René Hardy

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René Hardy (born October 31, 1911 in Mortrée , † April 12, 1987 in Melle ) was a French railroad worker who worked in the Resistance and was accused of betraying the head of the Resistance, Jean Moulin , and other members of the Resistance to the Gestapo to have.

Hardy worked as a railroad clerk and joined the Resistance during World War II . One source describes him as a member of the resistance group Combat , the other as a member of the group Résistance de Fer , a predominantly communist resistance group of French railway workers. Under the battle name Didot , he was a specialist in railroad sabotage. He carried out several acts of sabotage .

Hardy was arrested by the Gestapo on June 7, 1943 and after interrogation by Klaus Barbie , the Gestapo chief notorious as the " butcher of Lyon ", he was released in the torture room of the Hôtel Terminus , Barbie's temporary headquarters in Lyon.

The Gestapo followed Hardy on June 21 to the meeting in the house of the doctor Frédéric Dugoujon in Caluire-et-Cuire on the outskirts of Lyon, to which Hardy was actually not invited. The Gestapo was led to a meeting of eight high-ranking members of the Resistance with Jean Moulin, who had not previously heard of Hardy's presence (the only one present at the meeting). The meeting was disguised as a doctor's visit to Dugoujon. Moulin had left the organization of the meeting to André Lassagne , to which Henri Aubry was also to come. Concerned that he would lose his position as Chief of Staff of the Armée Secrète at this meeting and as further support from the Combat group to the Moulin sent from London by de Gaulle and tasked with unifying the Resistance groups, Aubry contacted Hardy against all regulations and invited him to the meeting at Dugoujon. Everyone present was arrested, only Hardy was able to escape, whereby the police officers, to the eyewitnesses, let Hardy escape without a care. The Germans opened fire on Hardy, but he was only slightly injured. In the hospital he received medical attention and miraculously escaped the Gestapo guards a second time. In particular, Raymond Aubrac, who was also arrested at the meeting, later suspected Hardy of being in league with the Germans.

Some believe he was released for treason, not least because he was the only one who failed to attend a last-minute secret meeting in Paris on June 9th, at which General Charles Delestraint , head of the Armée Secrète, of the Gestapo was arrested. What is certain is that the message about the place and time of this meeting was left unencrypted due to negligence in a dead mailbox that the Gestapo knew and monitored. There is the thesis that Hardy was arrested since June 7th and released in a cat and mouse game by Klaus Barbie. Others think that René Hardy was simply too carefree. What is certain is that Hardy was monitored by the Gestapo on his trip to Paris, that Barbie knew Hardy's actual identity and that Hardy agreed to collaborate with him . Hardy didn't even know Moulin.

Two trials in Lyon in 1947 and in 1950 sought to convict René Hardy as a traitor, and both came to the conclusion that his guilt could not be proven.

Hardy became a successful writer in the post-war period, winning the Prix ​​des Deux Magots in 1956 for Amère Victoire . It was filmed by Nicholas Ray as Bitter Victory with Richard Burton and Curd Juergens .

At his 1987 Lyon trial, Barbie stated that Hardy had worked for him as a double agent . Hardy passed away a short time later without being charged again. Hardy was also interviewed by Max Ophüls in Hôtel Terminus: The Time and Life of Klaus Barbie .

In 1999 it became known that he had been betrayed by a French Gestapo agent who was his mistress. She betrayed him in her own words and helped the Gestapo to win him over as a double agent.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Julian Coman, How a french beauty betrayed Jean Moulin , The Telegraph, June 13, 1999
personal data
SURNAME Hardy, René
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Didot (battle name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French resistance fighter of the Resistance, presumably the traitor of Jean Moulin, and writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Mortrée
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1987
Place of death Melle (Deux-Sèvres)