Affiche rouge

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The affiche rouge

The Affiche Rouge ( German  Das Rote Poster ) is a propaganda poster that was posted thousands of times by the Vichy authorities and the German occupation authorities during World War II , in occupied France in spring 1944. It shows on a red background some of the previously arrested and executed Resistance fighters of the Manouchian group, as well as photos of some attacks. The text on the poster describes the freedom fighters as criminals.

Purpose of the poster

The poster depicted the freedom fighters of the FTP-MOI (Francs-tireurs et partisans - main d'œuvre immigrée), whose most important subgroup was the Manouchian group , as terrorists or criminals and was intended to deter French citizens from becoming active in the resistance. Since the majority of the members of the FTP-MOI and the Manouchian group were immigrants, the freedom fighters should also be portrayed as strangers - as "un-French" - in order to make it difficult to identify with their goals.

distribution

Some authors speak of a spread throughout France. Philippe Ganier-Raymond wrote in 1975, "  les murs de France se couvraient de quinze mille affiches  " (German: "The walls of France were covered with fifteen thousand posters") Claude Lévy wrote in 1979, "  [l'affiche] apparaissait sur les murs des plus." petits villages de France  ”(German:“ [the poster] hung on the walls of the smallest villages in France ”) and a plaque in the Manouchian exhibition in Ivry in 2004 claimed,“  [l'affiche fut] largement placardée sur les murs des villes et des villages français  ”(German:“ [the poster was hung up] on a large scale in the cities and villages of France. ”) A leaflet of the Union des Juifs pour la Résistance et l'Entraide from March 1944 speaks of“  [affichage] sur les murs de toutes les villes et villages de France  »(German:" [Poster postings] in all cities and villages in France. ") If you were to take these statements literally, you would get a circulation significantly higher than 15,000.

The fact is that the affiche rouge was seen in Paris, Nantes and Lyon .

Content of the poster

Lettering of the poster:

«Des libérateurs? La libération par l'armée du crime! »

"Liberator? Liberation through the army of crime! "

Photos with the labeled portraits of some of the group members (left to right and top to bottom):

  • Grzywacz : Juif polonais, 2 assassinations (Polish Jew, 2 assassinations)
  • Elek : Juif hongrois, 5 déraillements (Hungarian Jew, 5 train derailments)
  • Wasjbrot : Juif polonais, 1 assassination, 1 déraillement (Polish Jew, 1 assassination, 1 train derailment)
  • Witchitz : Juif polonais, 15 assassinations (Polish Jew, 15 assassinations)
  • Fingercwajg : Juif polonais, 3 attentats, 5 déraillements (Polish Jew, 3 assassinations, 5 train derailments)
  • Boczov : Juif hongrois, chef dérailleur, 20 attentats (Hungarian Jew, head of train derailment operations, 20 attacks)
  • Fontano : Communiste italien, 12 attentats (Italian communist, 12 assassinations. (His correct name was Fontano))
  • Alfonso : Espagnol rouge, 2 assassinations (Red Spaniards, 2 assassinations)
  • Rayman : Juif polonais, 13 assassinations (Polish Jew, 13 assassinations)
  • Manouchian : Arménien, chef de bande, 56 assassinations, 150 morts, 600 blessés (Armenians, leader of the gang, 56 assassinations, 150 dead, 600 wounded)

The lower part of the poster shows the following photos:

  • the bullet-pierced right shoulder and chest of a corpse
  • a corpse lying on the floor
  • a derailed locomotive
  • a derailed train
  • a collection of small arms , hand grenades, parts of explosive devices arranged on a table
  • another derailed train

The French National Library keeps three copies of the Red Poster in three different formats; two of the formats measure 152 × 130 cm and 118 × 75 cm.

Accompanying leaflet

The placarding throughout Paris was accompanied by the distribution of numerous leaflets showing the reduced Affiche rouge on the front and the words: "l'Armée du crime, contre la France" ("The army of crime, against France" on the back) ).

The dimensions of the leaflet are 22 × 26 cm.

controversy

In the 1980s, some French political groups claimed that the arrest of the core of the Manouchian group had involved complicity on the part of some members of the Resistance. The reason for this was internal political trench warfare.

A documentary by Stéphane Courtois and Mosco Boucault , Des terroristes à la retraite , broadcast by Antenne 2 in 1983 , contained interviews with surviving FTP-MOI members and relatives of the Affiche-rouge victims. In the film, Mosco accuses the PCF ( Parti communiste français ) of having willingly sacrificed the fighters in the power struggle with the Gaullists for control of the CNR ( Conseil national de la Résistance ). He claimed that this also happened because the foreign origins of the FTP-MOI members undermined the image of the Resistance as a native French, patriotic resistance movement. The film was broadcast again in 2001 in a version shortened by 12 minutes. The cut was made to reflect the latest research.

A documentary by Denis Peschanski and Jorge Amat , broadcast on France 2 on March 15, 2007 , contradicts Courtois and Boucault's claims. Quoting the historian Denis Peschaski, who had access to new documents from Russian, French and German archives, the more recent documentary claims that the break-up of the Manouchian group was based solely on the investigative work of the French police. The newly established departments of the intelligence service Renseignements généraux (RG), the Brigades spéciales n ° 1 and n ° 2, had some of the FTP-MOI activists under observation for months. At the time of the fatal attack on Julius Ritter on September 28, 1943, the leader of the group of assassins, Marcel Rayman, had been under observation for two months. The French militia then arrested most of the Manouchian group, using information obtained under torture by some of the first arrested.

In September 2009, the last survivor of the FTP-MOI, Arsène Tchakarian , spoke out and denied that the PCF had betrayed the Manouchian group. On another occasion he said he was still a communist and if it were true that the PCF had betrayed comrades, he would have left the PCF immediately. Tchakarian also opposed the arguments that nationalist reasons should have played a role.

«Nous étions des Français immigrés arméniens, juifs, espagnols, italiens, polonais, tous égaux… […] je suis français mais je me bats contre l'injustice et ce racisme qu'on fabrique pour nous dresser les us contre les autres! »

"We were French, immigrant Armenians, Jews, Spaniards, Italians, Poles, all the same ... [...] I'm French, but I fight against injustice and this racism that is fabricated to turn us against each other!"

- Arsène Tchakarian : lejsd.com

The PCF also denies claims that it betrayed the arrested FTP-MOI members. Arsène Tchakarian said in an interview with L'Humanité that 35 of the 40 members of the Manouchian group were themselves communists.

Movies

fiction

Documentaries

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Philippe Ganier-Raymond: L'Affiche rouge . Fayard, Paris 1975, ISBN 2-213-00211-8 .
  2. ^ Claude Lévy: L'Affiche rouge. In: L'Histoire. No. 18, September 1979.
  3. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Exposition Manouchian ) (PDF; 1.2 MB) on the website of the Mairie of Ivry-sur-Seine@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.ivry94.fr
  4. ↑ Stéphane Courtois, Denis Peschanski, Adam Rayski: Le Sang de l'étranger. Fayard, 1989, p. 364.
  5. ↑ The Affiches dans Paris occupé titled photo by André Zucca (37042-6) on archives Roger-Viollet ( memento of September 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ).
  6. ^ Paul Virilio : J'ai vu "L'Affiche rouge", placardée sur les murs de Nantes. In: Elle . July 2000
  7. ^ Charles Tillon: Les FTP. Julliard, 1962, p. 259, In: Claude Lévy, L'Affiche rouge In: L'Histoire No. 18, September 1979.
  8. ↑ "Prisoner Categories" . mauthausen-memorial.at. Archived from the original on January 14, 2013. Retrieved on December 24, 2011.
  9. ↑ Catalog Opale plus , accessed December 16, 2008, no longer available October 11, 2010.
  10. ^ Website of the Académie de Versailles ( Memento of November 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Archives Nationales, Affiches et cartes du Comité d'histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale , 1re édition électronique, 2006, cote 72AJ / 1008, accessed December 16, 2008.
  12. ↑ Avec ou sans guillemets ( Memento from April 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), L'Humanité, February 18, 2004 (French)
  13. ↑ Denis Peschanski - Jorge Amat, La traque de l'Affiche rouge , 72 minutes, compagnie des Phares et Balises en collaboration avec la Fondation Gabriel Péri et L'Humanité, 2006. Summary of the film (French)
  14. ↑ Les héros de l'Affiche rouge , L'Humanité, February 13, 2007 (French)
  15. ↑ a b Aucun groupe de résistants n'a fait trembler les Nazis comme nous! , leJSD.com, March 6, 2009 (accessed October 11, 2010)
  16. ↑ L'Armée du crime: An interview with Arsène Tchakarian. Former member of the Manouchian Group , English online edition of L'Humanité, October 8, 2009 (English, accessed October 11, 2010)