Gun Control in Nazi Occupied-France Page 23
In this period, Jean Moulin united the Armée Secrète, Comte d’Action Socialiste, Francs-Tireur, Front National, and Liberation under the Conseil National de la Résistance (National Council of the Resistance, or CNR). However, the Gestapo caught member René Hardy, who under torture revealed Moulin’s hiding place. On June 21, Moulin was arrested in Caluire. He was tortured by Klaus Barbie’s operation and died on July 8.65
But the Resistance was not dissuaded. It was, in the words of Guillain de Bénouville, “the army of an entire people which, once it had accomplished a feat of arms, disappeared again into the mass of the people. How was the enemy to know that a load of rifles lay beneath the load of hay in the farmer’s horse-drawn cart?” In one instance in Toulouse, German police arrived at the house of a Monsieur Pécheur, whose trucking business was used to smuggle arms. He drew his revolver and shot one German in the head, another in the chest, and a third in the back, and then escaped with his wife.66
Meanwhile, through the STO, Laval was collaborating to provide Germany with compulsory labor. Jean Guéhenno wrote in his diary on June 12: “All young men in the classes of ‘40–‘42 have to leave for Germany on July 1. The panic of a crushed anthill. Some are thinking of crossing the border into Spain. Others of hiding in the mountains, in Savoy, or in the Massif Central. But most will resign themselves to it and leave.”67
Rundstedt wrote on June 18 to the French government that the French law of December 3 and 5, 1942, was legally effective for all of France, but in fact was applied only in southern France. That decree punished arms possession and failure to inform of another’s arms possession with mandatory prison or death, with limited exemptions for French military, police, and government personnel. The previously occupied area of France remained subject to the German decree of December 18, 1942.68 That decree, which related to the dissolution of the French military, prohibited French officers from carrying pistols.
As an example, Lieutenant-General Niehoff informed regional prefects that field and harvest guards were prohibited from weapons possession and must immediately surrender the hunting guns with which they were equipped. The French had authorized field and harvest guards to be armed in order to repress the poaching that had increased greatly because food was scarce.69 Neubronn wrote to General Eugène Bridoux that any danger to the field and harvest guards was not as grave as the dangers that the guards, some four thousand strong, could pose to the Germans.70
Meanwhile, on July 4, the Journal Officiel published the amendment to the December 3, 1942, ban on all firearms and parts thereof, allowing the return of barrels and forends to their owners.71
According to a New York Times account, the barrel return policy took place at a time when the Nazis anticipated disturbances. When turning in the weapons to the police, the owners were assured that the guns would be properly oiled. The current shortage of lubricants now required return of the barrels. The policy was seen as a ruse to separate the barrels from the actions and stocks in order to render the weapons wholly inoperative.72
As supplemented by a circular issued by René Bousquet on July 12, the barrels and forends were to be returned to their owners within three months. The gendarmerie took the labeled barrels and returned them township by township to their owners who came to look for them at the town halls.73 The new policy on barrel returns was reported in a Paris newspaper, but it had to clarify the next day that it applied only in southern France, and not in the area occupied since 1940.74
While the extent to which barrels and forends were returned to their owners is unknown, what was the significance of the decision to do so? It was certainly a sincere effort by Ducrocq and his associates to help owners have at least parts of their firearms returned. Vichy could take credit for ameliorating a certain aspect of the prior deprivation, and the Germans might see a propaganda value to the measure, albeit knowing full well that the separation of basic firearm components rendered them useless as weapons. If members of resistance groups raided arms depots, they could seize only certain parts, while the other essential parts would be dispersed to unknown individuals elsewhere. Then again, determined gun owners might try and add makeshift parts to the barrels and forends to make usable weapons. Whether any did so would be subject to conjecture.
Henri Frenay Pleads for Arms for the Resistance
In July, Resistance leaders secretly left France to meet with the London French. Henri Frenay informed the exiles of the drastic need for arms inside France, and was astonished with the reply of General Henri Giraud, who was, on paper, the commander of the French forces of French North and West Africa:
“Arms, is it? Well, gentlemen, they’re not indispensable, you know. One can get along without them.”
We looked at one another dumfounded.
The general continued: “Gentlemen, what is of the essence in modern warfare? Of course! Air power. If you can neutralize enemy air power, you immediately have the upper hand. And what do you need to neutralize an airfield? Pebbles!”
We thought we’d heard wrong, but no, the general continued his oration: “To obstruct a hangar’s sliding door and stop its aircraft from exiting all you need is a pebble. With another pebble you can block a plane’s air shaft, causing it to turn over when it tries to land.”
With the self-satisfaction of a nightclub magician Giraud rose and concluded: “You see, gentlemen, one can make war even without weapons!”
And this was the man who was going to command our armies!75
Frenay then traveled to Algiers to meet with de Gaulle, telling him that failure of the Resistance to receive arms and funds created distrust. Meanwhile, Jean Moulin, de Gaulle’s representative who had been tortured and killed, was replaced by Claude Serreules and Jacques Bingen. Bingen, operating in southern France, reported that “not a day goes by that I am not set upon by the chiefs of some organization who bitterly complain about their inability to arm their militants.” He added, “The future delivery of large quantities of arms seems indispensable to me. This materiel, instead of being buried where it lands and then forgotten, should immediately be turned over to those organizations which can effectively use it.”76
The failure of the British and Americans to supply more arms to the Resistance was based on more than scarcities, logistics, and other priorities. The Franc-Tireur et Partisans (FTP) was an arm of the French Communist Party, which was subject to Stalin’s wishes when he signed the nonaggression pact with Hitler in 1939 and could be expected to support a Communist takeover after France was liberated. Churchill, Roosevelt, and de Gaulle were not enthusiastic about arming those they could not control. Non-Communist resistance groups suffered as a result.
The duty to denounce could lead to potentially tragic results. In Troyes, a French girl named Marie Edith Marcelle Brunclair was playing with friends when she found two rifles in her family’s attic, which she immediately reported to a German post. She was interrogated by the military police. Her father said she did the right thing by doing so, suggesting that she informed without his prior knowledge. Neither she nor her father knew how they got there, but French soldiers stayed there in 1940 before fleeing, and maybe left them. But the arms were a hunting gun and an obsolete 1886 military rifle. One wonders whether the guns really belonged to the father, who the daughter might have betrayed had the Germans not believed their story.77
French collaborationists were often targets for attack, and the Germans entrusted some with weapons. Lieutenant-General Niehoff was responsible for all decisions on the issuance of weapons permits to French citizens, since he had taken over the relevant weapons depots. French agencies would issue permits, but the commander could review and deny them.78 Regarding the issuance of weapons permits in southern France, the Germans became aware that the French tried to gain advantage by submitting the same matter to different German offices without informing the respective offices accordingly.79 The French State Secretary of the Interior, René Bousquet, wrote to the regional prefects of the formerly free zone: “An
y requests for issuance of individual weapons permits that you receive must be submitted to the head of the SS or the commander of the Italian Army territory. Please submit requests to me only if such requests were given approval by those offices.”80
Karl Oberg, head of the SS, castigated Bousquet about the French people’s failure to turn in their firearms in obedience to yet another amnesty, this one dated August 16, 1943. Contrary to the hope that the amnesty would deliver a large quantity of weapons, particularly those parachuted by the British and the Americans, it was lamentable that only 2,300 revolvers, 555 rifles, and 4,700 rifle cartridges were turned in. No machine gun or other parachuted weapon was delivered. Oberg concluded ominously:
This marked insult has shown that the psychological conditions for an amnesty concerning weapons no longer exist in the French people…. If the illegal possession of weapons is now being combated with the most severe means, this is an imperative necessity for the security of the occupying force and because in any case it is necessary to detain illegal arms, based on feelings of resistance.81
Bousquet dutifully transmitted Oberg’s missive about illegal arms possession to all of the prefects in France.82 Once again, Vichy France had marching orders from the SS to help combat gun possession—in Oberg’s words—“with the most severe means.”
Despite increasing attacks on the police, the Germans allowed Paris police to be armed only with pistols with five or six rounds.83 But the SS enhanced the ability of the Milice to be trained and issued with weapons.84
Rendevous in Switzerland
Switzerland was an important center for Allied coordination with resistance groups. From Bern, OSS operative Allen Dulles met with French resistance agent General Jules-Maurice-René Davet, who reported that code name “A.S.” had available “10,000 trained troops, 3,000 of whom are armed, for Hautes Alpes, Haute-Savoie, Savoie, Isère and Drôme…. There are another 7,000 men who must obtain munitions and arms, presumably by parachute, if they are to be used as guerrillas or for other military action.” If support could be obtained, they could destroy railway lines, attack local garrisons, and sabotage power plants and other essential services.85
Men fleeing the Service du travail obligatoire (STO, or Obligatory Labor Conscription) provided a steady stream of recruits for the Resistance. Jean Guéhenno described a difficult journey in returning to Paris: “Our train hit a bomb near Argenton. (It was the 17th attack in two weeks in this region where thousands of ‘deserters’ from the Work Service have taken to the Maquis.)”86
Invisible Executions
The STO in Paris was a target of the Resistance. Deportation of young men as workers to Germany required that the authorities have their identities. On October 14, some 65,000 files were stolen. Later, FTP and Combat members entered the office posing as a maintenance crew and set the building on fire. Léo Hamon, who led the raid, described how they escaped to their car and “crossed Paris with the barrels of two pistols pointing out of the rear window, ready to shoot at anyone who tried to follow us.”87
Guéhenno noticed the execution of fifty “Communists” in an “invisible little paragraph” in an October 6 newspaper. “Two years ago, news like that would be printed in poster-size characters. In the meantime, they keep on shooting a few patriots every day. They do it without saying so.” Now the policy had again changed. “These announcements in small print, they think, will be read by patriots and will scare them without arousing horror in the general public.”88
“The Germans are shooting hostages or people who have been convicted, every day in Fresnes,” noted Guéhenno on November 3. The word would be spread from cell to cell of each morning’s executions, and as the victims would walk across the yard, the other prisoners would sing the Marseillaise or Le Chant du départ (“The Song of Departure”), which originated in the revolutionary times of 1794.89
Young Jewish diarist Hélène Berr reflected as she walked by a German-occupied hotel on Avenue de la Bourdonnais: “All you need is for a man to throw a bomb through that door, and twenty innocent people will be shot….”90 This illustrated the moral dilemma of individual attacks. As to the role of the French police, she recalled an inspector arresting Jewish children at an orphanage excusing himself with the comment: “Sorry ’bout this, lady, I’m just doing my duty!”91 But some police acted honorably: “There are not many Jews left in Paris, and as arrests are now being made by the Germans, we won’t have much prospect of keeping out of the way, because we won’t be tipped off.”92
Arming for the Allied Invasion
Apprehension about an Allied invasion of France was rising. Combat advised its underground readers to obtain and hide firearms in anticipation of an Allied landing. Défense de la France, an underground newspaper in the northern zone, noted that “the enemy is completely incapable of searching every house and every cellar of Paris or the towns to discover if each resident has a rifle or revolver.” It continued, “Every house, every cellar, must become a small fort where one will await the departure of the enemy. Everyone must obtain a weapon and carefully hide it at home. The policy in favor of stockpiling weapons is an absurdity. Arms must be distributed from now on.”93 Any arms caches could be seized if discovered, and should be spread out where they could be easily accessed.
Combat reported increased resistance activities. On the night of November 19–20, members of the Forces Unies de la Jeunesse (United Youth Forces) executed an operation to seize arms and munitions from barracks at Bourgoin, escaping with a truckload of a ton and a half of materiel.94 That month, the Groupes Francs and the Haute-Savoie wing of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP, the military arm of the National Front) conducted 310 armed attacks and acts of sabotage.95
But the Allies were ever slow or reluctant to provide arms. It was reported to the Americans in Geneva that just 16,000 of 69,200 men in several Resistance groups were armed in both zones of France. This report was followed by a request for thousands of firearms.96 Combat leader Henri Frenay noted that their delegation in Switzerland would send the Allies cables describing their activities and pleading for arms, such as the following:
The air raid on Annecy wreaked terrible havoc…. The planes overshot the ball-bearing plant at an altitude of 5,000 meters. Civilian houses were destroyed…. Last week we sabotaged a number of transformers with explosives…. If you get us the arms, our groups will knock out any target you want….
If you get us the materiel, we can guarantee you destruction of railways, harassment of troops, wiping out of locomotive depots. To leave our men unarmed is a grave political and military error.97
The Germans were responding in kind. For November and December 1943, the MBF reported 123 French citizens sentenced to death: 71 for guerrilla activities, 19 for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and 7 for weapons possession.98 This did not include any French killed in combat with the Germans.
“I saw a German lorry piled high with corpses that weren’t even covered.” That was in Paris, recorded Hélène Berr, who commented, “Probably men who had been executed; no one will ever know anything about them.”99 The days of show trials and ominous newspaper warnings with details about the victims were long gone. Hélène, a young Jewish woman who helped others escape, would be arrested in March 1944 and deported to Auschwitz and then to Bergen-Belsen, where she would die just days before the camp was liberated in 1945.100
At a time when every French citizen should be prepared to bear arms, Défense de la France opined in early 1944, many sought to excuse themselves with comments such as, “We do not have any arms; how can one fight? It is not yet time. What can one do with the Germans here? Resistance is futile.” Yet arms had been thrown away—the waterways of Paris were full of discarded military rifles, revolvers, and cartridges. “If each wants at all costs to obtain arms for himself, he will find some. There are some that are still hidden, there are some on isolated Germans who go for a walk.” And the struggle would not be fought in battle lines: “Our war is to render the occu
pation untenable for the Germans.”101
The great tragedy of the Resistance, Défense de la France continued, was the lack of arms, which was sorely evident when the hour of combat came for the Maquis. Arms parachuted in by the Allies were quite insufficient. “Since the beginning of 1944, clashes between the Maquis, Germans, and Vichy police forces were sufficiently frequent and bloody that the shortage of arms was tragic.”102
It would be unrealistic to surmise that more small arms at that time would have defeated the Germans without an Allied invasion. No one had that illusion. Resistance leaders pleaded for mortars, anti-tank guns, and other heavy weapons, but rarely got them. Frontal armed resistance against the heavily armed and experienced Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS would have been suicide. Guerrilla warfare would have been more of an option with better arms, particularly after D-Day. Whether resistance was worth it was an individual decision, as capture meant being shot on the spot. Members of the Maquis were willing to take their chances, and more and better arms would have facilitated their objectives immensely.103
Resistance agents in Switzerland passed on the intelligence to OSS operative Allen Dulles: “Almost totally without arms and suffering from lack of financial support, we are losing 100 men weekly; the Germans take no prisoners and slaughter all the wounded. In spite of our shortage of arms, we inflict twice as many casualties upon the enemy.” The Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR) had 22,000 men in the southern zone and 14,000 in the northern zone; half were in camps, only 10 percent of them armed, and half could be mobilized quickly. The message emphasized “the value of contributions the Maquis can give to Allied military action through the guerrillas’ dispersion throughout the whole area.” But they needed money, arms, and munitions immediately.104