The Frank gunners and in favor (ftp) also called Frank gunners and French partisans (FTPF) is the name of the movement of strength armed created in France to the end with 1941 by the direction of the French Communist party.

History

Creation (at the end of 1941)

After the rupture of the Pact germano-Soviet and the invasion of the USSR by the troops hitlériennes, the June 22nd 1941, the direction of the French Communist party clandestine represented by Jacques Duclos decides, in agreement with the Internationale Communist, to set up an organization of armed struggle. Charles Tillon which had joined the secretariat of the party in the Paris region, with dimensions of Jacques Duclos and Benoit Frachon is charged with the organization of the armed struggle.

In the immediate future, they are especially young Parisian Communists who are recruited with the title of the Special Organization, to form groups which one will call also the Bataillons of Youth. Albert Ouzoulias, political official of the Bataillons of Youth will join later the ftp with the young people who will have survived the tracking of the special Brigades .

While Ouzoulias sets up the Bataillons of Youth , Eugene Hénaff, trade unionist a 37 year old who has just escaped from the Camp from Chateaubriant deploys an intense activity to recruit voluntary militants " that was not hustled with the wicket " he told by evoking this time. As from October 1941, all the volunteers recruited by Ouzoulias and Hénaff are gathered in a single formation, the OS, in which Hénaff takes the title of " police chief politique" with Ouzoulias like assistant. The organization takes then the name of TP (Particular Work). It is only with beginning of the year 1942 that the name of FTPF (French Franc-tireurs and Partisans) or more simply ftp is adopted.

The national Military committee

As of October 1941, the direction of the party had decided the creation of a national Military committee (CMN) whose Tillon is the chief and the first members, in addition to Hénaff and Ouzoulias, are Georges Beyer and Jules Dumont.

In fact, Dumont, lieutenant-colonel of reserve must be " put at the vert" for safety reasons and it does not even take part in the first meeting. It is replaced at the military by Georges Vallet, old post of police chief permanent of the party and former political police chief in the international Brigades. Hénaff, Ouzoulias and Vallet very frequently meet with the beginning of the year 1942. Ouzoulias replaces Vallet as from May 1942. During the year 1943, Dumont and Vallet are both decrees, tortured and shot.

The meetings of the CMN are held initially with Palaiseau, in the old residence of Charles Tillon who moved with Limours in January 1942. As from April 1942, Fascinating Marcel, a biologist of reputation which is only sympathizing communist, integrates the CMN with the title of chief of staff. The idea is to propose a personality titrated enough for makings of contact under consideration with certain factions of Resistance not-Communists.

About the month of June 1942, the meetings of the CMN are moved in a house of the hamlet of Lozere, very close to the Ligne of Seals, between Palaiseau and Orsay. At the beginning of 1943, Hénaff must be put at the green It is replaced at the post of political police chief by Ouzoulias, itself replaced by Rene Camphin at the military post of police chief. Taking in January 1943 is stopped. Laurent Casanova had been inserted into the team at the end of 1943, with the idea to send it to represent the ftp in Algiers near CFLN. Three men, therefore will have remained with the CMN during all the lifespan of the ftp: Tillon, Ouzoulias and Beyer.

France initially and other publications

One of the tasks of the CMN, and in particular of Charles Tillon, is the drafting of the newspaper of the ftp, France initially whose 62 numbers of January 1942 will appear with the Libération. The newspaper whose epigraph is " To drive out the invader " is intended to the militants. He publishes accounts of armed struggle, military official statements, watchwords. There exist regional editions of this bulletin.

The CMZ and the ftp in southern zone

The ftp whose vocation is to carry out the fight against the occupant develop initially exclusively in occupied zone. It is only after November 1942 and the occupation of the " southern zone " that the Communists undertake to also develop the ftp to with it. In southern zone , the ftp are chapeautés by the Military committee of the southern Zone (CMZ) whose Tillon will recognize that it does not have relations between subordination and the CMN. The CMZ sits at Lyon, and its members, André Jacquot, Boris Guimpel, Mathieu Puyo and Francisque Jommard, were indicated by the representatives of PCF in southern zone, Raymond Guyot and Leon Mauvais. Tillon had met once the person in charge of the CMZ, André Jacquot with the Be worth-with-Cernay, before this last is not stopped in May 1944, with all the team of the CMZ, following an infiltration by a double agent of the Gestapo and Komintern, Lucien Iltis. Only Boris Guimpel manages to escape the raid carried out by Klaus Barbie.

André Jacquot will survive the deportation. In addition to the executive team, tens of frameworks ftp of the southern zone then will be stopped and tortured. As from May 1944, it is the direction of PCF in southern zone which assumes the coordination of the ftp directly there.

Evolution of the ftp

As from April 1942, the ftp open to the not-Communists, but always remain under the control of the Communists. On a side, the rules of clandestinity result in partitioning the structures of the party and those of the ftp. There is thus a real tendency to autonomisation, but this one is expressed especially at the local level. Of another dimensioned, at the national level, the strategy of the ftp is completely integrated into that of PCF. It is a political will of PCF which gave birth to the ftp. The rule of the 10% stipulated that each regional communist authority was to yield 10% of its manpower to the ftp, and Tillon will have to often insist that this rule is complied with, and that it passes even to 20%, which did not go without problem, because much of frameworks of the party did not want to weaken the party by giving the best elements to the ftp. The relations between Tillon, person in charge of the ftp and Lecoeur, person in charge of the organization of the party, will be never good. As from 1943, when a relatively great part of the population, especially young, is ready to begin in Resistance, the ftp largely benefit from it, and at this time, recruitment very largely overflows the circle of the communist sympathizers. In 1943, when the national front, movement of mass created by PCF is sufficiently developed, the ftp become officially the armed wing of the National front . This affiliation of which Tillon and Pierre Villon, person in charge of the National front , are the first to recognize the purely formal character, consolidates the political weight of each of the two organizations which can assert legitimacy as much than the plain Mouvements of Resistance and the Secret Armée, which gathered, under the aegis of Jean Moulin, several resistance movements of the southern zone.

Intelligence service: FADED or Service B

It is the brother-in-law of Charles Tillon, Georges Beyer who becomes the person in charge of the intelligence service of the ftp that one knows under the name of Service B or FADED . Among the leaders of the network, one finds Marcel Hamon, a professor of philosophy of coast-of-North, Victor Gragnon , and the old ones of the international Brigades, Boris Guimpel and Tadeus Oppmann . The information is often a currency of exchange, in the contacts with BCRA (BCRA) gaullist to be able to profit from parachutings of weapons. Moreover, the BCRA is not the only interlocutor of the Service B which also maintains the relations with the various British services and American OSI. Other information is communicated to Soviet, for example those concerning the armed Vlassov, represented well in France.

Maquis ftp

The model of organization developed by the ftp is the group of combat of about thirty men to the maximum. Tillon develops on this subject the theory of the mercury ball: the groups of combat must be enough mobile to become imperceptible as for the others resistance movements, the refusal by the young people of the forced labor in Germany (STO) is the occasion to create maquis. First maquis ftp are attested at the beginning of the year 1943. According to the historian Roger Bourderon, until June 1943, France initially calls with the creation of vast maquis, to center itself then on the call to the formation of small mobile maquis turned towards the direct action, being thus opposed to the formation of large mobilizing maquis, like that of the Vercors, judged " attentiste". According to the historian François Marcot, " the ftp are a long time reticent vis-a-vis the maquis, for fear they are not reduced to refuges distant from their ground of action privileged, the city… As of the autumn 1943, and especially spring 1944, they create their own trainings… "

The Maquis of the High-Vienna, directed by Georges Guingouin, indicates a vast area controlled by the maquis. Guingouin, a communist teacher, had taken the maquis towards beginning of the year 41, before the creation of the ftp. It is called the " prefect of the maquis". In 1944, High-Vienna is the department which counts the greatest number of resistant armed, that is to say approximately 8.000 men. Little disciplined with respect to the communist direction in Southern zone represented by Bad Leon, Guingouin receives the unconditional surrender of the German forces occupying Limoges on August 21st, 1944.

Among other maquis ftp, one can quote the Maquis Vauban, in Morvan.

ftp me

ftp result to me from the immigrant Main-d'oeuvre (ME), structure installation in the years 1920 and which allowed the abroads living in France to be integrated into the Third International Communist without depending directly on the French section, i.e. of PCF. At the time when PCF decides to create the ftp, it also decides to create groups of ftp me in the Paris region. These groups can collaborate with the ftp but they are attached directly to Jacques Duclos, which has the direct contact with the Internationale Communist and in a more general way with Moscow. Because they do not await any leniency on behalf of the Germans, because the Régime of Vichy hardly leaves them choice apart from clandestinity or of the internment, various groups ftp are particularly given for me in the fight against the occupant. Because they depend directly on the Komintern, via Duclos, one often thought that it is them that one sends in first line when comes the order from Moscow to intensify the combat, whereas the French groups are inserted much in a national dynamics. Rumanian Boris Holban was the person in charge of the Parisian groups a long time. He is then replaced by Missak Manouchian and when the latter is stopped, it is again Holban which takes the command, at the beginning of 1944.

Maquis ME also played a part of first importance in the Southern zone, for example for the release of the towns of Lyon and Toulouse.

Urban guerilla warfare

In Paris, Joseph Epstein, alias colonel Gilles, was a person in charge of the ftp me. In the current of the year 1943, one also entrusts the responsibility for combatants to him ftp of the whole of the Paris region where, according to Albert Ouzoulias, it trains true commandos of fifteen combatants making it possible to carry out a certain number of spectacular actions, which would not have been possible with the groups of three which were the rule in the clandestine organization since 1940. From July in October 43, there is thus in Paris a series of direct attacks against German soldiers or officers. These commandos consist more and more of foreigners of EGO. The group of Manouchian is most famous. Were they sacrificed because they were foreign? In fact, since 1941, the losses among the Parisian armed groups were enormous in all the groups ftp, French or foreigners.

The fusion of the ftp in the FFI

In 1942, the two main movements of resistance of the southern zone, Combat and Release-South recognize the authority of France Free, become Fighting France, and agree to constitute the Secret Armée. At that time, the Communists have just contacted the envoy of De Gaulle, the colonel Rémy. Fernand Grenier, which arrives at London in January 1943, is the first representative of PCF near the fighting France . He is also carrying a letter of Charles Tillon with which he spent the Christmas Day 1942.

Theoretical fusion between the ftp and the secret Army takes place on December 29th, 1943, giving rise to the FFI whose general Koenig is named chief on March 23rd, 1944. In fact, integration is much later than the theoretical date, and in certain areas, it will never occur.

In Paris, the conditions are more favorable to a real integration, perhaps because it is the place or sits COMAC, allowing a direct negotiation between the communist representative Pierre Villon and the Délégué National Soldier (DMN) , Chaban. It is a ftp, Henri Rol-Tanguy, which is named in June 1944 chief of the FFI of the Paris region. At the time of the Release of Paris, the ftp are integrated thus perfectly into the FFI.

Sources of the article

  • Roger Bourderon, article " Franc-tireurs and in favor français" , drawn from the historical Dictionary of Resistance directed by François Marcot, Robert Laffont, 2006
  • Emmanuel de Chambost, direction of PCF in clandestinity (1941-44) , Harmattan, 1997
  • Roger Faligot, Remi Kauffer, Service B , Beech, 1985
  • Denis Peschanski, article " Franc-tireurs and in favor of Labor immigrée" drawn from the historical Dictionary of Resistance directed by François Marcot, Robert Laffont, 2006
  • Albert Ouzoulias, Wire of the night , Grasset, 1994
  • François Marcot, article Maquis drawn from the historical Dictionary of Resistance directed by François Marcot, Robert Laffont, 2006

Bibliography of the ftp

Testimonys of old ftp
  • Roger Linet, 1933-1943, the Crossing of the Storm , Messidor, 1992
  • Albert Ouzoulias, the Battalions of Youth , Social Editions, 1972
  • Albert Ouzoulias, the Wire of the Night , Grasset, 1975
  • Ouzoulias-Romagnon, I was liaison officer of the ftp , Messidor, 1986
  • Marcel Prenant, A whole Life on the left , Encre, 1980
  • Charles Tillon, the ftp , Julliard, 1964
  • Charles Tillon, One sang red , Robert Laffont, 1977
  • Charles Tillon, the ftp, soldiers without uniform , Ouest-France Editions, 1991
  • Pierre Durand, Joseph and Men of London , the Time of Cherries, 1994 (On Georges Beaufils
  • Georges Guingouin, Four years of fight on the ground the Limousin , Hatchet, 1978

Monographs and works on the ftp

  • Claude Angeli, Paul Waistcoat, Upright In favor , Beech, 1970
  • Robert Bailly, Occupation hitlérienne and resistance in Yonne , ANACR-Yonne Editions, 1984
  • Resistance in Combe of Savoy, 5th company FTPF , ANACR-Savoy Editions, 1984

Documentary

  • Mosco, Of the terrorists to the retirement , 1983 (new version: 2001), Zek films, 84mn.

See too

External bonds

  • a page with the memory of the ftp me on memoire.net.
  • a site on the Battalions of Youth on battalions of youth.

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