Marie Émile Antoine Béthouart

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General Antoine Béthouart

Marie Émile Antoine Béthouart (born December 17, 1889 in Dole , † October 17, 1982 in Fréjus ) was a general in the French army . In 1945 he became commander in chief of the French occupation forces in Austria and was high commissioner there from 1946 to 1950 .

education

Antoine Béthouart was trained at Saint-Cyr , the officers' school of the French army . After the First World War , in which he had been wounded three times as an officer in the (Alpine) 159th Infantry Regiment, Béthouart came to Finland and then to Yugoslavia as a military advisor . Thereupon he got the command of the 5th  half brigade of the alpine fighters .

Second World War

Since 1937, Colonel , Béthouart was established in 1940 after the German invasion of Norway with the French expeditionary force to Norway sent where his units, the British at Namsos and Narvik supported. After the French defeat in 1940 he served with the troops of General Philippe Pétain's Vichy regime in Morocco , but after the Allies landed in North Africa in November 1942, he joined General Charles de Gaulle's Free French troops , whose general staff he headed from 1944.

During the liberation of France, Béthouart led the 1st Corps of Army B (from September 25, 1944: 1st French Army) as Général de corps d'armée on the landing in Provence in August 1944 via the Rhone Valley and Alsace to Southern Germany.

Time in Austria

Béthouart footbridge in Innsbruck

In April and May 1945 he took part in the occupation of Vorarlberg and Tyrol as commander of the 1st Corps of the 1st French Army . He made contacts with persons of the Austrian resistance against the Nazis . After the end of the Second World War in Europe, he was appointed commander of the French occupation forces stationed in Austria and finally the French high commissioner for Austria. Its zone of occupation included Vorarlberg and North Tyrol. He distinguished himself as a far-sighted supporter of an independent Austrian state. He always emphasized that he did not come as an occupier, but as a liberator, and had signs with the inscription Autriche, pays ami (in German: Austria, befriended country) put up on Austria's borders in his sphere of influence . He secured the respect of the Tyroleans by allowing the traditional rifle associations to present themselves with their historical weapons. It peaked in popularity in 1950 when he laid a wreath in front of the Andreas Hofer monument  on Bergisel near Innsbruck . After all, Béthouart was the "military successor" of the former opponents of the Tyrolean popular uprising of 1809 . The liberation monument on Innsbruck Landhausplatz , crowned by the Tyrolean eagle and with the simple inscription PRO LIBERTATE AUSTRIAE MORTUIS, is dedicated to all those who died for the freedom of Austria, goes back to his initiative.

Political career

Following his military career, Béthouart became a senator and was a member of the Commission des Affaires étrangères et des Forces armées .

Awards and recognition

Works

  • La bataille pour l'Autriche. Presses de la Cité, Paris 1966; German-language edition: The battle for Austria. Hiro Production International, Vienna 1967.

literature

Web links

Commons : Marie Émile Antoine Béthouart  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b General-Emile-Béthouart-Steg - A bridge of understanding. In: Innsbruck informs, July 2003, p. 5 ( digitized version )
  2. ↑ → fr: Commission des Affaires étrangères, de la Defense et des Forces armées (Sénat)
  3. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF file; 6.6 MB)
predecessor Office successor
- French High Commissioner in Austria
1945–1950 		Jean Payart
personal data
SURNAME Béthouart, Marie Émile Antoine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Béthouart, Émile
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French general
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Dole
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1982
Place of death Fréjus