Henri Georges Girard

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Charles Henri Georges Achille Girard (born July 16, 1917 in Montpellier , Département Hérault , † March 4, 1987 in Barcelona ) was a French writer, journalist and political activist. He became known under the pseudonym Georges Arnaud , for which he used his middle name Georges and Arnaud as his mother's maiden name. (The author Georges-Jean Arnaud , born in 1928 , who wrote the series La Compagnie des glaces , is often confused with Henri-Georges Girard , who goes under the stage name Georges Arnaud .)

biography

In 1926, his mother, Valentine Girard, died when he was nine years old. She died of tuberculosis , a disease that Henri suffered from throughout his life. A brilliant student (double high school graduate at fifteen), he was particularly good at the humanities. After graduating from high school , he studied law in Paris . As a law graduate, he does political science and refuses to swear allegiance to Petain. On October 25, 1941, Henri's father George Girard, his aunt and a servant (and, according to legend, the dog) were killed with sickle blows in the residence (chateau) of the Escoire family in Périgord . Henri Girard reported the crime the following morning.

Given the mysterious circumstances of the drama (no witnesses, no motive, no signs of burglary), he was arrested. Although he protested his innocence, he was in prison for nineteen months until the dramatic conclusion of his trial on June 2, 1943. Despite the death penalty , Henri Girard benefits from the intervention of lawyer Maurice Garçon , a former friend of his father's. Acquitted after just a few minutes of deliberation by the jury, he was triumphantly received by the court audience. The Escoire case, however, has never been resolved. Years later, Gérard de Villiers , author of the SAS series , says that Arnaud had confided in him that he was the perpetrator of the crimes ... or at least pretended to have received this confidential communication.

To this day there is no evidence that these words were really uttered. However, those close to the chateau and other witnesses never seem to have doubted the identity of the criminal. From 1943 to 1947 he lived in Paris, where he managed the family inheritance in a very short time while disregarding the banality of life, an attitude that he never gave up. He befriended a young singer with whom he later had two sons. He sailed for South America on May 2, 1947. Georges Arnaud lived a drifting life on this continent for two years.

He did all kinds of jobs, from gold digger or bartender to taxi driver to truck driver. Back in France in 1950, he published his first novel The Wages of Fear , inspired by his trip to South America. The book was very popular.

His divorce was pronounced in 1951. Then new books were published based on his experiences: Le Voyage du mauvais larron and Schtibilem 41 (about his time in prison). Georges Arnaud wrote reports for various newspapers at the same time. In 1952, the filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot realized the book on film with his adaptation Salaire de la peur ( Wages of Fear ) with Yves Montand and Charles Vanel . The following year, the film won a Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and Charles Vanel was named Best Actor. Arnaud remained cautious about the fidelity of this film adaptation. In 1953, Henri Girard met his new mate, Rolande, with whom he had two daughters and whom he married in 1966. Also in 1953, his play Les Aveux les plus doux brought him another success. Édouard Molinaro filmed the fabric for the screen in 1970. In 1957 he and the lawyer Jacques Verges signed a manifesto for Djamila Bouhired at the publishing house 'Editions de Minuit' . Bouhired was a FLN fighter and was arrested by French paratroopers on suspicion of planting a bomb. Tortured, tried and sentenced to death in July 1957, Djamila Bouhired was defended by Jacques Verges, who obtained her sentence commuted (and he married his client, who was released in 1962).

The book Pour Djamila Bouhired (German: in favor of Djamila Bouhired ) is, together with Henri Alleg's book La Question (German: The Question ), one of the manifestos that alarmed public opinion about torture and ill-treatment committed by the army against the Algerian independence fighters . Georges Arnaud was arrested for not disclosing the location and the witnesses of a press conference held by Francis Jeanson in support of Algeria's independence. He was supported by Joseph Kessel , Jean-Paul Sartre , Jacques Prévert , François Maspero and Andre Frossard .

Suddenly there was resistance to the attempt to breach Arnaud's duty of confidentiality as a journalist, and increasingly to the practice of torture in Algeria, which was the real problem in this case. By introducing the so-called “enfermement militant” (in German, for example: militant isolation), Georges Arnaud spent two months in prison. He used the scandal caused not only to get his acquittal, but also to demand an apology from the army. His trial resulted in a two-year prison sentence, but the verdict was ultimately overturned by the court.

In 1962, Georges Arnaud settled in Algeria with his family. He contributed to the establishment of a journalism school and the launch of the magazine Révolution africaine (German: African Revolution). In 1972, tuberculosis forced him to recover in Chamonix , France. He finally left Algeria in 1974. From 1975 to 1981 he produced notable reports for French television , including about the Moon sect and the Peiper affair (ex-SS war criminal, fled to the Haute-Saône department , whose house in 1976 went up in flames - an unidentifiable corpse was discovered in the rubble). In 1984 the Georges Arnaud family settled in Barcelona, ​​where he spent his old age. Henri-Georges Arnaud Girard died of a heart attack on March 4, 1987 in Barcelona .

Works

  • Le Salaire de la peur (German: wages of fear or charge of nitroglycerin or dangerous curves). Julliard, 1950
  • Le Voyage du mauvais larron. Julliard, 1951; Le Pré aux Clercs , 1987 (édition revue et corrigée)
  • Lumière de soufre. Julliard, 1952
  • India of the Hauts Plateaux. revue 9, n ° 8, December 1952
  • Prisons 53rd Julliard, 1953
  • Schtibilem 41. Julliard, 1953
  • Les Oreilles sur le dos. Editions du Scorpion, 1953; Julliard, 1974 (édition revue et corrigée)
  • Les Aveux les plus doux. Julliard, 1954
  • Les Aveux les plus doux (scenario). Éditions des Lettres françaises, 1954
  • India's pas morts. Delpire Éditeur, 1956
  • Pour Djamila Bouhired. Editions de Minuit, 1957
  • Maréchal P… Éditeurs Français Réunis, 1958
  • La plus grande pente. Julliard, 1961
  • Mon procès. Editions de Minuit, 1961
  • Préface au Meurtre de Roger Ackroyd d ' Agatha Christie , Le Livre de Poche , 1961
  • L'Affaire Peiper: plus qu'un fait diverse. Atelier Marcel Jullian, 1978
  • Chroniques du crime et de l'innocence. Jean-Claude Lattès, 1982
  • Juste avant l'aube (en collaboration with Jean Anglade ). Presses de la Cité, 1990

family

Girard had two sons, Dominic (1946) and Henry (1947) and two daughters, Katharina (1962) and Laurence (1964).

The secret of the triple murder of Escoire

In his book Du crime d'Escoire au Salaire de la Peur (German: From the crime of Escoire to the reward of fear) Jacques Lagrange claims to have discovered a fantastic intrigue in which the foreign minister, the interior minister, the secret services put their fingers in Have a game and even a plot by a group of royalists.

This fictitious version was downright torn up by the historian Guy Sheepish when he - he had access to the files compiled by M me Maurice Garçon - published a comprehensive book about the affair: Le triple crime du château d'Escoire (German: Der Dreifach -Mord of Chateau Escoire) (Editions La Lauze Perigueux).

It shows that if Henri Girard (Georges Arnaud) benefited from the leniency of judges and jury members, it was because the president of the jury court Hurlaux (involved in the Stavisky affair ) intervened with M me Maurice Garcon. By discussing this matter indulgently with the jury, he hoped to revive his legal career!

The two Georges Arnauds - an unfortunate identity of names

Georges Arnaud, whose real name is Charles Henri Georges Achille Girard , was a contemporary of another French writer whose real name was actually Georges Arnaud.

The latter had to label his works with Georges-Jean Arnaud or George J. Arnaud in order to enable a clear assignment.

«I suffered terribly from the fact that there was a second Georges Arnaud ... seeing how a rind as good as the wages of fear has an enormous success, from a certain Georges Arnaud, who has taken this pseudonym, I had the feeling that one stole my name ».

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Émission Georges Arnaud: Ange ou démon sur France-culture.com ( Memento of the original of February 13, 2007 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. (German "Georges Arnaud: Angel or Devil" on France-culture.com)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.radiofrance.fr

literature

  • Biography (French): Georges Arnaud, vie d'un rebelle (German: Georges Arnaud, Leben eines Rebellen) by Roger Martin, Editions Calmann-Lévy, 1994, reissued in September 2009 by the publisher (éditions) "A Plus d'un titre "

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Girard, Henri Georges
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Girard, Charles Henri Georges Achille; Arnaud, Georges (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Montpellier , Hérault department
DATE OF DEATH March 4th 1987
Place of death Barcelona