatives (Scamaroni, 1999).

  574 Gambiez (1976), p. 147.

  575 Gambiez (1973), p. 119. Gambiez cites (but gives no sources for) an Italian counter-intelligence report on Scamaroni’s suicide with a piece of wire. Silvani (2001), p. 61, cites (but gives no sources for) a report by a Professor Ceccaldi, of the Italian forensic service, who suggests that Scamaroni inserted the wire under the skin of his neck, pushed it behind an artery and then pulled, severing the blood vessel. Piquet-Wicks (1957), p. 141, claims Scamaroni took a cyanide pill, but provides no evidence. Despite his betrayal, Hellier was executed by the Italians in July (Piquet-Wicks, 1957, p. 141).

  576 Cruccu (1976), p. 165, claims that the Italian army put no strain on food supplies, and made not a single requisition of food.

  577 For a discussion of how the Resistance grew in Corsica, see Torre (1999).

  578 Gambiez (1973), p. 152. For more details on Nicoli, see Silvani (2001), pp. 67–78.

  579 Silvani (2001), p. 65.

  580 Gambiez (1973), p. 154. Cruccu (1976), p. 171, points out that there is no trace of any such communication in the Italian army archives.

  581 Silvani (2001), p. 147.

  582 Gambiez (1973), p. 154.

  583 Gambiez (1973), p. 254. For extracts from von Senger und Etterlin’s memoirs, see Silvani (2001) pp. 199–203.

  584 These figures are from Gambiez (1976), p. 159, which contains the simplest account of the fighting. The number of civilians killed is less clear. On 3 October, when the civilian population were hiding in the hills, Bastia was shattered by a series of explosions as the Germans destroyed their remaining fuel supplies and all the equipment they could not take as the last soldiers left. The streets of the city were littered with the burning detritus of a military evacuation. The next day, as the French Moroccan troops gingerly entered the ruined port, the USAAF, unaware that the Germans had all embarked, launched a massive bombing raid, two days too late. Silvani (2001), pp. 163–8.

  585 Buton (1993), p. 28.

  586 Buton (1993), p. 28.

  587 Cointet (2005) describes the struggle between the two men.

  CHAPTER 8

  588 Howard (1990), p. 74.

  589 Operation MINCEMEAT was a macabre and cunning part of this deception: a dead man, dressed as a British marine officer, was put into the Mediterranean together with fake documents, suggesting that the Allies were planning to invade Greece (this story was filmed as The Man Who Never Was).

  590 Foot (2004), p. 422.

  591 The circuit was technically entitled PHYSICIAN, but it is rarely called by that in modern accounts. ‘Prosper’ was Suttill’s code name.

  592 Foot (2004), p. 274. Marshall (1988) claims that London manipulated the PROSPER circuit as part of operation COCKADE’s attempt to deceive the Germans. Marshall (supported by one-time SOE F-section head, Maurice Buckmaster; p. 163) claims that Suttill met Churchill during his visit to London in May 1943 and that the Prime Minister told Suttill of the supposedly imminent invasion of the Cotentin peninsula (pp. 160–4). Other versions of the story have Churchill telling Suttill that the invasion would not take place but that he had to sacrifice himself and his circuit for the sake of COCKADE. Unfortunately for the conspiracy theories, Suttill and Churchill never met in 1943. Suttill was indeed in London in May: he left France on 14 May by Lysander (Verity, 2000, p. 196), and parachuted back into France on 20 May (Helm, 2006, p. 28). But throughout that time, Churchill was in the USA: on 12 May Churchill and Roosevelt began the Trident conference in the White House; on 19 May Churchill gave an address to the US Congress; he then flew to Algiers (via Newfoundland and Gibraltar), where he arrived on 27 May (Macmillan, 1984, p. 94).

  593 Foot (2004) argues that the events in Caluire were of far greater importance, because ‘these losses disrupted the whole system for articulating a national uprising of the French people, and were of far graver consequence for the allied cause’ (p. 308).

  594 Déricourt does not appear to have played a role in the collapse of PROSPER. The most likely explanation of the PROSPER tragedy lies in its sprawling nature, with its dozens of sub-circuits and hundreds of members, and the lax security shown by its members. In this respect it is striking that virtually the only parts of PROSPER to survive were those linked to the Communist Party, which had long experience of clandestine work and strict security procedures. Foot (2004), p. 283.

  595 Déricourt’s treachery was never unmasked by the British, although it could have been. In spring 1943 a wave of arrests hit recently parachuted agents; Suttill became suspicious about Déricourt, but London dismissed his concerns. Déricourt continued to work in France, systematically betraying his comrades, until February 1944. Déricourt later claimed that he was run by a German agent inside SOE and/or MI6 (Overton Fuller, 1989). There is no concrete evidence for this, and, according to the Abwehr agent ‘Colonel Henri’ (Sergeant Hugo Bleicher), Déricourt ‘was a completely unscrupulous man without any code of ethics, without that curious rule of conduct that all other agents had irrespective of their loyalties. Gilbert [Déricourt’s Nazi code name] was completely self-centred. Only his own advancement mattered to him. He was prepared to do anything for that, including treason. The soldiers had a word for his sort – charakterschwein – a swine at heart’ (Bleicher, 1954, p. 122). There is no reason to believe that after the war Déricourt suddenly started telling the truth, nor is it easy to see why ‘Colonel Henri’ would have lied.

  596 Suttill was executed at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in September 1944, while Norman was killed at Mauthausen in the same month. Using the PROSPER radio codes, the Nazis played a ‘radio game’, supplying the British with false information. When the Nazis forced Norman to send a message to his London handlers, he followed SOE tradecraft and omitted his ‘true check’ – a code that indicated he was safe and was broadcasting freely. SOE head Maurice Buckmaster was handed Norman’s signal, and immediately sent a reply in which he scolded Norman because he had ‘forgotten’ to insert his true check, and accused him of committing ‘a serious breach of security which must not, repeat must not be allowed to happen again!’ (Marks, 1998, p. 326). The Nazis were able to string Buckmaster along for several weeks before it finally became clear that Norman had been captured. Foot (2004), pp. 292 and 296–7, gives a number of similar examples of London ignoring desperate warnings by agents that they were operating under duress. Noor Inayat Khan, descendant of an Indian sultan and an SOE agent, was PROSPER’s radio operator. She was arrested on 13 October, and the Nazis also used her codes in a radio game. Noor was imprisoned with fellow SOE agent John Starr, and Léon Faye of ALLIANCE (Fourcade, 1973, p. 279). After a failed escape attempt – the three managed to get on to the roof of Gestapo headquarters but were discovered – the Nazis demanded that they give their word of honour not to try and escape a
gain. Starr accepted while Noor and Faye refused and were immediately deported to Germany. Noor was eventually sent to Dachau, where, early in the morning of 13 September 1944, she was executed together with three other SOE women agents. Faye was killed in January 1945, along with 800 other prisoners, mown down as the Nazis fled from the advancing Soviet forces (Fourcade, 1973, p. 367). On Noor, see Overton Fuller (1952), Kramer (1996), Foot (2004), Helm (2006) and Lahiri (2007). On the general question of women’s role in clandestine operations, see Pattinson (2007, 2008).

  597 See, for example, Vader (1977) or Marshall (1988).

  598 There is no evidence that COCKADE and its associated operations involved any intervention in France at all, while the man in charge of the deception section, Colonel Bevan, felt that SOE was too insecure a structure to be taken seriously and used in such a ploy. Howard (1990), pp. 71–83; Foot (2005). Although Bevan’s opinion specifically refers to the use of SOE agents in the Netherlands, this would have also been the case for France. For the contrary view, see Walters (2006). Marshall (1988) argued that Déricourt was also an agent of an unofficial sub-section of MI6 (Maurice Dansey’s ‘Z’ group). It has also been claimed that the collapse of PROSPER was the work of Burgess, Maclean and the other Soviet spies within British Intelligence (Vader, 1977). There is no concrete evidence for any of these theories. Kramer (1996) contains a balanced summary of the various arguments (pp. 237–98). For the general context in SOE, see Helm (2006).

  599 This was carried out by the Vengeance group – see Chapter 9. Wetterwald (1946), p. 153.

  600 Laborie (1980), pp. 299 and 302, n. 42.

  601 Noguères & Degliame-Fouché (1976), p. 411. For a slight correction to Hamon’s account, with regard to the participation of Rol-Tanguy in an earlier attempt to set fire to the files, see Bourderon (2004), p. 239.

  602 Noguères & Degliame-Fouché (1976), p. 411. Hamon was a member of Ceux de la Résistance who had been involved in the Musée de l’Homme group (Humbert, 2008, pp. 44–5). For another version of this operation, and the overall context of the work of CDLR, see Granet (1964), pp. 142–4.