 | This page contains a translation of Legion nord-africaine from fr.wikipedia. |
@Cukrakalnis: not the Foreign Legion but if you are going to dive into the French military this needs sources, improvement also Elinruby (talk) 17:37, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
The North African Legion (Légion nord-africaine (LNA), sometimes known as the Brigade nord-africaine (BNA) or Phalange nord-africaine (in Dordogne), was a paramilitary unit that collaboratrd with Nazi Germany in the Second World War. In should not be confused with the French Foreign Legion or the Phalange africaine.
History
editIn September 1943 the rue Lauriston gang arrested 15 people in a German anti-Resistance operation in Montbard in the Franche-Comté. along with a group of Corsicans run by Étienne Léandri, who worked for the SS from 11 rue Flandrin.[1]
When the Germans closed the bureaux d'achats in early 1944, Henri Lafont once more reinvented himself, this time as a fighter, by starting the North African Brigade (or North African Legion) under the orders of SS Colonel Helmut Knochen [2] with Algerian nationalist Muhammad al-Maadi, a former French military officer and member of the extreme right La Cagoule movement.
The unit was an auxiliary force of the German army made up of Muslims from the French North African community, particularly the Paris region. It is different than the African Phalanx created by the Vichy government to fight Allied troops in Tunisia after they landed in North Africa in November 1942.
In January to February 1944, the North African Brigade comprised 300 members of North African origin organized into five sections,[3] led by Lafont who held the rank of Hauptsturmführer (captain) in the SS. His deputy Pierre Bonny, the former "first cop in France", was also an eminent member of the "French Gestapo", and an Obersturmführer (lieutenant). The leaders of the five sections were:
- Paul Maillebuau, later killed by the Resistance in Franche-Comté,[4]
- Charles Cazauba,
- Alexandre Villaplane, a former French football player who faced a firing squad at the fort de Montrouge on 27 December 1944[5]
- Paul Clavié, nephew of Lafont[6], shot at the fort de Montrouge 27 December 1944[7]
- Lucien Prévost
They were all promoted to second lieutenants in the SS (Untersturmführer), as was Louis Pagnon, Lafont's driver, an appointed reserve officer. These men had nothing to do with the French Waffen-SS, and were under the orders of another branch of the SS, the Sipo-SD, the German SS police, often mistakenly called the “Gestapo”.
The unit also included about twenty French non-commissioned officers:
- Abel Danos, nicknamed "Mammouth" (Mammoth) because of his size, later part of the Gang des Tractions Avant, was shot for collaboration on 13 March 1952
- Raymond Monange, officer of the Légion nord-africaine in Corrèze, faced a firing squad 13 March 1952 at the fort de Montrouge.[5]
- Louis Haré, shot at the fort de Montrouge on 27 December 1944
- Jean Baptiste Chaves appointed by Lafont as bodyguard for al Maahdi[1]
- Jean Sartore, known as Jean "the bald" specialized in rendering his victimes unrecognizable[8]
Officers and non-commissioned officers wore an SS uniform of the SD type. Troopers wore equipment quite similar to that of the Militia,[clarification needed] with the belt and dagger of the Waffen SS as well. All received a green identification card from the Avenue Foch SD in Paris, certifying their membership in the SS.
The brigade saw combat against the French Resistance in Corrèze; three sections participated in the fighting against the maquis there. One section fought in Dordogne and another in Franche-Comté
As soon as it arrived in Dordogne, and for the five months of its presence there, the North African Legion distinguished itself by extortions and massacres, including those in Brantôme on March 26, 1944, Sainte-Marie-de-Chignac on March 27, 1944, at Saint-Martin-de-Fressengeas in Mussidan, where they shot 52 people, and at Les Piles in Cornille, where 13 people were shot.
Saint-Germain-du-Salembre was an important resistance fighters' camp[9] A maquis camp of the Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP) had been set up at Virolle(s)[10] On 27 July 1944, German troops reinforced by the Légion nord-africaine[11] killed 29 Resistance fighters from this camp in the village of Espinasse, in Saint-Germain-du-Salembre, A memorial to the Resistance was erected in Virolle(s)[10].
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"The Parisian police created the North African Native Affairs Service in 1925.[12]" is this true?
Battle and massacre of 11 June 1944
editOn 11 June 1944 Francs-Tireurs et Partisans[13] destroyed a German armoured train at Mussidan station. During the fight, eight guerrillas and the train guard were killed. Fifteen German soldiers were also killed, and eight taken prisoner.[14]
A convoy of the 11th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht arrived from Bordeaux and the guerrillas killed another four men at a barricade, two officers and two enlisted men, before they were obliged to withdraw.[14]
A detachment of the Gestapo from Périgueux arrived, led by Second Lieutenant Michaël Hambrecht, reinforced by a platoon [15] and as a reprisal arrested 350 men over the age of sixteen. The village was plundered by the North Africans.[16] That evening, 47 civilians were shot near the town hall; five others were massacred in the street, including Raoul Grassin, the mayor of the town, and a councillor. Eight of the dead were boys under 18. Only two people survived, both with serious injuries. Mussidan was the largest massacre of civilians in Dordogne during the Second World War, and the tenth largest in France. Another 115 inhabitants were deported.[17]
Mussidan was awarded the 1939-1945 Croix de Guerre on 11 November 1948, along with eighteen other municipalities in the Dordogne.[18][unreliable source?]
The legion was disbanded August 1944 and its troops dispersed.
Some former members followed al-Maadi in August 1944 when he took refuge with his wife in Germany and was welcomed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini.
References
edit- ^ a b The King of Nazi Paris: Henri Lafont and the Gangsters of the French Gestapo, Christopher Othen, 2020, isbn 9781785905926 Pages= 356, July 14, 2020, Publisher: Biteback Publishing
- ^ the number two of the German police in France (the Sipo and SD, which included the Gestapo)
- ^ Chassain, Herve (3 December 2013). "Les phalangistes faisaient régner la terreur en Dordogne". Sud Ouest.
- ^ Othen 2020, p. 28.
- ^ a b Patrice Rolli, La Phalange nord-africaine (ou Brigade nord-africaine, ou Légion nord-africaine) en Dordogne: Histoire d'une alliance entre la Pègre et la Gestapo (15 mars-19 août 1944), Éditions l'Histoire in Partage 2013, 189 pages
- ^ Combat (28 December 1944). "Bony, Lafont et six de leurs complices ont été fusillés au fort de Montrouge". gallica.bnf.fr. Retrieved 7 April 2019..
- ^ Combat (1 December 1944). "Le "gang" de la Gestapo française devant la Cour de justice". Retrieved 7 April 2019.
- ^
L'Humanité, dernière colonne, en haut de la page (19 November 1944). "A coups de mitraillette, à la poursuite des maquilleurs de cadavres et tueurs de la rue Lauriston".
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Florence Broussaud-Le Strat, La Double Un pays en Périgord, Éditions Fanlac, 2006, ISBN 2-86577-252-7, p. 93
- ^ a b "Éclaircir les zones d'ombre des massacres de 1944", Sud Ouest édition Dordogne, 17 May 2022, p.20}}
- ^ "Le massacre d'Espinasse dans les mémoires", Sud Ouest édition Périgueux, 8 August 2013, p.18}
- ^ France Has a Deep History of Racist Policing—Even if It Won’t Admit It: The recent protests sparked by the killing of a Black teenager are a response to a racist legacy that the French state virtually refuses to acknowledge, Amit Prakash, The Nation, July 7, 2023
- ^ D'après le panneau d'information intitulé Le 11 juin 1944 à Mussidan, parc Voulgre, Mussidan.
- ^ a b Boucharel, Bruno (11 June 2010). "Rescapé du 11 juin 1944, il témoigne" [Survivor of June 11 1944 bears witness]. Sud Ouest.
- ^ led by Alexandre Villaplane of the North African Brigade and former captain of the France football team at the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay
- ^ Lormier, Dominique (1994). Les FFI au combat. Jacques Grancher. p. 18. ISBN 9782402100120.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Agendawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Communes décorées de la Croix de guerre 1939 - 1945" (PDF).
Bibliography
edit- Christopher Othen (2020). The King of Nazi Paris: Henri Lafont and the Gangsters of the French Gestapo. Biteback Publishing. p. 356. ISBN 1785905929. Retrieved 4 September 2023 – via Google Books.
Sources
edit- Luc Briand, Le Brassard, Alexandre Villaplane, capitaine des Bleus et officier nazi, Plein Jour, 2022, 271 p.
- Patrice Rolli, La Phalange nord-africaine (ou Brigade nord-africaine, ou Légion nord-africaine) en Dordogne: Histoire d'une alliance entre la Pègre et la Gestapo, 15 March to 19 August 1944), Éditions l'Histoire en Partage, 2013, 189 pages (mostly about Alexandre Villaplane and Raymond Monange)