Georges Guingouin
Encyclopedia
Georges Guingouin was a French Communist Party
(PCF) militant who played a leading role in the French resistance
as head of the Maquis du Limousin
. He was controversial as a result of extortion committed under his authority during the épuration sauvage in Limousin during 1944.
, was killed at Bapaume
in 1914. His mother was the daughter of a ceramics worker; she was the headmistress of a primary school. Guingouin was initially a pupil at the école primaire supérieure at Bellac
, and was then admitted to the école normale d'instituteurs teacher training school at Limoges
. After his military service, he was appointed as a teacher at Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts
in 1935.
"Comme beaucoup d’autres, ce jeune instituteur est très préoccupé par l’engagement politique". Guingouin belonged to the communist party, becoming secretary of the Eymoutiers
section which encompassed five rural canton
s. He wrote articles about foreign politics in the party weekly, Le Travailleur du Centre. The historian Max Lagarrigue
observed that rural communism was in a vigorous state at that time, thanks to the country leaders of the PCF, Renaud Jean and Marius Vazeilles, and that it made a good showing in the 1936 vote, with many rural candidates elected. Lagarrigue adds that Guingouin, as leader of the campaign in Haute-Vienne, earned himself the nomination to the federal committee, then to the regional office of the PCF.
, he secretly went back to his activities as a communist fighter, and wrote in 1940 a "call to the struggle". In September 1940, recalled from his teaching functions, he got back in contact with the underground communist party machinery and became federal secretary of Haute-Vienne. However, he decided not to circulate the 9th issue of the "Life of the party" communist party bulletin, which declared "We must be without hate towards the German soldiers. We are against de Gaulle
and the capitalist clan whose interests are linked to Vichy
In January 1941 Guingouin published the first issue of the Travailleur limousin (Limousin worker) underground journal. He later wrote that he held off from attacking de Gaulle or the United Kingdom
, breaking with the official party line. In April 1941 he took the maquis, which astonished Gabriel Roucaute, one of the party leadership's representatives in the zone libre
. During the night of 30 September to 1 October, Guingouin organised the first armed requisitioning of ration cards, which would earn him a forced labour sentence in absentia at the hands of a military court in January 1942.
He named his first armed groups "Francs Tireurs", at a time when the Franc Tireurs Partisans had not yet been created. In March 1942, when the communists joined the armed struggle in earnest, Roucaute ordered him to stop his operations. Guingouin refused, and relations with the party became strained. After this, he joined with the FTPF.
Nicknamed Lo Grand (the Great) by the locals, Guingouin organised his first maquis
, notably in Châteauneuf-la-Forêt
. Certain types of operations under his command led to him being titled "prefect" of the maquis: in December 1942, he attempted to put a stop to hay and wheat requisitioning by blowing up the baler at Eymoutiers. He formed a fixed unit, the 1st Brigade de Marche Limousine, and mobile "flying" units with varying effectiveness.
Guingouin's unit sabotaged and destroyed the Bussy-Varache viaduct on the Limoges-Ussel
on 13 March 1943; the viaduct was not reconstructed until after the war. On the night of May 9, 1943, at the request of the English, Guingouin personally led a commando
which sabotaged the boilers at the rubber
factory in le Palais-sur-Vienne
near Limoges
, thereby halting the production of France's second largest rubber factory for five months. While returning, the commando narrowly missed an ambush by the police. On 14 July 1943, the subterranean cable linking the Bordeaux submarine base
with Berlin
was sabotaged in Limousin. Following this operation, the Germans demanded that serious measures were enforced in what they called "little Russia". Under the command of General Bois 15 guard squadrons, 12 squadrons of the GMT and residual gendarmerie forces were sent in to "maintain order", without significant success. In August 1943, Guingouin undertook anew to prevent wheat deliveries to the Germans by destroying the combines. As "prefect of the maquis", he regulated agricultural sales as well as boltage rates for bread manufacturing in order to counter the black market and fraud
. At the same time he received the first parachute drops of armaments from the British Special Operations Executive
. During January 1944, he brought together 120 volunteers at the château de Ribérie for military training. Shortly afterward, the German General Walter Brehmer attacked Guingouin's territory; Guingouin refused battle and dispersed his units.
In May 1944, Haute-Vienne had about 8,000 armed men, the most of any department in France. After the amalgamation of the Armée Secrète
, ORA
and FTPF resistance movements into the new French Forces of the Interior
the structures of the armed resistance remained confused, so that in spite of the unification, the FTPF retained the possibility of acting autonomously. Photos of the maquis and its leader were taken at this time by the photographer Izis Bidermanas
who had also taken up arms.
After the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, the maquisards of Haute-Vienne were mobilised to carry out as much sabotage as possible in order to paralyse German communications. The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich (formally, the 2nd PzD SS), which had left Tarn-et-Garonne
for Normandy, reached Limoges on 9 June. On the 10th, a detachment of this division carried out a massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane
. That evening, men from the 1st Limousin brigade captured the Sturmbannführer SS commandant Kämpfe, considered as the hero of the division. General Heinz Lammerding
, leading the Das Reich division, offered the freedom of 40 resistance fighters in exchange for Kämpfe. Guingouin, who had heard of the Oradour massacre, refused; the Sturmbannführer was shot, which led to further reprisals, but the Das Reich lost 48 hours and did not set off for Normandy until the morning of June 12. This delay was considered by General Dwight D. Eisenhower
to have been an important factor in the outcome of the battle of Normandy.
At the start of July 1944, Guingouin had been warned that a German offensive was being prepared against his maquis. On the 17th, the 1st brigade was attacked by the German brigade of General Curt von Jesser
with a strength of 500 vehicles, supported by various reinforcements. This triggered the battle of Mont Gargan
. The maquis lost 97 men (38 dead, 5 missing, 54 wounded) against 342 killed and wounded on the German side. It was one of the rare occasions when the resistance fought against the Wehrmacht in open battle.
At the beginning of June 1944, Guingouin had been ordered to take Limoges by Léon Mauvais, an important communist party official and head of the FTP in the zone Sud. Guingouin had refused, considering the operation premature and dangerous for the general population. In support of his decision he cited the tragic example of the premature liberation of Tulle
, where, in reprisals
, 99 men had been hanged from balconies on the main road of the city, and 101 others deported. Guingouin's refusal would have grave consequences for relations between Guingouin and the communist party hierarchy.
On 21 August, Guingouin encircled Limoges, and received from Jean d'Albis the surrender of General Gleiniger's men, with minimal bloodshed. Guingouin was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the French Forces of the Interior.
Following this, Guingouin would be accused of being directly or indirectly responsible for extortion which accompanied the liberation and "épuration" (cleansing) of Limoges and Limousin. According to Henri Amouroux, Guingouin had "45 people tried and sentenced to death in a week, of whom only one escaped", and that the first to be accused did not have anyone represent them in defense, and "worked from six to twelve hours per day, including Saturday and Sunday."
Guingouin was also accused of acquiring loot from a former youth work
camp at Chamberet
which would result in 6 executions, including three members of the Armée secrète.
(he suggested that his vehicle had been sabotaged) and hospitalised at Limoges. He was released in April 1945 after a long convalescence. In May 1945, Guingouin was elected mayor of Limoges. His relations with the communist party rapidly deteriorated. He was not proposed for a seat on the central committee, nor appointed to the deputation. At the assembly of communist elected officials of France on the 12 November 1945, he was subjected to an attack by Auguste Gillot (who was close to Maurice Thorez
and Jacques Duclos
); Gillot criticised him for having raised the price of tram travel in Limoges, a false accusation. However, Guingouin was not given the opportunity to respond, since the meeting ended immediately (see for an anecdote relating the atmosphere in the party at the time). The following month, he was released from his functions in the communist party of Haute-Vienne.
In 1947, Guingouin lost the mayorship of Limoges to a socialist, Léon Betoulle, who had been mayor of Limoges before the war, while his old rival, the French Socialist Party (SFIO) socialist Jean Le Bail, who was despised by all the "genuine" members of the resistance, became deputy for Haute-Vienne. The same year on May 19, the appeals court of Grenoble gave a judgment condemning in particularly strong terms the paper L'Époque which 17 months previously had accused Guingouin of terrible crimes.
In February 1950, Guingouin seemed to have returned to favour with the communist party, having benefited from "permanent" status on becoming secretary of the communist section in Limoges. This was illusory, however, as he was still the subject of sly attacks; he was always being criticised for having disobeyed party orders in not taking Limoges by force in June 1944. His outspokenness with those high in the party, including Léon Mauvais, did not help. At the 12th party congress, 27 of the 84 central committee members were not reelected, among them some of those closest to Guingouin. Guingouin himself was eventually affected; ordered to submit to party decisions, he gave up his "permanent" status and asked for reinstatement in education. In a public meeting in September 1952 at Nantiat
, Jaqcues Duclos personally associated himself with some of the charges previously reported in L'Époque relating to "war booty" which Guingouin had allegedly used to his advantage. In October, the communist authorities asked Guingouin's local association to exclude him. The cell membership refusing, Guingouin was reassigned by fiat to a more compliant local cell, which excluded him from the party the following month.
, his wife Henriette's original department. Guingouin had married in 1945 in Limoges.
On 24 December 1953, Guingouin was called before the juge d'instruction of Tulle concerning a murder of two villagers in which members of the resistance who had been under Guingouin's authority had been accused. According to the historian Michel Taubmann, this marked the beginning of a conspiracy by police officers and magistrates who had been against Guingouin during the war. The instigator of the plot was the police commissaire known as "C." who once in 1943 had been against Guingouin when the Bussy-Varache viaduct was destroyed. A police inspector, "A.", who had led an enquiry about the disappearance of explosives from the Saint-Léonard mine. "A." had declared to an intern who was being transferred "It will be no-one other than me who brings down le Grand" (referring to Guingouin).
Imprisoned in Tulle, Guingouin was beaten in his cell by warders at Brive prison. Injured and unconscious, he was transferred by night to Toulouse where he arrived in poor psychological and physical condition. As the press reported a suicide attempt, the former resistance fighters of Haute-Garonne who had been part of a resistance committee in the department spoke out, and under pressure from them, the juge d’instruction ordered Guingouin's mental health
to be assessed by three doctors. In their report, they testified to traces of the abuse which Guingouin had undergone, and wrote that Gungouin's state evoked real concern for his life. Guingouin was finally freed on 13 November 1959, at Lyon; with the magistrate Thomas, charged with making enquiries about him, declared that neither his soul nor his conscience could believe that anyone had envisaged prosecuting Guingouin. This episode was described in The Times
' obituary of Guingouin in the following way:
On 21 November 2001, at a conference before history professors of the Aube, Guingouin described the events: "arrested on Christmas eve 1953, held in Brive prison, I underwent such abuse that two times I ran the road of those sufferers who see their entire life before them in their last moments before the dazzling light."
In March 1957, Guingouin joined the Mouvement communiste démocratique et national of Auguste Lecoeur and Pierre Hervé. In 1961, he entered into discussions with the party with the aim of being reaccepted. He affirmed that he had been offered reacceptance on condition of silence. Refusing this offer, he dedicated himself to his job as a teacher, and retired in 1969.
In 1985, the extreme-right publication Le Crapouillot
, published by Minute
took up some of the accusations which had been previously leveled at Guingouin, alleging that he had been responsible for some of the summary executions which had taken place in the Limoges region. Guingouin brought a complaint, and this time received the support of members of the general council of Haute-Vienne
.
In 1998, the Communist Party officially "rehabilitated" Guingouin. Guingouin's response was phlegmatic:
Guingouin died in Troyes on the 27 October 2005, and was buried at Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts according to his wishes.
In June 2005, Guingouin had been promoted to the rank of commander of the Légion d'honneur
. He was also a compagnon de la Libération (by decree of 19 October 1945), bearer of the Croix de guerre with palm
, the médaille de la Résistance with rosette
and the British King's Medal for Courage.
on the 22 August 1982.
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
(PCF) militant who played a leading role in the French resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
as head of the Maquis du Limousin
Maquis du Limousin
The Maquis du Limousin was one of the largest Maquis groups of French resistance fighters.The region of Limousin was an active area of resistance since 1940. Edmond Michelet distributed tracts calling to continue the war in all Brive-la-Gaillarde's mailboxes on June 17, 1940. It is considered to be...
. He was controversial as a result of extortion committed under his authority during the épuration sauvage in Limousin during 1944.
Youth
Guingouin's father, a career non-commissioned officerNon-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...
, was killed at Bapaume
Bapaume
Bapaume is a commune and the seat of a canton in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:A farming and light industrial town located 10 miles south of Arras at the junction of the A1 autoroute and the N17 and N30 national roads its location is...
in 1914. His mother was the daughter of a ceramics worker; she was the headmistress of a primary school. Guingouin was initially a pupil at the école primaire supérieure at Bellac
Bellac
Bellac is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in western France.Inhabitants are known as Bellachons.This is where the French Jean Giraudoux, writer of L'Apollon de Bellac, was born in 1882...
, and was then admitted to the école normale d'instituteurs teacher training school at Limoges
Limoges
Limoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France....
. After his military service, he was appointed as a teacher at Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts
Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts
Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.-References:*...
in 1935.
"Comme beaucoup d’autres, ce jeune instituteur est très préoccupé par l’engagement politique". Guingouin belonged to the communist party, becoming secretary of the Eymoutiers
Eymoutiers
Eymoutiers is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in western France.Inhabitants are known as Pelauds.-History:...
section which encompassed five rural canton
Cantons of France
The cantons of France are territorial subdivisions of the French Republic's 342 arrondissements and 101 departments.Apart from their role as organizational units in certain aspects of the administration of public services and justice, the chief purpose of the cantons today is to serve as...
s. He wrote articles about foreign politics in the party weekly, Le Travailleur du Centre. The historian Max Lagarrigue
Max Lagarrigue
Max Lagarrigue, born in 1972 in Castelsarrasin, is a French historian specialising in rural communism and a journalist.- Biography :Lagarrigue taught the History of communism at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and has published numerous papers including in the magazine Communism ...
observed that rural communism was in a vigorous state at that time, thanks to the country leaders of the PCF, Renaud Jean and Marius Vazeilles, and that it made a good showing in the 1936 vote, with many rural candidates elected. Lagarrigue adds that Guingouin, as leader of the campaign in Haute-Vienne, earned himself the nomination to the federal committee, then to the regional office of the PCF.
Prefect of the maquis
Guingouin was mobilised in the rank of second class in 1939. He sustained an eyebrow injury on 18 June 1940, and was cared for in the Moulins military hospital in Allier, which he left voluntarily in order to avoid being taken prisoner. On returning to Saint-Gilles-les-ForêtsSaint-Gilles-les-Forêts
Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.-References:*...
, he secretly went back to his activities as a communist fighter, and wrote in 1940 a "call to the struggle". In September 1940, recalled from his teaching functions, he got back in contact with the underground communist party machinery and became federal secretary of Haute-Vienne. However, he decided not to circulate the 9th issue of the "Life of the party" communist party bulletin, which declared "We must be without hate towards the German soldiers. We are against de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
and the capitalist clan whose interests are linked to Vichy
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
In January 1941 Guingouin published the first issue of the Travailleur limousin (Limousin worker) underground journal. He later wrote that he held off from attacking de Gaulle or the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, breaking with the official party line. In April 1941 he took the maquis, which astonished Gabriel Roucaute, one of the party leadership's representatives in the zone libre
Zone libre
The zone libre was a partition of the French metropolitan territory during the Second World War, established at the Second Armistice at Compiègne on June 22, 1940. It lay to the south of the demarcation line and was administered by the French government of Marshal Philippe Pétain based in Vichy,...
. During the night of 30 September to 1 October, Guingouin organised the first armed requisitioning of ration cards, which would earn him a forced labour sentence in absentia at the hands of a military court in January 1942.
He named his first armed groups "Francs Tireurs", at a time when the Franc Tireurs Partisans had not yet been created. In March 1942, when the communists joined the armed struggle in earnest, Roucaute ordered him to stop his operations. Guingouin refused, and relations with the party became strained. After this, he joined with the FTPF.
Nicknamed Lo Grand (the Great) by the locals, Guingouin organised his first maquis
Maquis (World War II)
The Maquis were the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance. Initially they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vichy France's Service du travail obligatoire to provide forced labour for Germany...
, notably in Châteauneuf-la-Forêt
Châteauneuf-la-Forêt
Châteauneuf-la-Forêt is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in western France.Inhabitants are known as Castelneuviens.-References:*...
. Certain types of operations under his command led to him being titled "prefect" of the maquis: in December 1942, he attempted to put a stop to hay and wheat requisitioning by blowing up the baler at Eymoutiers. He formed a fixed unit, the 1st Brigade de Marche Limousine, and mobile "flying" units with varying effectiveness.
Guingouin's unit sabotaged and destroyed the Bussy-Varache viaduct on the Limoges-Ussel
Ussel
Ussel is the name or part of the name of several communes in France:* Ussel, Cantal, in the Cantal département* Ussel, Corrèze, a sous-préfecture in the Corrèze département* Ussel, Lot, in the Lot département...
on 13 March 1943; the viaduct was not reconstructed until after the war. On the night of May 9, 1943, at the request of the English, Guingouin personally led a commando
Commando
In English, the term commando means a specific kind of individual soldier or military unit. In contemporary usage, commando usually means elite light infantry and/or special operations forces units, specializing in amphibious landings, parachuting, rappelling and similar techniques, to conduct and...
which sabotaged the boilers at the rubber
Rubber
Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
factory in le Palais-sur-Vienne
Le Palais-sur-Vienne
Le Palais-sur-Vienne is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.Inhabitants are known as Palaisiens.-References:*...
near Limoges
Limoges
Limoges |Limousin]] dialect of Occitan) is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin région in west-central France....
, thereby halting the production of France's second largest rubber factory for five months. While returning, the commando narrowly missed an ambush by the police. On 14 July 1943, the subterranean cable linking the Bordeaux submarine base
Submarine base
A submarine base is a military base that shelters submarines and their personnel.Examples of present-day submarine bases include HMNB Clyde, Île Longue , Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Naval Submarine Base New London, and Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base .The Israeli navy bases its growing submarine...
with Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
was sabotaged in Limousin. Following this operation, the Germans demanded that serious measures were enforced in what they called "little Russia". Under the command of General Bois 15 guard squadrons, 12 squadrons of the GMT and residual gendarmerie forces were sent in to "maintain order", without significant success. In August 1943, Guingouin undertook anew to prevent wheat deliveries to the Germans by destroying the combines. As "prefect of the maquis", he regulated agricultural sales as well as boltage rates for bread manufacturing in order to counter the black market and fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
. At the same time he received the first parachute drops of armaments from the British Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...
. During January 1944, he brought together 120 volunteers at the château de Ribérie for military training. Shortly afterward, the German General Walter Brehmer attacked Guingouin's territory; Guingouin refused battle and dispersed his units.
In May 1944, Haute-Vienne had about 8,000 armed men, the most of any department in France. After the amalgamation of the Armée Secrète
Armée secrète
The Armée secrète, created in 1943, was an organisation of French resistance fighters during World War II set up by Jean Moulin. It resulted from an amalgamation of three smaller resistance groups:*Combat*Libération-Sud*Franc-Tireur...
, ORA
Organisation de résistance de l'armée
The Organisation de résistance de l'armée, O.R.A. was a French paramilitary resistance organisation during the Second World War...
and FTPF resistance movements into the new French Forces of the Interior
French Forces of the Interior
The French Forces of the Interior refers to French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation of these groups to FFI occurred as France's status changed from that of an occupied nation...
the structures of the armed resistance remained confused, so that in spite of the unification, the FTPF retained the possibility of acting autonomously. Photos of the maquis and its leader were taken at this time by the photographer Izis Bidermanas
Izis Bidermanas
Israëlis Bidermanas , who worked under the name of Izis, was a Jewish-Lithuanian photographer who worked in France and is best known for his photographs of French circuses and of Paris....
who had also taken up arms.
After the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, the maquisards of Haute-Vienne were mobilised to carry out as much sabotage as possible in order to paralyse German communications. The 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich (formally, the 2nd PzD SS), which had left Tarn-et-Garonne
Tarn-et-Garonne
Tarn-et-Garonne is a French department in the southwest of France. It is traversed by the Rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name.-History:...
for Normandy, reached Limoges on 9 June. On the 10th, a detachment of this division carried out a massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane
Oradour-sur-Glane
Oradour-sur-Glane is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.The original village was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company...
. That evening, men from the 1st Limousin brigade captured the Sturmbannführer SS commandant Kämpfe, considered as the hero of the division. General Heinz Lammerding
Heinz Lammerding
Heinz Lammerding was aBrigadeführer in the Waffen-SS and a commander of 2...
, leading the Das Reich division, offered the freedom of 40 resistance fighters in exchange for Kämpfe. Guingouin, who had heard of the Oradour massacre, refused; the Sturmbannführer was shot, which led to further reprisals, but the Das Reich lost 48 hours and did not set off for Normandy until the morning of June 12. This delay was considered by General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
to have been an important factor in the outcome of the battle of Normandy.
At the start of July 1944, Guingouin had been warned that a German offensive was being prepared against his maquis. On the 17th, the 1st brigade was attacked by the German brigade of General Curt von Jesser
Curt von Jesser
Curt von Jesser was a highly decorated Generalmajor in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership...
with a strength of 500 vehicles, supported by various reinforcements. This triggered the battle of Mont Gargan
Mont Gargan
Mont Gargan is a peak in the Massif central, situated in the western border of the plateau de Millevaches, between Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts and Sussac in Haute-Vienne. Mont Gargan is situated in the parc naturel régional de Millevaches en Limousin...
. The maquis lost 97 men (38 dead, 5 missing, 54 wounded) against 342 killed and wounded on the German side. It was one of the rare occasions when the resistance fought against the Wehrmacht in open battle.
At the beginning of June 1944, Guingouin had been ordered to take Limoges by Léon Mauvais, an important communist party official and head of the FTP in the zone Sud. Guingouin had refused, considering the operation premature and dangerous for the general population. In support of his decision he cited the tragic example of the premature liberation of Tulle
Tulle
Tulle is a commune and capital of the Corrèze department in the Limousin region in central France. It is also the episcopal see of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulle...
, where, in reprisals
Tulle murders
The Tulle Murders refer to the actions committed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich in June 1944, at the end of World War II. After a successful FTP offensive on 7 and 8 June 1944, the arrival of Das Reich forces forced the guerillas to evacuate the city...
, 99 men had been hanged from balconies on the main road of the city, and 101 others deported. Guingouin's refusal would have grave consequences for relations between Guingouin and the communist party hierarchy.
On 21 August, Guingouin encircled Limoges, and received from Jean d'Albis the surrender of General Gleiniger's men, with minimal bloodshed. Guingouin was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the French Forces of the Interior.
Following this, Guingouin would be accused of being directly or indirectly responsible for extortion which accompanied the liberation and "épuration" (cleansing) of Limoges and Limousin. According to Henri Amouroux, Guingouin had "45 people tried and sentenced to death in a week, of whom only one escaped", and that the first to be accused did not have anyone represent them in defense, and "worked from six to twelve hours per day, including Saturday and Sunday."
Guingouin was also accused of acquiring loot from a former youth work
camp at Chamberet
Chamberet
Chamberet is a commune in the Corrèze department in central France.-Population:...
which would result in 6 executions, including three members of the Armée secrète.
Pariah of the Communist Party
On 20 November 1944, Guingouin was seriously injured in a car accidentCar accident
A traffic collision, also known as a traffic accident, motor vehicle collision, motor vehicle accident, car accident, automobile accident, Road Traffic Collision or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other stationary obstruction,...
(he suggested that his vehicle had been sabotaged) and hospitalised at Limoges. He was released in April 1945 after a long convalescence. In May 1945, Guingouin was elected mayor of Limoges. His relations with the communist party rapidly deteriorated. He was not proposed for a seat on the central committee, nor appointed to the deputation. At the assembly of communist elected officials of France on the 12 November 1945, he was subjected to an attack by Auguste Gillot (who was close to Maurice Thorez
Maurice Thorez
thumb|A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947....
and Jacques Duclos
Jacques Duclos
Jacques Duclos was a French Communist politician who played a key role in French politics from 1926, when he entered the French National Assembly after defeating Paul Reynaud, until 1969, when he won a substantial portion of the vote in the presidential elections.During World War I, Duclos fought...
); Gillot criticised him for having raised the price of tram travel in Limoges, a false accusation. However, Guingouin was not given the opportunity to respond, since the meeting ended immediately (see for an anecdote relating the atmosphere in the party at the time). The following month, he was released from his functions in the communist party of Haute-Vienne.
In 1947, Guingouin lost the mayorship of Limoges to a socialist, Léon Betoulle, who had been mayor of Limoges before the war, while his old rival, the French Socialist Party (SFIO) socialist Jean Le Bail, who was despised by all the "genuine" members of the resistance, became deputy for Haute-Vienne. The same year on May 19, the appeals court of Grenoble gave a judgment condemning in particularly strong terms the paper L'Époque which 17 months previously had accused Guingouin of terrible crimes.
In February 1950, Guingouin seemed to have returned to favour with the communist party, having benefited from "permanent" status on becoming secretary of the communist section in Limoges. This was illusory, however, as he was still the subject of sly attacks; he was always being criticised for having disobeyed party orders in not taking Limoges by force in June 1944. His outspokenness with those high in the party, including Léon Mauvais, did not help. At the 12th party congress, 27 of the 84 central committee members were not reelected, among them some of those closest to Guingouin. Guingouin himself was eventually affected; ordered to submit to party decisions, he gave up his "permanent" status and asked for reinstatement in education. In a public meeting in September 1952 at Nantiat
Nantiat
Nantiat is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France.Inhabitants are known as Nantiauds.-References:*...
, Jaqcues Duclos personally associated himself with some of the charges previously reported in L'Époque relating to "war booty" which Guingouin had allegedly used to his advantage. In October, the communist authorities asked Guingouin's local association to exclude him. The cell membership refusing, Guingouin was reassigned by fiat to a more compliant local cell, which excluded him from the party the following month.
Guingouin in exile
At this stage Guingouin was granted a request to be transferred as a teacher to the AubeAube
Aube is a department in the northeastern part of France named after the Aube River. In 1995, its population was 293,100 inhabitants.- History :Aube is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
, his wife Henriette's original department. Guingouin had married in 1945 in Limoges.
On 24 December 1953, Guingouin was called before the juge d'instruction of Tulle concerning a murder of two villagers in which members of the resistance who had been under Guingouin's authority had been accused. According to the historian Michel Taubmann, this marked the beginning of a conspiracy by police officers and magistrates who had been against Guingouin during the war. The instigator of the plot was the police commissaire known as "C." who once in 1943 had been against Guingouin when the Bussy-Varache viaduct was destroyed. A police inspector, "A.", who had led an enquiry about the disappearance of explosives from the Saint-Léonard mine. "A." had declared to an intern who was being transferred "It will be no-one other than me who brings down le Grand" (referring to Guingouin).
Imprisoned in Tulle, Guingouin was beaten in his cell by warders at Brive prison. Injured and unconscious, he was transferred by night to Toulouse where he arrived in poor psychological and physical condition. As the press reported a suicide attempt, the former resistance fighters of Haute-Garonne who had been part of a resistance committee in the department spoke out, and under pressure from them, the juge d’instruction ordered Guingouin's mental health
Mental health
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
to be assessed by three doctors. In their report, they testified to traces of the abuse which Guingouin had undergone, and wrote that Gungouin's state evoked real concern for his life. Guingouin was finally freed on 13 November 1959, at Lyon; with the magistrate Thomas, charged with making enquiries about him, declared that neither his soul nor his conscience could believe that anyone had envisaged prosecuting Guingouin. This episode was described in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
' obituary of Guingouin in the following way:
On 21 November 2001, at a conference before history professors of the Aube, Guingouin described the events: "arrested on Christmas eve 1953, held in Brive prison, I underwent such abuse that two times I ran the road of those sufferers who see their entire life before them in their last moments before the dazzling light."
In March 1957, Guingouin joined the Mouvement communiste démocratique et national of Auguste Lecoeur and Pierre Hervé. In 1961, he entered into discussions with the party with the aim of being reaccepted. He affirmed that he had been offered reacceptance on condition of silence. Refusing this offer, he dedicated himself to his job as a teacher, and retired in 1969.
In 1985, the extreme-right publication Le Crapouillot
Le Crapouillot
Le Crapouillot was a French magazine started by Jean Galtier-Boissière as a satiric publication in France, during World War I. In the trenches during WWI, the affectionate term for le petit crapaud, "the little toad" was used by French soldiers, the poilus, to designate small...
, published by Minute
Minute (French newspaper)
Minute is a weekly newspaper, initially right-wing but now extreme-right, circulated in France since 1962. Its editorial position is satirical and conservative. According to figures announced by the paper's leadership, it had a circulation of 40,000 copies each week in 2006.- Right-wing period :In...
took up some of the accusations which had been previously leveled at Guingouin, alleging that he had been responsible for some of the summary executions which had taken place in the Limoges region. Guingouin brought a complaint, and this time received the support of members of the general council of Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne is a French department named after the Vienne River. It is one of three departments that together constitute the French region of Limousin.The chief and largest city is Limoges...
.
In 1998, the Communist Party officially "rehabilitated" Guingouin. Guingouin's response was phlegmatic:
Guingouin died in Troyes on the 27 October 2005, and was buried at Saint-Gilles-les-Forêts according to his wishes.
In June 2005, Guingouin had been promoted to the rank of commander of the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. He was also a compagnon de la Libération (by decree of 19 October 1945), bearer of the Croix de guerre with palm
Croix de guerre
The Croix de guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts...
, the médaille de la Résistance with rosette
Médaille de la Résistance
The French Médaille de la Résistance was awarded by General Charles de Gaulle "to recognise the remarkable acts of faith and of courage that, in France, in the empire and abroad, have contributed to the resistance of the French people against the enemy and against its accomplices since June 18,...
and the British King's Medal for Courage.
Quotes
"Que les Limousins, les Occitans, refusant le miroir déformant qu'on leur offre, retrouvent leur patrimoine historique!" (May the people of Limousine, the Occitans, refuse the distorted mirror that is on offer, and regain their historic heritage) - Discourse at VigenVigen
Vigen is a moderately popular Armenian name from the Persian Bijan....
on the 22 August 1982.
Writings of Georges Guingouin
- Georges Guingouin, Quatre ans de lutte sur le sol limousin, Hachette-Littérature, 287 pp., 1974.
- Georges Guingouin et Gérard Monédiaire, Georges Guingouin, premier maquisard de France, éditions Lucien Souny, 1983
- Speech of Georges Guingouin a the conference/discussion bringing together history teachers in the Aube department, presided over by the inspector of the académie, Jacques Marchal, Troyes, 21 November 2001
- Biography http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr
Other sources
- Taubmann Michel, L'affaire Guingouin, la véritable histoire du premier maquisard de France, éditions Lucien Souny, 1994–2004
- Taubmann Michel, Georges Guingouin ou la geste du Grand , article appearing on the Reforme.net website on Guingouin's death (http://www.reforme.net/archive/article.php?num=3150&ref=1012)
- Jean MaitronJean MaitronJean Maitron was a French historian specialist of the labour movement. A pioneer of such historical studies in France, he introduced it to University and gave it its archives base, by creating in 1949 the Centre d'histoire du syndicalisme in the Sorbonne, which received important archives from...
, article in Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier français, Editions ouvrières. - Robrieux Philippe, Histoire intérieure du parti communiste, Tomes 2 & 4, Fayard, 1980–84
- Bourdrel Philippe, L'épuration sauvage 1944-45, Perrin, 2002
- Trouillé Pierre, Journal d'un préfet sous l'Occupation, Gallimard, 1964
- Faligot Roger, Kaufer Rémi, Les Résistants, Fayard, 1989
- Fouché Jean-Jacques, Juchereau Francis, Monédiaire Gérard, Georges Guingouin, chemin de résistances, éditions Lucien Souny, Cercle Gramsci Limoges
See also
- French Communist PartyFrench Communist PartyThe French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
- French resistanceFrench ResistanceThe French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
- Maquis du LimousinMaquis du LimousinThe Maquis du Limousin was one of the largest Maquis groups of French resistance fighters.The region of Limousin was an active area of resistance since 1940. Edmond Michelet distributed tracts calling to continue the war in all Brive-la-Gaillarde's mailboxes on June 17, 1940. It is considered to be...
- The Oradour-sur-Glane massacre