Antoine Argoud

Antoine Argoud

Antoine Argoud (born June 26, 1914 in Darney ; † June 10, 2004 in Vittel ) was a French officer and a leading member of the Organization de l'armée secrète (OAS, German: "Organization of the Secret Army").

Life

Trained in the French elite school École polytechnique , he began his service in 1934 as an officer in a tank division. During the Second World War he was a member of the French army of the Vichy regime and was stationed with France's colonial army in Algeria . In November 1942, the German Wehrmacht occupied southern France, which had previously been administered by the Vichy regime . The French army was disbanded. Arnoud joined the Giraudist resistance organization Organization de résistance de l'armée (ORA). The Allies had advanced against the German-Italian troops as far as Algeria, where Argoud had mobilized the ORA. With the 2nd Panzer Division he took part in the capture of Tunisia .

After the war ended in 1945, Argoud attended the École de guerre in Saumur . For three years he was an advisor to the general staff of Jean de Lattre de Tassigny . After the protests for an independent Algeria on November 1, 1954, Argoud formed the Javelot Brigade in the 7th Panzer Division to fight the independence movement. In 1956 he got command of the 3 ^e  régiment de chasseurs d'Afrique as a colonel during the Algerian War . He applied the French doctrine , which provided for the undifferentiated use of war weapons against civilians. He used such harsh methods (retaliation, public firing squads, torture) against Algerian independence fighters that he was admonished and finally recalled to Paris.

In the winter of 1960/61, the OAS was formed, with which French officers and generals - against the policy of President Charles de Gaulle  - wanted to force Algeria to remain with France. Antoine Argoud was one of the leading figures in the military wing of the OAS , alongside Georges Bidault , Jacques Soustelle and Pierre Sergent . After the so-called “barricade coup” and the OAS assassination attempt on President de Gaulle, Argoud went into hiding and was sentenced to death in absentia in France in August 1962 . In February 1963, Argoud was allegedly kidnapped from a hotel in Munich to Paris by French Barbouzes . The kidnapping was later attributed to foreign legionnaires of German origin commissioned by France . The French government officially denied their involvement, but on December 30, 1963, Germany demanded Argoud's return. On the same day he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Paris . In June 1968 Argoud was pardoned as part of a general amnesty and released from prison. In 1974 he published his memoirs entitled La décadence, l'imposture et la tragédie (The decadence, deception and tragedy): he regrets nothing, the abandonment of Algeria remains an infamy.

Argoud died on June 10, 2004 in Vittel in the Vosges .

References and comments

1. ↑ ^{a b} The kidnapping of the colonel . In: Die Zeit , No. 10/1963
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Le Monde, October 18, 1974 ( Memento of the original from December 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ A jargon term for members of the French foreign secret service DGSE
4. ↑ Argoud kidnapped by Germans . In: Die Zeit , No. 2/1964
5. ↑ The word de Gaulle . In: Die Zeit , No. 8/1966
6. ↑ Chroniknet.com December 30, 1963  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Operation Tirolerhut (see cover picture) . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1963 ( online ).