Marc Augier
Marc Augier (born March 19, 1908 in Bordeaux , † December 16, 1990 in Paris ) was a French writer, adventurer and mountaineer who collaborated with the German occupying forces in occupied France and was influential in Argentina and France after the war . He is also known under the pseudonym Saint-Loup .
Life
Activity until 1940
Marc Augier grew up in Bordeaux in simple circumstances and was enthusiastic about nature and sport from an early age.
After graduating from high school in 1926, he studied law, but at the same time began his first motorcycle tours and journalism. First he worked for the Depeche du Midi , for L'Illustration and for Sciences et Voyages . Marc Augier made a name for himself as a journalist in the 1930s as a skier and mountaineer, mainly through expeditions in Lapland and Morocco, among others .
In addition, he was involved in the development of youth hostels (Auberges de la jeunesse) in France and worked as a socialist and pacifist . He works for Léo Lagrange, Minister in the Popular Front government under Léon Blum , and the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO / German: French Section of the Workers' International).
He turned against bourgeois conventions, raved about nature and the original way of life and paid homage to a youth cult like many French intellectuals in the 1930s, e. B. Robert Brasillach . Even during a trip through Germany in 1929, he was enthusiastic about this country. In his report I saw Germany and in several other publications he turned against the Germanophobia , which was widespread in France at the time , especially by Charles Maurras .
Augier traveled to many European countries and also made contacts with the leaders of the Hitler Youth . In New York in 1938 he took part in the World Youth Congress. The extensive isolation and rejection of Germany and the Hitler Youth moved him to turn away from the SFIO and turn to the right-wing extremist forces. In the period that followed, Augier was influenced by Alphonse de Châteaubriant's book La Gerbe des Forces (1937) and approached National Socialism . This appeared to Augier as the return of the European peoples to paganism and the originality of antiquity and the early Middle Ages, which he contrasted with the decline of Judeo-Christian civilization.
Activity during the Vichy regime and the German occupation
After the defeat of France and the establishment of the Vichy regime in June 1940, he founded the Jeunes pour l'Europe nouvelle (Young People for the New Europe) movement and became editor-in-chief of the weekly political-literary magazine La Gerbe (Eng .: Die Sheaf) , which first appeared on July 11, 1940. Augier succeeded in winning renowned writers and essayists such as Jean Giono , Paul Morand, Jean Cocteau , Marcel Aymé or Sacha Guitry as authors for La Gerbe.The magazine propagated an Aryan Europe under German leadership and (from July 1941) radical anti-Bolshevism . Ideologically, the paper was in line with exposed collaborators such as Jacques Doriot and Marcel Déat , who - also in July 1941 - founded the Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchévisme (LVF), which Marc Augier immediately joined.
Until 1944 he participated with the LVF, which was initially integrated into the Wehrmacht and from July 1944 as Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne into the Waffen-SS , as a sergeant (sergeant) several times in operations on the Eastern Front and in the fight against partisans . After being wounded in 1943, he returned to Hildesheim in Germany, where he resided in the monastery of black men , took over the editing of the LVF magazine Combattant européen and, as an officer, organized the LVF's mission.
Immersion and escape to Argentina
In the spring of 1945 he went into hiding and hid in Paris, where he had the novel Face Nord (German: Götterdämmerung) published under the pseudonym Saint-Loup (German: Holy Wolf), the proceeds of which he used to finance his escape to South America. After he was sentenced to death in absentia for collaboration , he first managed to escape to Rio de Janeiro , from where he traveled to Argentina a little later .
There he was able to quickly gain a foothold in the strong German emigre scene in Buenos Aires , in which a large number of refugee Nazi war criminals were active who had been smuggled into Argentina via a rat line . His contact skills and his military experience as well as his sporting talent led to the fact that he was used by the Argentine government under Juan Perón as a military advisor to the Argentine mountain troops and even as a ski instructor to Eva Perón ("Evita").
He continued his journalistic activities with articles for the émigré magazine Der Weg in Buenos Aires: In an article in issue 1/1950 that he published under his real name, he pleaded for Germany to be rehabilitated as a future ally of France in the fight against Bolshevism .
Activity after returning to France
In the fall of 1950 he returned to France incognito , where he again published adventure novels, biographies and autobiographies under the pseudonym Saint-Loup.
Its literary qualities are largely undisputed. His novel La Nuit commence au Cap Horn (English: The night begins at Cape Horn), published under a pseudonym in 1953, was even nominated for the Prix Goncourt , the most prestigious French literary prize. After his true identity was revealed, the proposal was immediately withdrawn, but he was pardoned so that in the following decades he was able to regularly publish novels, autobiographical books and biographies (about car pioneers, but also about the VW Beetle) in France.
His books, which revolve around the topics of adventure in the wilderness, mountaineering, motorcycle / automobile and above all his experiences with the LVF and the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front, show that Marc Augier's worldview and ideology have been changing since the late 1930s -Years until his death on December 16, 1990 in Paris hardly changed. Right to the end he justifies and glorifies National Socialism, collaboration, the fight against Bolshevism and racism , turns against Christianity and carefully cultivates his own image as a gnarled adventurer and warrior. His apologetics of collaboration and his racism make him a leading figure in the right-wing extremist scene in France around the Front National (FN) of Jean-Marie Le Pen. In addition, he also promoted regional autonomy movements such as those of the Bretons , the Basques and the Corsicans .
Bibliography (selection)
- J'ai vu l'Allemagne , new edition 1991
- Solstice en Laponie: un raid de ski et de camping hivernal en Laponie finlandaise , new edition 1995
- Les Skieurs de la nuit. Un raid de ski-camping avec onze documents photographiques , 1944
- Face Nord , 1945
- Monts Pacifiques , 1951
- La Nuit commence au Cap Horn , 1952
- La Peau de l'Auroch , 1954
- Marius Berliet , 1962
- Les Volontaires , 1963
- Nouveaux Cathares pour Montségur , 1969
- Le Sang d'Israël , 1970
- Plus de pardons pour les Bretons , 1971
- Les Hérétiques , 1971
- Les Nostalgiques , 1971
- Une moto pour Barbara , 1972
- Les Voiliers fantômes d'Hitler. Aventures vécues , 1973
- Les SS de la Toison d'Or , 1978
- La Division Azul. Croisade espagnole de Léningrad au Goulag , 1978
- Le Ciel n'a pas voulu. Accidents fabuleux , 1979
- Le Boer attaque. Commandos sud-africains au combat 1881-1978 , 1981
- Les Partisans. Choses vues en Russie 1941-1942 , 1986
- Renault de Billancourt , 1987.
In German translation
- Legion of the Upright - France's volunteers on the Eastern Front (that is: 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS “Charlemagne” ). Druffel, Leoni 1977, ISBN 3-8061-0840-4 ; Pawlak, Herrsching 1984 & 1991, ISBN 3-88199-127-1 , DNB listed under author Saint-Loup
- Götterdämmerung. Turning point and end of a time . Buenos Aires, 1950; again with UT Europa 1945 , Druffel-Verlag , Leoni 1957
- Yachts on a secret mission - sailors in the service of defense. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 1988, ISBN 3-7688-0598-0 (previously published as paperback by Bastei-Lübbe under the title: Die Geisterschiffe Hitler's 1973, ISBN 3-404-01004-3 )
- Brigade of the Lost . Fackelverlag 1968
- The hangman's cart . Historical novel
- Night over Tierra del Fuego . Zurich 1955
Web links
- Literature by and about Marc Augier in the catalog of the German National Library
- About his alpine activities in Argentina
References and comments
- ^ Léo Lagrange in the French language Wikipedia
- ^ Paul Morand in the French language Wikipedia
- ↑ Goodrick-Clarke: In the Shadow of the Black Sun. 2009, p. 255.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Augier, Marc |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Saint-Loup (pseudonym) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French writer and Nazi collaborator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 19, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bordeaux |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 16, 1990 |
| Place of death | Paris |