Gilbert Grandval

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Gilbert Grandval (around 1950)
Signature of Gilbert Grandval in his capacity as governor of the Saarland

Gilbert Grandval (born February 12, 1904 in Paris , † November 29, 1981 ibid), actually Gilbert Hirsch-Ollendorff , was a French resistance fighter and politician .

Life

Grandval was entered on the Paris Birth Register under the name Yves Gilbert Edmond Hirsch. The father Edmond Hirsch, like his paternal grandfather Henri Hirsch, were booksellers. The grandfather had moved from Strasbourg to Paris and after 1871 had opted as an Alsatian to remain a French citizen. The maternal grandfather was Paul Ollendorff, also a bookseller and publisher of the writer Guy de Maupassant . Grandval initially officially bore the double name Hirsch-Ollendorff. After attending the Lycée Condorcet in Paris and dropping out of medical school, at the age of around 25 he was appointed commercial director of the important French company Compagnie de Saint-Gobain . At that time, the company manufactured glasses and chemical products. Grandval worked for the company in Lyon in the fertilizer production division.

Grandval came from a Jewish family and later converted to Catholicism . He was married and had two sons and a daughter.

Resistance (resistance)

As an experienced recreational pilot , Gilbert Hirsch-Ollendorff was drafted into the French Air Force at the beginning of the Second World War in 1939. As a pilot he was involved in allied escape and rescue missions.
During the German occupation of France, he joined the resistance movement. From April 1943 he took part in actions of the Ceux de la Résistance (CDLR) resistance group in northern France . On August 6, 1943, he was arrested by the German occupiers in Paris. However, in the absence of evidence, he was released two days later. After this incident, he devoted all his work to the underground organization and from that point on was a full member of the Resistance. At this time he also adopted the code name Grandval, which he officially carried after the war with the approval of the President of the Transitional Government from February 25, 1946. As a leading member, Grandval commanded the French resistance forces in eight departments in eastern France. On the direction of General Charles de Gaulle , he was appointed military representative of the 20th region ( Nancy ).

In September 1944, his units defeated the remnants of the German Wehrmacht that remained in Nancy after he had entered the city two days before the Americans. His dislike of the Americans probably arose from the disputes with American officers that arose. In the liberated Nancy he received General de Gaulle on September 25, 1944.

Political activity

Originally, de Gaulle wanted to use Grandval as French military governor in Baden-Baden . But Grandval, who had already worked in industry before the war, was not interested in such a purely political and diplomatic mission. Rather, he was attracted to more concrete things like coal, steel and reconstruction. Thereupon Grandval von de Gaulle was appointed military governor of the French occupation forces in Saarland on August 30, 1945 . He was now at the head of the "Délégation Supérieure de la Sarre", which represented the French military government on the Saar. Until 1955, Grandval was French military governor (1945-48), high commissioner (1948-52) and ambassador (1952-55) in Saarland. During this time he rebuilt the destroyed coal and steel industry in Saarland, which had to generate reparations for the French state in the following years.

During his time as High Commissioner, he resided at the former Stumm's Castle Halberg near Saarbrücken , which had been requisitioned by the military government for this purpose . It had remained undestroyed, and since it had belonged to the Reichsender Saarbrücken since 1935 , it had been in unclear ownership since the end of the war; the castle has been the seat of the SR's directorship since 1959 .

On June 20, 1955, a few weeks before the Saar vote on the European Statute on October 23, 1955, Grandval became General Resident in French Morocco . However, he gave up this post after 55 days due to differences with the French government. Then he was Secretary General of the Merchant Navy.

Under Prime Minister Georges Pompidou , Grandval was Minister of Labor in the Fifth Republic from May 1962 to January 1966 . He was then president of the Messageries Maritimes shipping company until his retirement in 1972 .

From 1971 Grandval was president of the left- wing Gaullist party "Union travailliste". He was retired in 1972, but remained politically active as a Gaullist (Union gaulliste pour la Démocratie). He counted himself among the left Gaullists and admitted himself as a sharp opponent of Jacques Chirac , whom he accused of nationalism. Grandval, on the other hand, supported the policy of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing . Gilbert Grandval died in Paris on November 29, 1981. He was buried in Saint-Cloud .

Fonts

  • Grandval, Gilbert / Johannes Hoffmann: La Sarre - bilan d'une année de reconstruction [ The Saar - balance sheet of one year of reconstruction ]. Paris, 1949. 137 pp.
  • Farewell address by HE Gilbert Grandval, French Ambassador, Head of the French diplomatic mission in Saarland, Thursday, June 30, 1955 at the reception organized in his honor by the Saarland government. Saarbrücken: Presse-Verl, 1955. 10 sheets.
  • Grandval, Gilbert: Ma Mission au Maroc [ My Mission in Morocco ]. Paris: Plon, 1956. 273 pp.
  • Grandval, Gilbert / A. Jean Collin: Liberation de l'est de la France [ Liberation of Eastern France ]. Paris: Hachette, 1974. 275 pp.
  • Grandval, Gilbert: Archives privées. [Text partly in German and French] Paris, 1983.
  • L'économie sarroise. Toutes les activités sarroises passées en revue par 20 industriels sarrois. Ed .: Gilbert Grandval. Paris, 1984.

Awards (selection)

literature

  • DM Schneider: Gilbert Grandval. France's proconsul on the Saar 1945–1955 . In: Stefan Martens (Ed.): From “Erbfeind” to “Renewer”. Aspects and motives of the French policy towards Germany after the Second World War . (Supplement to Francia , 27). Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1993, ISBN 3-7995-7327-5 ( online )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Gilbert Grandval at saar-nostalgie.de
  2. ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung, special supplement "Zerreißprobe - 25 years ago: Saarlanders between yes and no", article "France's man in Saarbrücken for 10 years", page VI, supplement to the Saarbrücker Zeitung of October 23, 1980.
  3. ↑ Gilbert Grandval at ordre de la liberation.fr ( Memento of the original from October 17, 2005 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ordredelaliberation.fr
  4. ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung, special supplement “Zerreißprobe - 25 years ago: Saarlanders between yes and no”, article “France's man in Saarbrücken for 10 years”, page VI, supplement to the Saarbrücker Zeitung of October 23, 1980.
  5. ↑ Saarbrücker Zeitung, special supplement “Zerreißprobe - 25 years ago: Saarlanders between yes and no”, article “I did not harm the Saar”, SZ conversation with Gilbert Grandval, page VI, supplement to the Saarbrücker Zeitung of October 23, 1980.
personal data
SURNAME Grandval, Gilbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hirsch-Ollendorff, Gilbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French resistance fighter and politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1981
Place of death Paris