“The news came like a thunderbolt,” Louis Latour said. “Everyone knew that Maurice and Segnitz worked closely together, so everyone here was very surprised when the Germans arrested him.”
About the only one who was not surprised was Drouhin himself. As part of the French army reserves, he had accompanied generals to Washington during the interwar years and had taken on periodic special assignments. “My father never said what those assignments were but he often met with General Douglas MacArthur,” his son Robert said.
German intelligence closely monitored those trips and was convinced Drouhin was engaged in anti-German activity. When they arrested him, they said they had found a gun hidden in his house. It was a rusty old service revolver from World War I, which Maurice had left in a drawer and forgotten about. But it was all the excuse the Germans needed.
Maurice was imprisoned at Fresnes, outside Paris. Because he spoke German, he got along reasonably well with his guards. During one conversation, Maurice recounted some of his war experiences, including the incident in which he helped save a German soldier’s life.
“Oh, so you don’t hate Germany or Germans?” one of the guards asked in surprise.
“No, just your politics and government,” Drouhin replied.
Soon after his imprisonment, Drouhin’s guard gave him a pencil so he could write to his wife, Pauline.
Aug. 14, 1941: My dear little wife, first of all I want to assure you that my health is fine. I suffer from only one thing, and that is being far from you and far from our dear children. No one as yet has interrogated me but I wait with impatience because I am sure I am here as a result of a simple error. Courage, my darling, the beautiful days will come again.
But as days passed, Maurice grew increasingly concerned, not only about his own fate but about his wine business and how Pauline would fare in his absence.
Sept. 7, 1941: If I am not back for the harvest, rely on the advice of others. Be very careful around the barrels when the must begins fermenting; the fumes can be dangerous. Do not worry if we lose money while I am gone. It is best to put a brake on new business and just continue with our regular orders, especially with those customers who will help you get empty bottles we can use. Then start bottling little by little the 1938 Romanée-Conti. Begin with the best wines, and do everything you can to keep the staff.
In a letter about a week later, Maurice told Pauline that he had just appeared before a military tribunal.
I was interrogated yesterday and I must pay tribute to the perfect loyalty of he who presided over my interrogation. I constantly felt I was in front of judges who were seeking nothing but the truth. I remain firm in the hope that my innocence will be recognized so that our separation will be of a very short duration.
Well aware that the Germans were carefully reading everything he was writing, Maurice repeated those sentiments in several other letters to his wife.
Oct. 1, 1941: I was part of the War Council of my division in 1939, so I know it is loyalty that motivates the military judges. I cannot believe they would consider that unusable old revolver that I forgot in my drawer to be a weapon and that they would punish me for a simple act of forgetfulness. In any case, I am totally innocent and have nothing to hide. At the end of each day, I say to myself that it is one day less of this ordeal to live through.
But Maurice was frightened. That was something he could not conceal from his wife, no matter how hard he tried to comfort her.
Whatever you do, do not let yourself fall into melancholy or sadness for me. You must make sure that nothing changes in the life of our children, in their games, in their gaiety. You must do this for me, for this will give me the courage to go on.
His moments of greatest comfort were when Pauline was allowed to visit. On one of those visits, she told him that half of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti had been put up for sale, and that because Maison Joseph Drouhin was the largest distributor of wines from that famed estate, Maurice had an opportunity to buy it. As much as he was tempted, Maurice shook his head. “It would mean borrowing money,” he said. “I don’t want to do that.” Borrowing money was something winemakers rarely did in those days, and with his own fate uncertain, Maurice was even more reluctant.
Sensing how worried her husband was and realizing full well the danger he was in, Pauline contacted the head of the prison and asked for an appointment.
“My husband is innocent,” she told him. “Surely that old pistol your soldiers found when they searched our house doesn’t make him a criminal. It doesn’t even work.”
The German officer listened politely. He praised her devotion to her husband and then apologized. “I’m sorry but there is nothing I can do,” he said. Pauline was distraught.
She was, therefore, surprised when not long afterward, she received a letter from him. “As I told you, there is very little I can do,” he said. “Even your noble spirit which I witnessed cannot be taken into consideration, as that would be against all the regulations. But I can tell you that this nightmare Monsieur Drouhin is living through will not last much longer. Please be patient. I will do everything in my power to make the course of these formalities as short as possible.”
Patience, however, was running out. At the Hospices de Beaune, which Drouhin headed as vice president, colleagues complained it was difficult to go on without their leader.
The Hospices was the cornerstone of life in Beaune and had been so since 1443 when Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to the Duke of Burgundy, founded a charity hospital of that name, ceding all his worldly possessions to the Hospices and endowing it with some of the region’s choicest vineyards. Over the centuries, other pious Burgundians bequeathed their vineyards to the Hospices to support its work.
Now, officials warned, all that work was being jeopardized. Vineyards needed attention and so did the charitable institutions the Hospices ran, such as the hospital, an orphanage and a home for elderly men. In a letter to the head of the military tribunal, the board of directors said that Maurice’s incarceration was crippling the entire organization. “His absence is putting all the services we render into greatest difficulty. We beg that you do all that is possible to accelerate the solution of this affair.”
What few realized was that Drouhin’s activities went far beyond the Hospices and his wine business. He was, in fact, deeply involved with the Resistance, something the Germans had long suspected but never had been able to prove. Even from prison, Maurice was continuing to direct its activities. With books such as The Count of Monte Cristo and others by Alexandre Dumas which Pauline sent to the prison, the two carried on a secret correspondence using the code Maurice had taught her. The correspondence contained messages for the Resistance about German troop emplacements and advice on how to sneak people across the Demarcation Line.
Just before Christmas, the Germans announced they were putting Maurice on trial. His friend and fellow négociant Louis Latour rushed to the prison to see if there was anything he could do. Their meeting was short, but it was long enough to convince Latour that Maurice was in serious trouble. “He was terrified,” Latour said. “He was afraid he was going to be executed.”
Pauline, desperate to save her husband, remembered the letter he had written to her during World War I in which he described how he helped save the life of a German soldier. She knew she had kept it, but where? Finally, she located it buried in a drawer containing other personal effects. Folding the letter into an envelope, she tucked it into a bag along with a copy of the newspaper in which the letter had been reprinted and headed to the prison.
There, she handed the envelope to the German commandant. He promised to read the letter and article and take them into consideration.
On February 13, 1942, the unexpected happened: the Germans freed Maurice. They gave no explanation. Undoubtedly, the letter and newspaper article helped, but many in Beaune were convinced that Maurice’s friendship with weinführer Adolph Segnitz was also an important factor.
Although Maurice was
relieved, he also realized the Germans were still suspicious and that it was probably just a matter of time before they would try to arrest him again. Upon returning home, the first thing he did was pack a small bag of clothes and other personal necessities and hide it under his bed. Then he turned his attention to restarting operations at Maison Joseph Drouhin, business he had told Pauline to “put a brake on” during his months in prison. He also resumed his work at the Hospices de Beaune.
Maurice had been home for three months when the Hospices received a letter from the regional préfet, or administrator, in Dijon. The official wanted to know if the Hospices would be willing to donate a portion of one of its vineyards to Marshal Philippe Pétain.
Maurice summoned members of the Hospices board of directors to ask their opinion. Heads nodded and there were murmurs of approval. Everyone agreed that were it not for Pétain, France would have suffered a far worse fate at the hands of Germany than it currently faced. When the vote was taken, it was unanimous. They chose a prime section of vineyard on a slope overlooking Beaune, land that had been part of the Hospices vineyards since 1508. In honor of the Marshal, they decided to rename it Clos du Maréchal.
A few days later, vineyard workers, stonemasons and others converged on the site to build a stone wall around it. They also constructed an ornate stone archway carved with Pétain’s symbol, a Frankish ax combined with a marshal’s baton. As the arch neared completion, workers removed one of the stones near the base and hollowed it out. Inside, they placed a copy of the paper deeding the property to Pétain.
A week later, on May 29, 1942, a delegation headed by Maurice Drouhin arrived in Vichy to present the original deed to the Marshal in person. Pétain greeted them warmly and ushered them into his office. The old man, who was eighty-six, was beaming. Their gesture, he said, had touched him deeply. “You have flattered a personal passion of mine, my love for the soil and my instinct as a winegrower,” he said. “Thanks to you, I am now the owner of one of the best vineyards in Burgundy. If I don’t give this gift more publicity, it is because I want to preserve the intimate character with which you have given it to me. I am especially grateful that you will be managing the vines for me. I think with pleasure of the first harvest to come.”
That was not all that was ahead. Each November following the harvest, the Hospices de Beaune staged a spectacular auction of its wines. Over the years, it had become one of the biggest celebrations of the Burgundian year with foreign dignitaries, wine buyers from dozens of countries and thousands of other wine lovers flocking to Beaune to take part in the festivities. There were wine tastings, lavish banquets and the auction itself.
In 1943, it was even more important. It was the 500th anniversary of the Hospices de Beaune. Unfortunately, there was a problem: no one wanted the Germans around. Because Maurice Drouhin was in charge of the program, it fell to him to tell the Germans they were not welcome. He was not looking forward to it.
In recent months, German soldiers in the area had become nervous and more aggressive. With losses on the snow-swept Russian front mounting, thousands of troops throughout Burgundy were being reassigned for duty there. Grim-faced soldiers, already dressed in white winter hats, moved sullenly through towns and villages as they prepared to leave. Those remaining in Burgundy were consolidated in more urbanized areas where German officers believed they would be less vulnerable to attacks by the Resistance.
With understandable trepidation, Drouhin called Adolph Segnitz to say he had a matter of great urgency to discuss. The weinführer agreed to see him immediately. Maurice tried to explain, using words he hoped would not hurt his friend’s feelings. “It’s not against you personally,” he said. “The celebration, however, is a local tradition that does not involve politics; it is a kind of country fair that is primarily for French people.”
Segnitz took the news calmly. “I understand what you are trying to say,” he said. Clearly, the weinführer was deeply disappointed. He as much as anyone had been looking forward to the affair. Then he said, “I must warn you that this may put me in an uncomfortable position with my superiors.” Segnitz could easily have turned down the request and Maurice would have had no choice but to accept it. Instead, Segnitz rose from his seat, extended his hand and said simply, “I’ll see what I can do.”
A few days later, Segnitz called on Maurice. “I have some good news for you,” he said. “You can have your celebration and no Germans will attend. You have my word.”
To the weinführer’s surprise, Drouhin replied, “You are wrong, one German will be present.” Then Maurice handed him a ticket. “That’s for you. You will be the only German there, but may I ask one more favor? Please make sure to come in civilian clothes and not military uniform.”
The 500th anniversary of the Hospices de Beaune was a success. Despite the occupation and the uncertainty of those days, writers, actors, religious figures as well as officials from Vichy showed up for the celebration. No one enjoyed it more than Adolph Segnitz.
Not long afterward, Maurice Drouhin received a thank-you letter from him. “As you know,” he said, “I am a great admirer of your culture and traditions, and each time I have entered the Hospices, I have been touched by the restfulness of spirit which we all need in this awful time of war. On this 500th anniversary, it is my wish to give the Hospices de Beaune a gift; perhaps you have a special need or there is something you have not been able to do for one reason or another.”
Attached to the letter was a check for 100,000 francs.
No region suffered more pillaging of its wine than Champagne. Nearly two million bottles were grabbed by German soldiers during the first weeks of the occupation alone.
It was, therefore, with immense relief that the Champenois learned that German authorities were sending in someone to oversee champagne purchases and, hopefully, end the looting and restore order. They were even more relieved when they found out who it would be: Otto Klaebisch of Matteüs-Müller, a winemaking and importing firm from Germany’s Rhineland. “We were so happy we got someone from the wine trade, and not a beer man,” Bernard de Nonancourt said. The Nonancourts knew Klaebisch well because he had been the prewar agent in Germany for a number of champagne houses, including Lanson, which the family of Bernard’s mother owned.
Brandy, however, was Klaebisch’s original background. He was born in Cognac, where his parents had been brandy merchants before World War I. When France confiscated all enemy-owned property during the war, the Klaebisch family lost its business there and returned to Germany.
Otto, however, retained his taste for the finer things in life, especially great champagne. He pursued a career in the wine and spirits industry, putting his French background to good use.
That background made Klaebisch’s appointment as weinführer of Champagne easier to take. “If you were going to be shoved around, it was better to be shoved around by a winemaker than by some beer-drinking Nazi lout,” said one producer.
Klaebisch began his “shoving” almost immediately. Unlike Heinz Bömers in Bordeaux, who had rented a small apartment, Klaebisch wanted something more impressive. A château, for instance. He found what he wanted when he saw where Bertrand de Vogüé, head of Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, lived. After one look, Klaebisch issued orders for the château to be requisitioned. An angry de Vogüé and family were sent packing.
“Klaebisch was very happy to be here,” de Nonancourt remembered. “He did not like combat and the last thing he wanted was to be sent to the Russian front.”
Given his family connections and professional contacts, Klaebisch landed the soft assignment without difficulty. His brother-in-law was none other than Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, whose father-in-law, Otto Henkel, was a good friend of Bordeaux’s Louis Eschenauer. Eschenauer, in turn, was a cousin of German port commander Ernst Kühnemann. Eschenauer was also part owner of Mumm champagne, another property that had been confiscated from German owners in World War I. He had hired Ribbentrop to represent that marque in Germany.
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Only a wine genealogist could unravel the complicated family and professional tree that entangled winemakers and merchants throughout France and Germany. It went a long way to explain how Klaebisch became weinführer of Champagne.
Klaebisch, however, was different from the other weinführers. He enjoyed the trappings of military life and almost always wore his uniform. He was also impressed with titles. When he first met Count Robert-Jean de Vogüé, the man whom he would be negotiating champagne purchases, he was deferential to the point of being obsequious, or, as one producer put it, “too anxious to please.”
De Vogüé, head of Moët & Chandon, had a complicated family tree of his own. He was related to many of Europe’s royal families as well as to many of France’s leading wine producers. He even had connections with the Vatican. He also happened to be the brother of Veuve Clicquot’s Bertrand de Vogüé, whom Klaebisch had just kicked out of his house.
Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure Page 9