Jean-Pierre Lévy

Jean-Pierre Lévy (born May 28, 1911 in Strasbourg , † December 15, 1996 in Paris ) was a member of the Resistance who led the Resistance group Franc-Tireur .

Lévy was born into a Jewish merchant family and after attending a trade school, worked as an agent in a jute weaving mill . In 1930 he did his military service before being drafted into the French army again in 1939 as a reserve lieutenant.

After the armistice of Compiègne , which followed the victory of the German Wehrmacht over France in August 1940, Lévy was demobilized, but successfully avoided captivity and disappeared to Lyon , where he joined the resistance group France-Liberté under the name Gilles . Together with Antoine Avinin he began in January 1941 with the publication of an underground newspaper under the title Franc-Tireur , which appeared regularly monthly, initially reached a circulation of 5,000 copies and in August 1944 of 150,000 copies. Together with Avinin and others, he founded the resistance group Franc-Tireur ( Eng . Freischärler).

The police of the collaborating Vichy regime became aware of Lévy on October 15, 1941 because of the carelessness of one of his employees in Clermont-Ferrand , and arrested and interrogated him without consequences. A year later he was arrested again in Lyon and only because one of his co-accused took all the guilt on himself, Lévy was released again. On December 24, 1942, he was arrested again in the street in Lyon and, following a mistake, released again. However, since he was wanted by an arrest warrant , he immediately went underground.

In February 1942 Lévy began talks with Jean Moulin about the possible unification of all Resistance groups active in France, which initially resulted in the merger of Francs-Tireur , Combat and Liberation to form the Mouvements unis de la Resistance (MUR).

After long discussions, Jean Moulin reached that the eight most important Resistance groups, ie

• Jean-Pierre Lévys Franc-Tireur ,
• Henri Frenays Combat ,
• Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigeries Liberation ,
• Pierre Villons Front National ,
• Pierre Brossolettes Comité d'action socialiste and
• Charles Delestraint's Armée Secrète

formed the Conseil National de la Resistance (CNR), the National Resistance Council.

In July 1943 he visited Charles de Gaulle in London . Because of an accident during parachute training jumps in Wilmslow , he did not return to France until September. Shortly after his return, he was arrested again on October 16 in Paris and imprisoned in the Santé for eight months . A group of the MUR led by Charles Gonard freed the prisoner Lenoir on June 12, 1944 while transporting prisoners to Fresnes .

After the war, he refused to enter politics. From 1944 to 1946 he was provisional commissioner of the professional association of the leather industry, 1947 to 1949 director of the textile industry and from 1949 to 1970 director of various branches of industry, including 1965 to 1971 head of the Renault automobile factory . As during the occupation, Lévy also devoted himself to a variety of social tasks after the war, including caring for orphans from Resistance families until 1967 .

Web links

• Biography (french)
• Kurzbiografie (English)