Gabriel Romon
Gabriel Louis Charles Romon (born June 18, 1905 in Boulogne-sur-Mer , † August 21, 1944 in Heilbronn ) was a French resistance fighter. He belonged to the group Réseau Alliance , which obtained information for the British secret service , and worked there under the code name "Cygne". Romon was arrested and executed in Germany.
Life
Gabriel Romon was a son of Louis Romon and his wife Gabrielle, b. Lemaitre. He was born at 2 Place Saint-Pierre in Boulogne-sur-Mer. At the age of eleven he lost his father. Romon attended the Lycée Faidherbe in Lille and then the École Polytechnique . In 1929 he became a lieutenant in the 18ème Régiment du Génie in Nancy . On August 5, 1930 he married Denise Sivot (* 1910) there, with whom he had three sons, Jean-Louis, Philippe and François. From September 1932 he attended the École Supérieure d'Electricité and in 1933 he became Capitaine. When the war broke out, he was commander of the 38ème Régiment du Génie in Montargis . Under General Georges he was used in North Africa, among other places.
In 1940 he became technical director of the Groupement de Contrôles Radioélectriques (GCR) and director of the center of this organization in Hauterive under Paul Labat . He belonged to a group of officers who worked for the French and British secret services; Among other things, they explored the radio facilities of the Gestapo and the German Wehrmacht and the battle orders of the German troops and were busy deciphering encrypted messages.
At the end of 1942 the Germans had occupied all of France and in July 1943 several of Romon's colleagues were arrested by the Gestapo. Romon now appeared as director of the state technical services, at the same time he became increasingly involved in the resistance. From March 1943 he was Commandant des Transmissions de l'Armée Secrète. He founded a group called Service des Transmissions nationales (STN) to keep the Allies informed about the Germans' plans and to prepare for the invasion.
On December 12, 1943, the tenth birthday of his son Philippe, he was arrested at his home at 86 route de Thiers in Saint-Yorre . Who or what had betrayed him remained unexplained. He was imprisoned in various places before he was sent to Strasbourg prison on December 16, 1943 . There he was interrogated by the AST (Abwehrstelle). He was then sent to Kehl prison on February 15, 1944 , and finally to Freiburg im Breisgau on April 27, 1944 , where he was to be tried by a court martial. On June 24, 1944, he was sentenced to death for espionage along with 24 other people who also belonged to the Réseau Alliance group . Three days later, the group was taken to the prison of Schwäbisch Hall transferred, where she was informed on 20 August that year on the death sentence. On August 21, 1944, Romon and the other convicts were taken to the Schlieffen barracks in Heilbronn and fusilated on the same day.
Denise Romon did not learn that her husband had died until July 1945, and it was not until 1946 that she became aware of the exact circumstances of his death. She then wrote down her memories of the time with Gabriel Romon. After the death of his mother, François Romon was surprised at how much material there was about his father that he had not known up to that point.
Honors
In 1947 the dead, whose last wish had been to be buried in French soil, were transferred to Strasbourg and buried there. Gabriel Romon was made a posthumous Lieutenant-Colonel, received the Médaille de la Résistance and became a Knight of the Legion of Honor . The obsequies were celebrated on December 27, 1947 in the Église Saint-Louis des Invalides in Paris .
The rue du Commandant Romon in Saint-Yorre was named after Gabriel Romon on May 12, 1946. On June 26 of the same year the avenue des colonels Mesnier et Romon in Montargis was given its name. In Heilbronn, a stumbling block was laid in memory of Gabriel Romon.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Project Stolpersteine in Heilbronn 2010 ( Memento of the original from December 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Carnets et cahiers de guerres. Exposition , p. 12 f. ( 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.
- ↑ François Romon, Gabriel ROMON. Récit à la mémoire de mon père , August 16, 2009
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Romon, Gabriel |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Romon, Gabriel Louis Charles |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French resistance fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 18, 1905 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boulogne-sur-Mer |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 21, 1944 |
| Place of death | Heilbronn |