Charles Delestraint
Charles Delestraint (born March 12, 1879 in Biache-Saint-Vaast , Pas-de-Calais department , † April 19, 1945 in Dachau concentration camp ) was a French general de brigade and member of the Resistance .
Time before World War II
After his school days in Lille and a brilliant high school diploma with the Marist Fathers , the son of an accountant entered the Saint-Cyr military academy in 1897 . Capitaine Delestraint was captured on August 30, 1914 at the beginning of the First World War during the attack on Chesnoy-Auboncourt and survived the war as a prisoner of war. After the end of the war he stayed in the army and supported the establishment of tank units. From 1918 to 1936 he was promoted regularly, rose to the rank of Colonel and commanded the 3rd Panzer Brigade in Metz . He was friends with Charles de Gaulle . On December 23, 1936, he was promoted to Général de brigade.
Activation, resistance
In 1939 he retired, but when the Second World War broke out he was recalled and commanded the fighting vehicles of the 7th Army . On June 3 and 4, 1940, he led the counterattack of a tank formation against the Wehrmacht in Abbeville .
After the Armistice of Compiègne , which he rejected, he retired to Bourg-en-Bresse , where Henri Frenay recruited him for the Resistance. After discussions with Frenay and Jean Moulin , he began to organize the Armée secrète , the secret army, in Lyon from members of the Combat , Liberation and Franc-Tireur . He later visited de Gaulle in secret in London and agreed to lead the Armée Secrète. Under the battle name " Vidal ", Delestraint traveled with Moulin to the occupied zone and began to expand the Armée Secrète in the north.
On January 26, 1943, at a conference of the Coordinating Committee, Jean Moulin directed all Resistance groups and overcame the resistance of Henri Frenay, who, as Commissioner for Military Affairs, tried to assert his own position and to keep control over General Delestraint, the head of the Armée Secrète . Moulin supported Delestraint against his old friend Frenay in his intention to take direct action immediately, which Frenay declined as premature and too risky.
From February 13 to March 20, 1943 Delestraint visited General de Gaulle in London with Moulin. They wanted to create some kind of underground parliament. He traveled to London to convey this idea to the French in exile. Like many other members of the Resistance, they believed the French parties that had been handed down from the Third Republic were out of date. But they were also aware that if the liberal and left forces did not integrate themselves into the political process, a French post-war government would establish itself without their participation and that of the Resistance. Conversely, through the integration process of the Resistance, de Gaulle succeeded more and more in enhancing the importance of his government-in-exile in London.
Arrest, concentration camp imprisonment
Delestraint returned to France on March 24, 1943. On June 9, he was arrested by the Gestapo in Paris , where he was likely betrayed by René Hardy , and interrogated by Klaus Barbie in Fresnes Prison . After that he was appointed as and fog night-Prisoner in July 1943 in the concentration camp Natzweiler-Struthof and from there in September 1944 to Dachau abducted, where he on 19 April 1945 shot in the neck of the oberscharführer Bongartz on the authority of Emil Mahl was murdered and cremated in the camp crematorium.
Raymond Aubrac was supposed to take on Delestraint's position as chief of the secret army. However, he was arrested along with Jean Moulin and others on June 21, 1943 in Caluire-et-Cuire .
Honors
- Commander of the Legion of Honor
- Compagnon de la Liberation
- Croix de guerre 1914–1918 with laurels
- Croix de guerre 1939-1945
- Croix de Guerre of Belgium
- November 10, 1989: General Delestraint's name is engraved in the Panthéon in Paris in recognition of his services to the French people .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Musée de l'ordre de la Liberation: Charles Delestraint ( Memento of the original of May 22, 2009 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. . Retrieved January 7, 2019
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Delestraint, Charles |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Vidal (battle name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French general and member of the Resistance |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 12, 1879 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Biache-Saint-Vaast |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 9, 1945 |
| Place of death | Dachau concentration camp |