Henri Fernand Dentz
Henri Fernand Dentz (born December 16, 1881 in Roanne , Loire department , † December 13, 1945 in Fresnes , Val-de-Marne department ) was a French general d'armée .
Career
Dentz came from a family based in Alsace . After the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War , his father left the part of the country annexed by Germany. Dentz graduated from the Saint-Cyr Military School as top of the class. During the First World War he served as a battalion commander and eventually as chief of staff of an infantry division. 1920–1923 he headed the intelligence service of the French army in Syria . In December 1927 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and in 1931 to colonel . While he commanded the 54th Brigade from 1934 to 1937, he became General de brigade in December 1935 . In the following two years he was promoted to Vice Chief of the General Staff up to the Général de division in December 1937. As Général de corps d'armée , he commanded the XV. and then the XII. Corps.
In World War II
Dentz became military governor of Paris at the beginning of the battle for France on June 5, 1940 and had to hand over the capital of France to the advancing German 18th Army under General Georg von Küchler just nine days later .
In December 1940, the Vichy government appointed Dentz High Commissioner for Syria and Lebanon and Commander-in-Chief of the Armée du Levant , a French mandate of the League of Nations since 1920 . On the instructions of Prime Minister François Darlan , who had met with Hitler on May 14, 1941 together with General Maxime Weygand , Dentz allowed the Wehrmacht to use Syrian airfields to support the Iraqi government under Raschid Ali al-Gailani against the British intervention in Iraq and At the instigation of the German emissary Rudolf Rahn, he also sent weapons to Iraq. After the British victory in Iraq , they moved against the French troops .
On June 8, 1941, he and his 45,000 soldiers faced the offensive by British , Indian , Australian and Free French units under Maitland Wilson - a total of 20,000 men - from Palestine. In view of the threatened fight against his own compatriots (Free French), Dentz hesitated to take defensive measures and requested the support of the German Air Force too late . A support of the units by French destroyers was prevented by the British. On June 21, 1941, Damascus was occupied by the British and the Free French.
On July 14, 1941, Dentz ordered the fighting to cease. 1,866 French soldiers died in the fighting, including 1,066 soldiers from the Vichy government and 800 free French under General Georges Catroux . It remained a one-time event that u. a. Units of the French Foreign Legion fought against each other. With the armistice conditions of July 14, 1941 in St. Jean d'Åcre , the Vichy armed forces were allowed to withdraw without equipment. Dentz returned to France with 33,000 soldiers, 1,400 of them wounded, and was promised impunity. Appointed general in June 1941, he retired in 1943 for reasons of age.
After the Second World War , he was found guilty of collaboration with the enemy by the Supreme Court of the Provisional Government of France and sentenced to death . In October 1945, de Gaulle pardoned him to life imprisonment . Dentz died after two hundred days in prison in Fresnes near Paris as a result of the conditions of the detention center and the lack of medical care.
literature
- Anthony Mockler: Our Enemies the French: Being an Account of the War Fought between the French and the British: Syria, 1941 . L. Cooper, London 1976.
Individual evidence
- ^ Henri de Wailly: Invasion Syria 1941 - Churchill and de Gaulle's Forgotten War , New York, 2016, p. 37
- ^ Henri de Wailly: Invasion Syria 1941 - Churchill and de Gaulle's Forgotten War , New York, 2016, pp. 336–338
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dentz, Henri Fernand |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French army general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 16, 1881 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Roanne |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 13, 1945 |
| Place of death | Fresnes |