Gun Control in Nazi Occupied-France Page 24

  Colonel Henry Dutailly, writing about the Maquis in the Haute-Marnais, a department in the Champagne-Ardenne region of northeastern France, noted that the shortage of arms, the need to be mobile to escape German forces, and the necessity to live off the land limited the first Maquis to groups of five to ten men armed in a symbolic way: a carbine for five men in the woods of Plesnoy; a revolver, a hunting gun, and three Lebels for six men in Chantraines; and a revolver and hunting guns for six men in Mathons. Over time, the Maquis recovered weapons that had been hidden by French troops in 1940 at the time of the armistice. In 1944, a Maquis agent went to Switzerland to plead for arms from a British consul, and arms were parachuted to them in the night of June 1–2, just before D-Day. By June and July, they were attacking isolated German detachments to seize their arms and munitions.105

  Charles de Gaulle estimated some 100,000 Maquisards in the countryside at the beginning of 1944, and the number doubled by the Battle of France. He added: “But the striking force of the resistance soldiers depended directly on the armament they received.” Numbers swelled when supplies were available and shrank when they were not. The Allies never parachuted enough arms, and a significant quantity was not captured from the Germans until the summer battles.106

  A bird’s-eye view of the Maquis is represented in an interview by Jean Guéhenno of a young man who had been his student three years before. When his class was registered for forced labor the year before by the Germans, he made his way to a Resistance camp in the French Alps. They had struggled with the snow and cold, the Italians and the Gestapo, and the informers. He related:

  The Maquis lacks weapons. Weapons were dropped by parachute only a few times. It seems that England and America do not want to arm revolutionary bands. They are beginning to see what the debate will be tomorrow. There are three distinct forces: the AS (Armée Secrète), organized and armed by the Anglo-Americans, tightly linked to the British Intelligence Service; the FTP (Francs-Tireurs et Partisans), Communists who’ve had weapons and experience in underground action for a long time and who call their own tune in complete independence; and finally the MUR (Mouvements Unis de la Résistance), ready for sacrifice and wanting to save France’s autonomy; but with no doctrine and few weapons, it may well be crushed between the AS and the FTP.107

  Eventually, the armed resistance groups were organized under the Forces Françaises de l’Interieur (French Forces of the Interior, or FFI). The symbol “FFI” appeared on armbands, flags, walls, and vehicles. D-Day was in the planning stage, and discussions were underway about how the Resistance could support the Allied invasion. Winston Churchill told Franklin Roosevelt about his meeting with Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie, who in Haute-Savoie “has over 20,000 men all desperate, but only one in five has any weapon. If more weapons were available, very large numbers more would take to the mountains.” Eisenhower foresaw armed action by the Resistance in support of the coming Normandy landings.108

  Resistance and repression escalated dramatically. Guéhenno wrote in his diary on March 24, 1944: “Every day we learn of new horrors. Young STO evaders were hanged in Nîmes and various villages of the Midi (seventeen in Nîmes). The farms suspected of feeding the Maquis burnt, the farmers shot. Huge round-ups in Paris. Mass deportation, with the help of the Minister of Labor and National Solidarity, Déat.”109

  But the Maquis fought on. In a letter to forced laborers in Germany encouraging them to commit sabotage, a Maquis member wrote, “Even if they are pathetically few in number, our submachine guns and carbines give us a different soul from yours. Unlike you, we have the privilege of preparing ourselves for the liberating fight ahead.” He added that the Maquisards “are living with their weapons in their hands, like men who are already free.”110

  The military commander in France reported for January and February 1944 that 4,698 “terrorists” were arrested and 447 killed in battle. Numerous caches were captured and large quantities of weapons, ammunition, explosives, parachutes, and vehicles were secured.111 Some 495 containers filled with weapons, ammunition, and explosives were seized. In addition, 21 machine guns, 511 rifles, 125 machine pistols, 234 pistols, 3 light grenade launchers, 34,356 rounds of ammunition, and 551 explosive shells were captured. The total of 267 French citizens sentenced to death reflected that far more were now being condemned for the use of arms than for mere possession: 182 for guerrilla activities, 53 for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and 16 for illegal weapons possession.

  Much Ado About Hunting Guns

  But surviving Wehrmacht documents for early 1944 about arms show a major concern about hunting and hunting guns. The Standortkommandantur (garrison commander’s office) at Angers warned of the dangers of armed poachers who had killed Wehrmacht soldiers engaged in hunting, admonishing the hunters to be on the lookout for weapons and suspicions people.112 He further reported that all of 10,000 hunting guns that belonged to French citizens had been sold to Wehrmacht soldiers. The last sales from the Vincennes hunting-gun depot were concluded on January 1, 1944, and it was closed for good.113 A more exact report by the MBF revealed that 11,143 hunting guns and 4,602 gun cases were sold to Wehrmacht hunters for a total of 477,855 Reichsmark (RM).114

  On March 9, General Bridoux, French secretary of state for defense, complained to General von Neubronn, Rundstedt’s liaison officer to Vichy, that the Germans had confiscated the following hunting guns that were stored properly in the warehouse of the mayor’s office in Annecy: 600 Gras rifles (an obsolete French military rifle altered for hunting mountain goats) and 200 6 mm carbines. He asked that the guns be restored, naively stating, “The French government is responsible to the rightful owners for these weapons and the operations troops may take these weapons only in exchange for a proper receipt to each individual owner.”115

  Neubronn wrote to Lieutenant-General Heinrich Niehoff, commander in southern France, suggesting that the guns were seized because of gang activity in Haute-Savoie.116 Niehoff responded that 606 rifles (Kugelschußgewehre) and four double-barreled hunting guns (none of which could be disassembled) had been seized from the hunting-gun depot of the Annecy mayor’s office. He denied that 100 common hunting guns were also taken, and asserted that the liaison officer of the prefect’s office, Captain Bonnaire, examined the weapons and confirmed that the prefect’s office was wrong. Niehoff continued that the seized firearms could not be disassembled as was required, and should not be held in French depots, particularly given current gang activities.117

  Bridoux insisted that the confiscations of the six hundred rifles were unjustified under Rundstedt’s order that percussion guns and guns that are difficult to disassemble could be safeguarded with the buttstocks of the other rifles. Some six hundred of the rifles confiscated in Annecy met this description. The two hundred 6 mm carbines were exempt parlor guns that Rundstedt ordered should be returned to their owners. Nor did the situation in Haute-Savoie warrant the seizures.118

  Niehoff agreed to order that the weapons confiscated in Annecy would be transferred to the Milice for safekeeping, and Bridoux approved.119 This was collaboration at its best—the Milice was Vichy’s attack dog against any French dissent. Obsolete guns and even parlor guns were seen as a threat.

  Lack of arms left the Resistance with little means to attack German forces directly, although they could more readily assault French collaborators.120 In the spring of 1944, they stepped up hit-and-run acts of sabotage against German vehicles and the railways. Wehrmacht units struck back aggressively.121

  Claude Bourdet, who succeeded Henri Frenay as head of Combat, was captured in April, but a letter he previously wrote to Frenay described their plight: “The Maquis are being attacked from all directions and are daily losing men and what few arms they have.” De Gaulle’s government-in-exile was operating from London and Algiers, where Frenay was now in service. Maquis from France met Frenay in Algiers, reporting that “[t]he lack of arms … was costing many lives.” They blamed those abroad for promoting resistance and then leav
ing the Maquis to be wiped out.122

  Noted Simone de Beauvoir, “Paragraphs were always appearing in the papers to the effect that ‘fifteen refractory elements’ or ‘twenty bandits’ or a whole ‘band of traitors’ had been destroyed.” No longer were warning notices posted in Paris, but instead photographs of condemned “foreign terrorists” appeared on the walls. She stared at the faces of those to be executed, observing, “Despite the crudeness of the reproductions, all these faces thus held up for our hatred were moving, beautiful even….”123

  Confident of the final victory, a Wehrmacht weapons department ordered on May 1 that hunting guns be ready for sale after the war to soldiers and army brass. They could be purchased only by those who had hunting licenses or were eligible to obtain them based on having previous licenses or passing a hunting exam. Previous purchasers could not acquire more. The guns would be sold at their estimated value, but not below 30.00 Reichsmark, excluding percussion guns and French “Halifax Darne” double-barrel shotguns. Approximately 25,000 hunting guns would be provided for the field forces and kept at the army ordnance depots until the end of the war.124

  The above expressed an uncanny, surreal assurance that Germany would win the war, just a month before the Allied D-Day invasion at Normandy on June 6. But they continued a zero-tolerance policy that left nothing to chance. This was exemplified by a Combat report in April that at Artemare, an old man thought to be a poacher was shot. His crime: he had a hunting shotgun.125

  1. Guéhenno, Diary of the Dark Years, 181.

  2. Warner, Pierre Laval, 336, 350.

  3. Laval, Diary, 63, 65.

  4. “La guerre et la chasse en zone non occupée,” Le Saint-Hubert, n°6, 41e année, novembre–décembre 1942, 65.

  5. Frenay, Night Will End, 215, 227–28.

  6. Frenay, Night Will End, 225–26.

  7. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Weisungen des Innenministeriums betreffend Verwendung der eingesammelten Waffen, 30. November 1942.

  8. Venner, Armes de la Résistance, 147–48.

  9. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Brief des Oberbefehlshabers West, Oberkommando Heeresgruppe D, Arbeitsstab Frankreich, Nr. 319/43, an die französische Regierung, 17. April 1943.

  10. Loi N° 1061 du 3 décembre 1942 modifiant le décret du 18 avril 1939 fixant le régime des matériels de guerre, armes et munitions, Journal Officiel, N° 290, 4 décembre 1942; Loi N° 1065 du 5 décembre 1942 modifiant la loi N° 1061 du 3 décembre 1942 fixant le régime des matériels de guerre, armes et munitions, Journal Officiel, N° 292, 6 décembre 1942. See also BA/MA, RH 31/29, Auszug aus dem Gesetz vom 3. und 5. Dezember 1942, Artikel 1 und 2.

  11. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Auszug aus dem Gesetz vom 3. und 5. Dezember 1942, Artikel 1.

  12. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Auszug aus dem Gesetz vom 3. und 5. Dezember 1942, Artikel 7.

  13. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Auszug aus dem Gesetz vom 3. und 5. Dezember 1942, Artikel 2.

  14. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Auszug aus dem Gesetz vom 3. und 5. Dezember 1942, Artikel 3.

  15. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Auszug aus dem Gesetz vom 3. und 5. Dezember 1942, Artikel 4.

  16. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Auszug aus dem Gesetz vom 3. und 5. Dezember 1942, Artikel 5.

  17. Loi N° 1005 du 31 décembre 1942 modifiant la loi du 3 décembre 1942 fixant le régime des matériels de guerre, armes et munitions, Journal Officiel, N° 21, 24 janvier 1943.

  18. “Le dépôt des armes de chasse en zone non occupée,” Le Saint-Hubert, N°1, 42e année, janvier–février 1943, 65.

  19. Le Saint-Hubert, n°1, 42e année, janvier-février 1943, 1.

  20. “Les armes de chasse,” SSH 1992 Bulletin N°2, 22 mai 2006. http://sommieresetsonhistoire.org/SSH/spip.php?article75.

  21. “Et nous savons parfaitement que tout chasseur qui se respecte, a caché, qui dans un mazet, qui dans un poulailler, son meilleur fusil et des cartouches.”

  22. BA/MA, RW 35/544, Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich, Waffenbesitz französischer Offiziere und Wehrmachtsbeamter im Offiziersrang, ohne Datum, 18. Dezember 1942.

  23. “Avis concernant la déclaration d’armes et de munitions détenues par les officiers français démobilisés de l’armée de transition française,” Le Matin, December 23, 1942, 1.

  24. BA/MA, RW 35/312, Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich, Verwaltungsstab, Abteilung Justiz, Sammelverordnung zum Schutz der Besatzungsmacht, 18. Dezember 1942.

  25. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, 6:380, available at avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/01-31-46.asp.

  26. Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich, 179–81.

  27. de Beauvoir, Prime of Life, 633.

  28. Michel, Shadow War, 212.

  29. Cobb, The Resistance, 153.

  30. See, for example, Frenay, Night Will End, 202–4, 231–32, 237–38, 311, 332; Ian Ousby, Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940–44 (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000), 241–42, 261.

  31. Frenay, Night Will End, 250–53; de Bénouville, Unknown Warriors, vii–viii, 183–84.

  32. Loi du 4 septembre 1942 relative à l’utilisation et à l’orientation de la main-d’œuvre (law of 4 September 1942 on the use and guidance of the workforce).

  33. Frenay, Night Will End, 231, 237–38.

  34. Michel, Shadow War, 276–77; de Bénouville, Unknown Warriors, 201–02; Cobb, The Resistance, 175.

  35. Lecler, “Les auxiliares français, 77.

  36. Frenay, Night Will End, 263.

  37. de Beauvoir, Prime of Life, 645.

  38. de Gaulle, War Memoirs, 586–87.

  39. “Le délit de détention d’armes sera jugé par le tribunal spécial qui condamnera à mort on à la réclusion,” Le Matin, January 25, 1943, 1. Emphasis in original.

  40. Phillibert de Loisey, “Le déclarations d’armes de 1942–43,” Gazette des armes, mai 2004, 26, 29.

  41. de Loisey, “Le déclarations d’armes,” 26, 29.

  42. Le Saint-Hubert, n°2, 42e année, mars–avril 1943, 13.

  43. Le Saint-Hubert, n°3, 42e année, mai–juin 1943, 25.

  44. Le Saint-Hubert, n°4, 42e année, juillet–août 1943, 45.

  45. BA/MA, RW 34/61, Anlage 1 zu D.W.St.K. Gruppe We/Ia Nr. 213/43 geh., Waffenablieferung seitens der Zivilbevölkerung.

  46. BA/MA, RH 36/421, Tätigkeitsbericht - 4, Zweimonatsbericht der Kreiskommandantur 635, Berichtszeit 1. Januar bis 28. Februar 1943, Béthune, 5. März 1943.

  47. BA/MA, RH 36/421, Tätigkeitsbericht - 4, Zweimonatsbericht der Kreiskommandantur 635, Berichtszeit 1. Januar bis 28. Februar 1943, Béthune, 5. März 1943.

  48. Cobb, The Resistance, 202.

  49. BA/MA, RW 34/61, Regierungschef, Militärischer Verbindungsstab, Durch gewisse deutsche Dienststellen verlangte Auslieferung von Handwaffen, 9. März 1943.

  50. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Brief der Kontrollinspektion der DWStK, Gruppe II Az.:D, Nr. 3110/43, an die Deutsche Waffenstillstandskommission Wiesbaden, 13. März 1943.

  51. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Brief des deutschen Generals des Oberbefehlshabers West in Vichy an den Staatssekretär beim Regierungschef, Admiral Platon, 15. März 1943.

  52. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Geheimes Telegramm Nr. 924 des Deutschen Generals in Vichy an Oberbefehlshaber West/Abt. Ic betreffend Jagdwaffenabtransport, 17. März 1943.

  53. BA/MA, RW 34/61, Regionalpräfektur zu Clermont-Ferrand, Note für die Waffenstillstandskommission zu Royat, 31. März 1943.

  54. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Brief der Kontrollinspektion der DWStK, Kontrollabteilung Nr. 500/43, an die Deutsche Waffenstillstandskommission Wiesbaden, 7. April 1943.

  55. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Übersetzung eines Briefes Nr. 1220 - DN/SL des Generals und Staatssekretärs in Vichy, der mit den Beziehungen zu den deutschen und italienischen Kommandostellen beauftragt war, 9. April 1943.

  56. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Aktennotiz über Ferngespräch betreffend Jagdwaffen, 12. April 1943.

  57. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Brief des Oberbefehlshabers West, Oberkommando Heeresgruppe D, Arbeitsstab Frankreich, Nr. 319/43, an die französische Regierung, 17. April 1943.


  58. BA/MA, RW 34/61, Kommandant des Heeresgebietes Südfrankreich, Waffen aus französischem Privatbesitz, 19. April 1943.

  59. BA/MA, RH 36/421, Tätigkeitsbericht - 5, Zweimonatsbericht der Kreiskommandantur 635, Berichtszeit 1. März bis 30. April 1943, Béthune, 6. Mai 1943.

  60. BA/MA, RH 36/306, Kommandanturbefehl Nr. 46, Charleville, 29. April 1943.

  61. BA/MA, RH 36/306, Kommandanturbefehl Nr. 59 der Feldkommandantur 684, Charleville, 4. Juni 1943.

  62. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Note des Oberbefehlshabers West an die französische Regierung, 7. Juni 1943.

  63. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Brief des Conseil International de la Chasse an General von Neubronn in Vichy, 8. Juni 1943.

  64. “Le Président Laval a de Nombreux entretiens a Paris,” Cherbourg-Eclair, 18 juin 1943, 1. http://www.normannia.info/ark%3A/86186/wkc9.

  65. See la-loupe.over-blog.net/article-moulin-jean-39630707.html.

  66. de Bénouville, Unknown Warriors, 219, 243.

  67. Guéhenno, Diary of the Dark Years, 209 (entry dated June 12, 1943).

  68. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Brief des Oberbefehlshabers West, Arbeitsstab Frankreich, Gruppe Wehrmacht Nr. [no number]/43 an die französische Regierung, 18. Juni 1943.

  69. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Übersetzung eines Briefes des Generals und Staatssekretärs in Vichy, der mit den Beziehungen zu den deutschen und italienischen Kommandostellen beauftragt war, 11. Juli 1943.

  70. BA/MA, RH 31/29, Brief des deutschen Generals des Oberbefehlshabers West in Vichy an den Staatssekretär für die Verteidigung, Armeekorpsgeneral Bridoux, 22. Juli 1943.

  71. Loi du 3 juillet 1943 n° 381 modifiant la loi n° 1061 du 3 décembre 1942 fixant le regime des materiels de guerre, armes et munitions, Journal Officiel, 4 juillet 1943. See Le Saint-Hubert, n°4, 42e année, juillet–août 1943, 37.

  72. “French Civilian Guns to be Made Useless,” New York Times, July 10, 1943, 3.

  73. de Loisey, “Le déclarations d’armes” 26, 29.