Jacques Massu

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Jacques Massu
Jacques Massu

Jacques Massu (born May 5, 1908 in Châlons-sur-Marne , † October 26, 2002 in Conflans-sur-Loing ) was a French general .

Life

origin

Massu was the son of an officer in the French Army and distantly related to Marshal Michel Ney .

Between the wars

From 1928 to 1930 he graduated from the Saint-Cyr Military Academy and was part of the N ° 115 du Maréchal Foch course. He chose a career in the colonial infantry and was stationed alternately in France and Africa ( Morocco , Togo and Chad ). In 1932 he was promoted to lieutenant and in June 1939 to captain .

Second World War

At the time of the Compiègne armistice , he was in French Equatorial Africa and, following the appeal of June 18, 1940, joined Free France under Charles de Gaulle . He fought under Leclerc at the Battle of Fezzan against the Italians.

In September 1942 he became a major and battalion commander in Chad . During his time in Africa he met his future wife Suzan, who was a medical officer at Rochamble Command .

In April 1944 he was transferred to Leclerc's 2nd Panzer Division in southern England. After the Allied landing in Normandy , Massu took part in the fighting there from August 1, 1944; further stops were Paris and the Vosges . On September 25, 1944, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. After the battles near Strasbourg , Zabern and Colmar , his association was involved in the conquest of southwest Germany. With the end of the war in Europe he was given command of an association that was to take part in the war against Japan .

Indochina War

Massu was sent to French Indochina in September 1945 as the commander of the 2e DB marching group . He and his unit took part in the occupation of Indochina south of the 16th parallel. After the conclusion of the preliminary Franco-Vietnamese convention in March 1946, he landed with his unit in Haiphong . In the same month he was promoted to colonel . From 1946 to 1949 he worked alternately in France and Indochina. In France he established a troop school for paratroopers to be deployed in Indochina, with the training focus on command operations. In 1949 he was posted to North Africa.

Suez crisis

After serving in Indochina, he was a training officer in Paris, brigade commander in Niamey and area commander in part of Tunisia . In June 1955 he was promoted to Brigadier General , in 1956 he was with the 10th Paratrooper Division in Egypt during the Suez Crisis . He was brought to Port Said with parts of his division on the battleship Jean Bart .

Algerian war

In January 1957 he was in Algeria in command of the region Algiers . Under his command, the 10th Paratrooper Division managed to defeat the fighters of the FLN in the " Battle of Algiers " (Bataille d'Alger) in September 1957 in the Kasbah of Algiers . For this he was given the honorary title "Hero of Algiers" by the French Algeria . Massu had his troops systematically commit war crimes in the form of summary shootings and torture . The French government promoted and covered up these human rights violating practices. They later became known as the " French Doctrine " and led to considerable domestic and foreign policy protests. Massu was never held responsible for this. The use of torture by the French troops in Algeria first became known in 1958 through the book “La Question” (Eng. “The Torture”) by the French-Algerian resistance fighter Henri Alleg ; the French government dropped the book immediately because of "damage to the military power" ban .

After the coup in Algiers on May 13, 1958 , he was briefly president of the so-called "welfare committee" before de Gaulle formed a new government. In July 1958 he received his second general star ( Général de division ), and in December 1958 he became commander in chief of the French troops in Algeria. In addition, he took over the office of regional prefect. When he expressed doubts in an interview published on January 19, 1960 with the German journalist Hans Ulrich Kempski , the chief reporter of the Süddeutsche Zeitung , whether de Gaulle would really stick to a French Algeria, he was dismissed directly by presidential order. The transfer of Massu, who was very popular with the Algerian French, led to bloody unrest for several days. Despite this affair, he remained loyal to de Gaulle, who quickly forgave his interview.

Massu was transferred back to France and was now the military governor of Metz . In July 1963 he became the Général de corps d'armée promoted

Germany

In March 1966 he took over the command of the French troops in Germany (FFA) with headquarters in Baden-Baden as Général d'armée . During the May riots , de Gaulle flew on May 29, 1968 with the greatest possible secrecy on a short visit to Massu in Baden-Baden, which sparked speculation as to whether de Gaulle had thought of using the army to end the riots and only Massus unconditional loyalty wanted to be sure for such an intervention. The fact that de Gaulle had his family and valuables with him gave rise to speculation about the president's possible escape. The content of the one-to-one conversation he had with de Gaulle for one and a half hours was given by Massu in his book "Baden 68", published in Paris in 1983. Before that, Georges Pompidou's 1982 memoirs had lifted the veil that lay over this encounter.

Massu then advised de Gaulle to return to Paris and give a televised address in uniform. De Gaulle followed the suggestion the next day and was able to settle the situation for the time being.

retirement

After his retirement in July 1969, he lived in seclusion in Conflans-sur-Loing in the Loiret department and wrote a number of books about his experiences. In 2000, Massu spoke up again in public and confirmed systematic torture during the Algerian war, which he had regretted in old age.

Today Massu is considered one of the most important French soldiers of the 20th century.

Awards

Publications

  • Portrait du lieutenant Henri Leclerc de Hauteclocque (A Portrait of Lieutenant Henri Leclerc de Hauteclocque), Ass. Des anciens de la 2 DB, Paris 1969
  • La vraie Bataille d'Alger (The real battle for Algiers), Plon, Evreux 1971
  • Sept ans avec Leclerc (Seven years with Leclerc ), Plon, Paris 1974
  • La Vérité sur Suez: 1956 (The Truth About Suez: 1956 ), Plon, Paris 1978
  • L'Aventure Viêt-minh (The Việt Minh Adventure), Plon, Paris 1980
  • Baden 68: Souvenirs d'une fidélité gaulliste (Baden 68: Memories of a loyal Gaullist), Plon, Paris 1983
  • Massu, le soldat méconnu (Massu, the misunderstood soldier), Paris, 1993
  • Avec de Gaulle (With de Gaulle), Editions du Rocher, Paris, 1998

Web links

Commons : Jacques Massu  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christopher E. Goscha : Historical Dictionary of the Indochina War (1945-1954) - An International and Interdisciplinary Approach. Copenhagen 2011, pp. 286f
  2. ↑ Christiane Kohser-Spohn, Frank Renken (ed.): Trauma Algerian War: For the history and processing of a taboo conflict. Campus, 2006, ISBN 3-593-37771-3 .
  3. ^ Algerian revolutionary journalist Henri Alleg to discuss torture in war. Tuesday April 17, 2007 , from Vassar, accessed August 23, 2013
  4. ↑ MASSU INTERVIEW: The last bullet . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1960 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Everything is gone , article from May 2, 1983 on Spiegel Online
personal data
SURNAME Massu, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French general
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Châlons-en-Champagne
DATE OF DEATH October 26, 2002
Place of death Conflans-sur-Loing