by Paul Kix
135detained ten thousand Frenchmen: Delarue, The Gestapo.
135Parisian Resistance group Prosper: Foot, SOE in France, has a good discussion of the destruction of that group.
135Bernard de La Rochefoucauld: A good bio can be found on the website http://versainville.com/comte-versainville.html.
135who was so hungry she tried to eat Yvonne: “France: The Aristocrats,” Time, October 23, 1950.
135The German heavyweight Max Schmeling: Mitchell, Nazi Paris.
136the 10 p.m. curfew: Ibid. The curfew varied at times, but Mitchell writes that a 10 p.m. curfew was imposed in 1943 for Parisian theaters, concert halls, cinemas, restaurants, and nightclubs. There were occasional exceptions on the weekend.
136“charming” but remote: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
136whom they all called, simply, “monsieur”: Ibid.
136trimming a few hedges: Ibid.
136and headed out: Ibid.
136“and France in particular”: Nicolson, Aristide.
136getting fast boats to safe beaches: Foot, SOE in France.
137120 missions: Brooks Richards, Secret Flotillas, Vol. 1: Clandestine Sea Operations to Brittany, 1940–1944 (London: Government Official History Series, 2004).
137top-secret British records: Ibid., and Richards, Secret Flotillas, includes appendixes and notes from formerly classified documents. These proved far more helpful than even this wonderful book.
137in April 1944: I also called the Royal Navy’s press office and spoke with a representative who deals with historic facts. He confirmed this.
137by motor gunboat: Ibid.
137The fog of war was at its densest here: I say this because, in La Liberté, Robert remembered taking off from Calais. But his French military records offer no point of debarkation for any return trip to England. Those military records were composed decades before La Rochefoucauld wrote his memoir, so I’m inclined to believe Robert was confused or didn’t remember his date of departure or from where he departed.
137“that of my passage into Spain”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
137according to British records: Richards, Secret Flotillas.
137Atlantic Wall: Malise Ruthven, “Hitler’s Monumental Miscalculation,” New York Review of Books Daily Blog, June 5, 2014, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/06/05/hitlers-mighty-miscalculation/.
137The wall itself was a three-thousand-mile collection: “Nazi Megastructures,” National Geographic Channel, http://www.natgeotv.com/uk/nazi-megastructures/facts.
137Jean-Jacques: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
138about a half mile from the ocean: Ibid.
138the operation was on: Ibid., and Richards, Secret Flotillas.
138But they received no response: Ibid.
138Motor Gun Boat 502: Richards, Secret Flotillas.
138La Rochefoucauld and the other men: Ibid.
138British records indicated roughly twenty people: Ibid.
138“There was a brusque change”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
139mixed tea and whiskey: Ibid.
139came under heavy German fire: Richards, Secret Flotillas.
139“I’d never been so scared in my life”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
139the Brits never actually opened fire: Richards, Secret Flotillas.
139a young sailor: Ibid.
CHAPTER 14
141The first thing they did: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
141“gave us a royal welcome”: La Rochefoucauld recording.
141no longer worked in London: Piquet-Wicks’s SOE files, National Archives, London.
141than his diagnosis of TB: Ibid.
141relinquished his commission: Ibid.
141doctors ordered him to work: Ibid.
141“the worse for drink”: Ibid.
14275,000 French Resistance fighters: Foot, SOE in France.
142“To them, I looked like a ghost”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
142“women fell into our arms!”: Ibid.
142“Hope was prevailing”: Ibid.
142“The hope of a victory”: Ibid.
142One day he was called to meet: Ibid.
1435,500 laborers: Claude Courau, Les Poudriers dans La Résistance: Saint-Médard-en-Jalles (1940–1944) (Editions des régionalismes & PRNG éditions, 2013).
143suburban Bordelais real estate: Ibid.
143seventy-three British planes dropped 268 tons of bombs: RAF records, National Archives, London.
143fires that burned: Ibid.
143the Germans had large parts of the works: Hervé Pons, “Souvenirs de deux guerres,” Sudouest, March 15, 2013, http://www.sudouest.fr/2013/03/15/souvenirs-de-deux-guerres-994938–3145.php. Courau, Les Poudriers, also shows how the works was operational a short time after the British bombing.
143the Saint-Médard job: La Rochefoucauld’s military records, Ministry of Defense, Paris and Pau.
143reacquaint himself with the nuances: La Rochefoucauld recording.
CHAPTER 15
145On May 7: The chronology of La Rochefoucauld’s military records differs from the narrative of his memoir. The records indicated he likely worked for the group Léon des Landes first in the Bordeaux region; La Rochefoucauld remembered, fifty years after the fact, aligning himself with Léon later in the summer of 1944. Because his military records were composed somewhere between three to ten years after the end of the war, I’m following the chronology that emerges there. On May 7, Léon received a massive air drop of ammo and men, according to its records, found in the Ministry of Defense in Paris and in departmental archives in Bordeaux.
145take a nap: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté. For personal recollections about that spring and summer, I’m turning to the La Rochefoucauld recording and family DVD. La Rochefoucauld’s military records, like almost all French military records, are incredibly terse and devoid of personal anecdotes.
145ninety miles south: Léon des Landes records.
145“during those tense hours”: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
145in Saint-Médard operating: Pons, “Souvenirs de deux guerres.”
145its output had armed the French: Courau, Les Poudriers.
145a significant U-boat base: Nicolson, Aristide.
145since August 1940: Delarue, The Gestapo, and Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
145“a cemetery of the finest fighters”: Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
145for the Nazis across southwest France: Ashdown, A Brilliant Little Operation. Hans Luther was the nominal head of power in Bordeaux, but as Ashdown makes clear, among others, Dohse was the real source of power.
146thirty-one in the spring of 1944: Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
146Dohse spoke fluent French: Dominique Lormier, Bordeaux Brület-il? ou, La Libération de la Gironde: 1940–1945 (Bordeaux: Les Dossiers d’Aquitaine, 1998).
146“He was an evil man”: Around the time of the trial of Maurice Papon, some of his defenders created a website that attempted to contextualize what the Occupation was like. Hubert de Beaufort was one of those defenders. His interview with people who knew Dohse directly or knew of him can be found at http://livreblanc.maurice-papon.net/saufr-terri.htm.
146the reclaimed marshes: Nicolson, Aristide.
146The surrounding hills scrambled: Ibid.
146in a town called Mugron: Léon des Landes records.
146He waited: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
146sprained his ankle: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberte. Robert seems to not accurately recall the name of the group he worked with first in the Aquitaine, because in the memoir he says it was Bayard, which is wrong, while his military records suggest it was Léon des Landes. So I have decided to blend these sources. I am attributing the thoughts and on occasion the actions to Robert’s memoir and recording, while following his military records for the chronology of when he worked for whom.
147Léonce Dussarrat: Dussarrat military records, Léon des Landes file, and the Bordeaux
region’s Museum of the Resistance, http://museedelaresistanceenligne.org/media.php?media=4252&popin=true.
147What followed is a bit unclear: http://museedelaresistanceenligne.org/media.php?media=4252&popin=true.
148growing to an estimated five thousand: The group’s membership over time is spelled out in its military records and also here, http://histoiresocialedeslandes.fr/p5_liberation.asp.
148Landes’s fourth in three weeks: Léon des Landes records.
148an underground cable: Ibid.
148a second band of résistants about a sabotage: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
14875,000 men in country: Foot, SOE in France.
149to 794 in the second: Mackenzie, The Secret History of SOE.
149and 108 channels: Ibid.
149which attempted to coordinate: Koenig’s role is spelled out in many books. Here I relied on Nicolson, Aristide.
149disemboweled: Cobb, The Resistance.
149“We fell upon some Germans”: La Rochefoucauld recording.
149a sort of mini-Kommandatur: La Rochefoucauld, La Liberté.
149“I was convinced”: Ibid.
149and the French not wanting to answer: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
150and 160,000 Allied soldiers: See U.S. Army, https://www.army.mil/d-day/.
151at a command post outside Nanoose: Léon des Landes military records.
151more than two hundred: Ibid.
151the golden rule of irregular warfare: Foot, SOE in France.
151up to a thousand sabotages on June 6 and the day after: Foot, SOE in France.
15190 percent of the German army: Ibid.
151It took two weeks: Ibid.
151“final victory”: Stephen E. Ambrose, Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2012).
151fifteen extra divisions: Thomas W. Zeller and Daniel M. DuBois, eds., A Companion to World War II (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2012).
CHAPTER 16
153Charly: Charly’s military records, Ministry of Defense, Paris.
153nearly 950 fighters: Ibid.
153with a parent group, Groupe Georges: Resistance hierarchy records found at the Ministry of Defense, Paris. Here again I placed an emphasis on what the military records say. Robert in his memoir remembers fighting alongside a fighter named Bayard, who led a Resistance cell. But there was no Bayard in the Bordeaux area. I am assuming when he wrote Bayard fifty years after the war, he perhaps meant Bordes, for Alban Bordes. What is unequivocal is that La Rochefoucauld’s military records show the groups that he fought among also partnered with Bordes’s group, Groupe Georges, in the summer of 1944.
153that “God himself cannot pardon”: An associate of Bordes’s, who recounted conversations after the war and published them online at http://www.cesgoysquidefendentisrael.com/fr/conflit-israelo-arabe/terrorisme-ou-resistance/.
153This was in a group safe house: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté. The following discussion is informed by these sources.
154The munition works was massive: Carau, Les Poudriers.
154The massive bombing campaign: RAF records, National Archives, London.
154As the British sabotage instructors: This is largely a reflection of George T. Rheam’s teachings, as found in Foot, SOE in France.
155A man named Pierre: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté. The following discussion is informed by these sources.
155La Rochefoucauld arose early: Ibid.
156The Nazis had hired a French firm: Courau, Les Poudriers.
157Because of the Germans’ lax oversight: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté, and La Rochefoucauld family DVD. These sources inform the following discussion.
15922,000 feet per second: To get a sense of the sabotage materiel used during World War II, I spoke with an explosives expert at the CIA. To better understand how quickly those explosives might burn, I spoke with Col. Christopher Benson, an engineering and explosives expert in the U.S. Army. I am deeply appreciative of the time they gave me.
159When he had cased everything: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté. The rest of the chapter is informed by these sources.
CHAPTER 17
161the dusty throbbing particular to the overserved: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté.
161water mains and conduits leveled: Nicolson, Aristide, appendix, and confidential report by former SOE member Maj. R. A. Bourne-Patterson, “The ‘British’ Circuits in France 1941–1944,” Imperial War Museum, London. The attack at Saint-Médard carried out by Groupe Georges is included within this report.
161According to two subsequent British reports: Ibid.
161British bombing campaign: Pons, “Souvenirs de deux guerres.”
161found the limbs of their livestock: See RAF records of the April bombing campaign. Also Carau, Les Poudriers.
161Everyone assumed the streets: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté. The following discussion is informed by these sources.
162the worst civilian massacre: Cobb, The Resistance.
162their makeshift hospital: Ibid.
162dismembering men: Conversations with Constance Guillaumin.
162the seminarian he’d once been: Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
162in reprisal: Ibid., and Gildea, Marianne in Chains.
163“massacred”: Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
163member 192: Ibid.
163and had executed 285 people: Michael Curtis, Verdict on Vichy: Power and Prejudice in the Vichy France Regime (New York: Arcade, 2002).
163fewer than twenty men under him: Hubert de Beaufort interviews.
163Brigade of Killers: Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
163he saw no one: La Rochefoucauld recording and La Liberté. These sources and the family DVD inform the rest of the chapter.
CHAPTER 18
165in 1453: Nicolas Faucherre, “Le château Trompette et le fort du Hâ, citadelles de Charles VII contre Bordeaux,” Revue archéologique de Bordeaux, No. XCII (2001). Also “Un mystérieux édifice bordelais, Le fort du Hâ, palais devenu prison . . .” Bordeaux Gazette (May 29, 2015), http://www.bordeaux-gazette.com/Un-mysterieux-edifice-bordelais-Le.html.
165three-story towers: Jean-Jacques Déogracias, Le Fort du Hâ de Bordeaux: Un palais, une prison, un fabuleux destin (Bordeaux: Les Dossiers d’Aquitaine, 2006).
165penal infrastructures in Pennsylvania: http://www.restaurantadministratifduha.info/cuisine/0453459aa00c3c904/index.php.
165but separated into small cells: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Prison Society Records, Collection 1946 (2006), and found online at http://hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/findingaid1946prisonsociety.pdf.
165Fort du Hâ’s reputation: La Rochefoucauld recording and his testimony during the Papon trial.
165in French, German, and Spanish: M.-R. Bordes, Quartier Allemand: La Vie au Fort du Hâ sous l’occupation (Bordeaux: Editions Bière, 1945).
166he was there by mistake: La Rochefoucauld recording.
166no more romantic than the soldiers: Ibid., and La Liberté.
166They then counted the money: Bordes’s Quartier Allemand, Ibid. Bordes said every prisoner went through this protocol, and though Robert doesn’t describe it, I assigned these actions to the guards that greeted him because Bordes says that’s how they treated every new arrival.
166or the French Forces of the Interior: Ibid.
166La Rochefoucauld’s military records made clear: Robert de La Rochefoucauld’s military records.
166save his pleas: La Rochefoucauld recording.
166He was born in 1913: Lormier, Bordeaux Brûle-t-il?
166Dohse questioned résistants: Hubert de Beaufort interviews. This one in particular is helpful: http://livreblanc.maurice-papon.net/chap1-suite.htm.
166taught French: Ibid., and Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
167a slight frame and easy smile: Resistance blog, La Loupe, http
://la-loupe.over-blog.net/article-dohse-friedrich-122136595.html.
167Though he dressed well: Ashdown, A Brilliant Little Operation.
167a bulbous forehead: La Loupe.
167Schutzstaffel, or SS: Ibid.
167for career advancement: Hubert de Beaufort interviews.
167Internationale kriminalpolizeiliche Kommission: Steven Lehrer, Wartime Spies in Paris: 1939–1945 (New York: SF Tafel, 2013).
167he saw a kindred soul: Lormier, Bordeaux Brûle-t-il?
168who lived on a yacht: Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
168Dohse’s encroachment: Ibid.
168“loved me like his son”: Lormier, Bordeaux Brûle-t-il?
168Hans Luther: Moorehead, A Train in Winter.
168the real head of power: Moorehead, A Train in Winter; Ashdown, A Brilliant Little Operation; Lormier, Bordeaux Brûle-t-il?
168Luther far outranked him: Ashdown, A Brilliant Little Operation.
168he wasn’t even an officer: Ibid.
168though he was later promoted: Ibid.
168Luther was a captain: Hubert de Beaufort’s interviews, and this one specifically: http://www.maurice-papon.net/documents/dohse.htm.
168“terrorists” to be grilled by Dohse: Ashdown, A Brilliant Little Operation.
168This annoyed Luther: Hubert de Beaufort’s interviews.
169forty thousand fighters at the ready: Nicolson, Aristide, and Lormier, Bordeaux Brûle-t-il?
169134 British air drops: Nicolson, Aristide.
169Resistance group, Prosper: Ibid., and Cobb, The Resistance.
169address in Bordeaux: Ashdown, A Brilliant Little Operation, and Lormier, Bordeaux Brûle-t-il?
169members’ names and their addresses: Ibid., and Nicolson, Aristide.
169Lucette Grandclément: Lormier’s Bordeaux Brûle-t-il? She was André’s second wife, and her arrest is what some scholars believed convinced André to work with Dohse.
169the son of a French admiral: Ibid.
169entering the army as a soldier: René Terisse, Grandclément: Traître ou bouc-émissaire? (Paris: Aubéron, 1996).
170conservative ideology: Lormier, Bordeaux Brûle-t-il?
170but the Communists, too: Ibid.
170if Grandclément agreed to drop the fight: Ibid.; Terisse, Grandclément; Nicolson, Aristide.
171and drew his automatic pistol: Nicolson, Aristide.