The Resistance
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Andrée de Jongh went to work in leprosy camps in Africa until she became too frail. Died in 2007.
Arthur Koestler served in the British army then, after the war, turned back to writing and became a renowned author. Committed suicide in 1983.
Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont was a Communist leader until 1961, when he was expelled from the Party. Died in 2006.
General Philippe Leclerc was killed in an air crash in 1947.
Sylvette Leleu survived the camps, was still alive in the 1970s.
Jean-Pierre Levy became a civil servant. Died in 1996.
Liliane Lévy-Osbert survived the camps. Published her memoirs in 1995.
Simone Martin-Chauffier became a writer and translator. Died in 1975.
Daniel Mayer became Minister of Labour and then of Social Security (1946 to 1949). Continued to be an active socialist and was President of the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme. Died in 1996.
François de Menthon was a French prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. He subsequently became a mayor and returned to university teaching. Died in 1984.
Léon Morandat was a left-wing Gaullist, who became a company director, and was briefly Secretary of State for Social Affairs in 1968. Died in 1972.
Maroussia Naïtchenko published her memoirs in 2003.
Yvonne Oddon was freed from Ravensbrück by the Red Cross before the end of the war. Subsequently worked for UNESCO around the world. Died in 1982.
Alexandre Parodi became a career diplomat. Died in 1979.
Paul Paillole became mayor of his Parisian suburb. Died in 2002.
Bernard Pierquin continued to work as a physician. Published his diary in 1983.
Christian Pineau was a deputy and a minister during the Fourth Republic. Profoundly hostile to the Gaullist Fifth Republic. Became a full-time writer in 1971. Died in 1995.
Edgar Pisani became a left-wing Gaullist, a deputy and a senator. Close to Jacques Chirac, he helped set up the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Still alive in 2008.
Adam Rayski went to his native Poland to work as a publisher for the Polish Communist Party. Returned to France in 1957 and broke with the Communist Party. Died in 2008.
Harry Rée became a headmaster, then Professor of Educational Studies at York University. He died in 1991.
Gilbert Renault (‘Rémy’) supported calls for the rehabilitation of Pétain in the 1950s. Became a full-time writer. Died in 1984.
Henri Romans-Petit died in 1980.
Henri Rol-Tanguy became a soldier, but was suspected because of his Communist beliefs. Retired in 1962. He died in 2002.
François Rouan was a career soldier in the 1950s. Died in the 1990s.
Edwige de Saint-Wexel was still alive in the 1970s.
Jean Texcier became a journalist and socialist activist. He died in 1957.
Germaine Tillion was freed from Ravensbrück by the Red Cross before the end of the war. Studied the Nazi concentration camps and the experience of resistance and deportation. Denounced torture in Algeria. Died in 2008.
Charles Tillon left government in 1946. He was expelled from the Communist Party in 1952, then reinstated in 1957 and was expelled again in 1970 after opposing the invasion of Czechoslovakia. Died in 1993.
Hugh Verity continued to serve in the RAF until 1965. He died in 2001.
André Weil-Curiel returned to his law practice. Died in 1988.
François Wetterwald returned to medicine. Died in 1993.
Pearl Witherington returned to the UK and was awarded a civil MBE for her work with the SOE. Sent it back saying she deserved the military version. She died in 2008.
‘Tommy’ Yeo-Thomas escaped from Buchenwald, then after the war became Paris representative of the Federation of British Industries. Died in 1964.
Acknowledgements
I have been waiting a long time to write this book. My first piece of extended writing (written when I was aged six and a half) was a play about the Resistance, set in Dijon. There was no family tradition involved – I’m not related to Richard Cobb, the historian of France, although in a bizarre coincidence he did have a son called Matthew, and my father was called Richard. I finally got my chance through the boldness of my then editor at Simon & Schuster, Andrew Gordon, who looked as if he’d been poked with a cattle prod when I mentioned the subject. As we developed the idea, he helped me keep my focus by saying he wanted ‘visceral stories of human experience red in tooth and claw rather than a history of the socio-political foundations of the Fourth Republic’. I have done my best to follow his advice. Peter Tallack, my agent, provided invaluable help during the long process of planning the book, while my editor, Mike Jones, who took over from Andrew Gordon, was extremely supportive and enthusiastic from the moment we first met.
My thanks go to the staff at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, the UK National Archives, the US National Archives and Record Administration, Chatham House (London), the Musée National de l’Ordre de la Libération, the Musée National de la Résistance et la Déportation and the Musées de la Résistance et de la Déportation in Toulouse and in Castellane. A number of people provided me with information, documents and support, for which I am extremely thankful: Fanny Balbaud, Julien Blanc, Marc Chantran, James Dorrian, Sebastien Laurent, Rod Kedward, Frédéric Ghesquier-Krajewski, Paul Mason, Juliette Pattinson and Victor Vacquier. Barbara Mellor graciously agreed to the use of quotations from her excellent translation of Agnès Humbert’s memoir.
Professor Martin Alexander read Chapter 1 and saved me from many military and historical howlers; Professor Richard Vinen and Professor Rod Kedward both read the whole book and made a number of highly pertinent suggestions. I am extremely grateful to all three of them for their generosity and kindness. Christina Purcell’s habitually precise comments helped me keep my focus, while my good friend Professor Jerry Coyne cast a layman’s eye over the whole manuscript, kindly praising the good bits, rolling his eyes at unclear antecedents and rightly insisting I cut repeated references to glorious blue skies. Finally, my comrade Keith Hassell helped me bring out the underlying message, while Rory Scarfe at Simon & Schuster was incredibly patient as I continually tinkered with the manuscript and the proofs. As usual in such cases, I alone am responsible for the mistakes that remain.
The Society of Authors provided me with a generous grant to research the background to the book, for which I am extremely grateful. The most important support and understanding have come from my family – Tina, Lauren and Evie. All three of you have had to put up with far too much distraction and grumpiness. My love and thanks, and I promise I won’t do it again. For a while, at least.
Note on Translations
and Terminology
Most of the translations are by myself. I have made two systematic changes to both quotations and descriptions. First, the Gaullist forces outside France went through several different name changes, but for the sake of simplicity I have used their first, widely known English title – the ‘Free French’ (see Chapter 2 for a discussion of the implications of this translation). Second, the French – then as now – generally refer to ‘les Anglais’ when they really mean ‘les Britanniques’. Given the modern recognition of the importance of the other components of the United Kingdom, I have translated ‘les Anglais’ as ‘the British’.
Further Reading
There are no popular English books on the history of the Resistance that are in print, but David Schoenbrun’s excellent Soldiers of the Night and John F. Sweets’ more academic The Politics of Resistance in France, 1940–1944 can both still be picked up from second-hand booksellers. The best accompaniment to the present book in terms of the overall context is Rod Kedward’s La Vie en Bleu: France and the French since 1900.
There are a number of extremely well-written detailed studies of the period, each of which touches on the Resistance in a different way, all them highly recommended: The French at War 1934–1944 by Nicholas Atkin, SOE in France by M. R. D. Foot, Marianne in Chains by Robert Gildea
, France: The Dark Years 1940–1944 by Julian Jackson, Resistance in Vichy France and In Search of the Maquis by Rod Kedward, Occupation by Ian Ousby and The Unfree French by Richard Vinen. Barbara Mellor’s translation of Agnès Humbert’s book Résistance: Memoirs of Occupied France is an invaluable and moving introduction to the early years of the Resistance and includes a number of contemporary documents, as well as an Afterword by French historian Julien Blanc.
For those who can read French, there are over 3000 books on the Resistance to choose from. Daniel Cordier’s amazingly detailed four-volume study of Jean Moulin is incredibly rich, but the single best source is the Dictionnaire Historique de la Résistance, edited by François Marcot, Bruno Leroux and Christine Levisse-Touzé (2006), which summarizes the very best writing on the subject. I would have been lost without it.
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