Charles Machon

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Gravestone in the Wehl cemetery, Hameln

Charles Machon (born September 10, 1893 in Saint Peter Port on Guernsey , † October 26, 1944 in Hameln ) was a British typesetter and resistance fighter .

Life

During the German occupation of the Channel Islands from 1940, Charles Machon was a typesetter for the Guernsey Star and Gazette Ltd newspaper . In 1942, the German occupying forces confiscated all of the islanders' radios and banned their possession and use in order to prevent British radio broadcasting.

Resistance activity

The radio ban prompted Charles Machon to found the Guernsey Underground News Service (GUNS), a group of eight. They stopped an illegal radio the evening news of the BBC and the content typed with a typewriter from where means of carbonless paper created eight copies. In total, the group produced up to 300 booklets a day of a secret news paper with the title "GUNS" and distributed them to the residents of Guernsey. From 1942 to 1944, the spread to Guernsey was successful. In early 1944, an informer informed the local police, who informed the Secret Field Police of suspicious activity in Charles Machon's home. When he was arrested, the typewriter and numerous copies of the "GUNS" font were found.

Detention

Leveled burial area on which the grave of Charles Machon lies

After weeks of interrogation and threats to arrest his mother as well, Machon confessed to the spread of the script. This led to the arrest of more people and charges against five people for producing and distributing pamphlets. A German military court sentenced Machon to two years in prison . As the head of the group, he was punished more severely than the rest of the group. In April 1944 he was deported to Germany for forced labor . He was initially taken to the Rheinbach prison and was transferred to the Hameln prison a few months later because of the approach of Allied troops . After a month's stay there, he died from a lack of medical care. He was buried in the Am Wehl municipal cemetery in Hameln.

Commemoration

After the Second World War , the eight members of the underground news agency were referred to as "Guernsey Eight".

The tombstone for Charles Machon erected in 2017 at the Wehl cemetery

In 1973, after the dormant period of Charles Machon's grave in Hameln, the above-ground grave markings were removed, but the burial was retained. According to the law on the preservation of the graves of victims of war and tyranny , the marking should have been preserved.

The fate of Charles Machon after his deportation from Guernsey was unknown to his family for decades. In collaboration with the archaeologist Gilly Carr from Cambridge University , who is researching the fate of the people deported from Guernsey, the Hameln Regional Cultural and Contemporary History Association was only able to reconstruct the route from Charles Machon to Hameln at the end of 2016. In 2017, his grandson asked the Lord Mayor of Hamelin, Claudio Griese, to restore his grandfather's grave. In 2017, a new tombstone for Charles Machon was erected near the original grave at the expense of the City of Hameln and the Association for Regional Cultural and Contemporary History Hameln . The gravestone was inaugurated in the presence of Charles Machon's grandson in 2018.

literature

  • Frank W. Falla: The Silent War . Frewin, London 1967
  • Bernhard Gelderblom : The British resistance fighter Charles Machon ( Online ; PDF)

Web links

Commons : Charles Machon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gilly Carr: Charles Nicholas Machon at Frank Falla Archives
  2. a b c Bernhard Gelderblom: The British resistance fighter Charles Machon (pdf)
  3. Bernhard Gelderblom: Messages from the underground  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Schaumburger Zeitung of June 9, 2018@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / webcache.googleusercontent.com  
  4. Philipp Killmann: Inaugurated: Gravestone for British resistance fighters  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Dewezet on June 12, 2018@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / webcache.googleusercontent.com  
  5. ^ Gilly Carr: Frank Falla , at the Frank Falla Archive