Long beforeWorld War II, the variousBreton nationalist organizations were oftenanti-French andanti-colonialist, opposed to theCentral Government's policy oflinguistic imperialism, and critical to varying degrees of post-French Revolution-styleRepublicanism. Some Breton nationalists were openly pro-fascist.[1] The extent to which this led Breton nationalists intocollaboration with the Axis Powers and their motivations, remains a matter of often bitter historical controversy and debate.
Before the occupation,Breton nationalists were divided between adherents of regionalism,federalism, and political independence. Essentially these factions, though divided, remained openly hostile to theThird French Republic's policies ofcentralized government,anti-Catholicism, the coerciveFrancization policy in the State educational system, and the continued ban againstBreton-medium education. Among these groups, only the openly separatistBreton National Party remained organized; dissolved in 1939, it was rapidly reconstituted in the autumn of 1940 and became the most activepolitical party in Brittany under the Occupation[citation needed]. Having broken in 1931 from regionalism, its founders (Olier Mordrel andFrançois Debeauvais) were inspired by the success of theIrish War of Independence and played the secessionist card. When the war broke out, the Breton National Party chose a position of strict neutrality. This party's ideas were anti-republican and complacent towardsxenophobia andantisemitism, influenced by German racism and close to all the varieties of European fascism. During the war the ideology of the Breton National Party was favored by the forces of occupation and other branches of the Breton movement accordingly found themselves marginalized.
On 15 December 1940 a "petition" signed by 46 Bretons requesting "administrative autonomy" in the confines of a united France was sent toPhilippe Pétain. On 22 January 1941, theVichy government namedHervé Budes de Guébriant President of the National Commission for Agricultural Cooperation. The daily journalLa Bretagne was created by Yann Fouéré on 21 March 1941. Like other adherents of the deposedFrench Monarchy,La Bretagne favored the restoration of Brittany's pre-1789 regional autonomy and opposed the secessionist policies of theBreton National Party. An appreciable number of Breton nationalists were also found in theConsultative Committee of Brittany, created on 11 October 1942 byJean Quénette, prefect of the region of Brittany. "An organization of study and work", according toYvonnig Gicquel, it did not wield any executive or decisive powers (against the wishes of the provincial parliament which conceived the adoption of a Breton cultural and regional autonomy doctrine). The will of its members (including members of the Breton National PartyYann Fouéré,Joseph Martray, etc.) was to transform this consultative committee into a true legislative assembly to tackle regional problems. Many of its members were to resurface whenCELIB was created.
The work ofHenri Fréville andKristian Hamon have opened up this field for research. Three different periods can be considered.
Before 1939, Germany was trying to stop France and the United Kingdom from entering the war. During thephony war, Germany planned to favor regionalist movements (particularly those ofFlanders and Brittany) in order to undermine France. This was in revenge for theTreaty of Versailles, and to ensure that Germany remained the only Continental power, with no threats on its western border. Some weapons were delivered but never used. By the end of June and early July, some Breton nationalists could take it for granted the independence of Brittany was well on the way when the Germans appointed a military governor in Brittany ruling over the five départements of ancient Brittany.[2]
However, after thedefeat of France a settlement was quickly made with the occupying power. The projects to undermine France were abandoned and the support for the nationalists disappeared (in particular it was formally forbidden to proclaim a Breton state or to harm public order). Moreover, the formal annexation ofAlsace-Lorraine was never proclaimed. After the Conference of Montoire nationalist movements were simply tolerated (transport permits were given as well as authorizations for purchases of gasoline that soon meant little in practice), and German support went no further than preventing the Vichy regime from suppressing the nationalist movements.
Bretons were not considereduntermenschen (subhuman) by the Nazis, unlike theJews andRomani for example.[3][4] Mordrel, Lainé and some other Celticists argued that the Bretons were a 'pure' strain of the Celtic race, who had retained their "Nordic" qualities, a view consistent with Nazi Aryanmaster race ideology. Other Nationalists, such as Perrot, adopted a more conservative-Catholic stance consistent with longstanding Breton anti-radical ideologies that had emerged among the Royalist-Catholic "Whites" during the French Revolution.
A main intention of the German occupiers was to break French national unity. Its support for Breton nationalism needs to be seen in this wider context which included other aspects, for example the division of France into the occupied zone and the Vichy zone. However Breton nationalists very soon realized that Germany was in practice trying to keep its friends in the Vichy government content and therefore refusing to give any priority at all to the Breton nationalist demands.
Nazi scholar Rudolf Schlichting toured the region and sent the following comment to his superiors: "from a racial point of view there would be no objection to aGermanization of the Breton population. It is evident that we have no interest in promoting the Breton national consciousness, once the separation [with France] is accomplished. Not a penny should be spent on the promotion of the Breton language. The French language will however be replaced by German. In one generation Brittany will be a predominately (sic) German country. This goal is definitely attainable through the schools, the authorities, the army and the press."[5]
Important members of the Breton National Party includingMorvan Lebesque andAlan Heusaff began collaborating with the Germans to one degree or another. The example of Ireland, or even the ideal of an independent Brittany - continued to be their reference points. Recent studies have shown the close links that Breton separatist leaders such asCélestin Lainé andAlan Louarn had with German military intelligence (theAbwehr), going back well before the war, to theWeimar Republic of the 1920s. After the defeat of 1940, the Germans used these separatist agents in military operations or in repression against the French Resistance. A short-lived breakaway faction of the Breton National Party, created in 1941, was theMouvement Ouvrier Social-National Breton (Breton National-Socialist Workers Movement) led byThéophile Jeusset.
At the end of 1940,Job Loyant — along withKalondan,André Lajat, andYves Favreul-Ronarc'h, a former leader of the Breton National Party inLoire-Atlantique — developed the doctrine of theBrezona movement: supremacy of the Breton race, formation of a national community, and government by the elite. This movement was to have but a brief existence. To prevent a possible takeover of the BNP by this splinter group,Yann Goulet appeared atNantes to pronounce the excommunication of the Brezona as "deviationists." With his revolver in plain sight on the hip of the black uniform he wore as chief of the Youth Organizations, he left no doubt as to his intentions. The Nantes PNB meeting, at which the Brezona movement had hoped to take control, took place without incident.
A number of Breton nationalists choose to join the Bezen Perrot organization, a German militia led byCélestin Lainé andAlan Heusaff. As many as 70 to 80 people joined its ranks at one point or another, with typically 30 to 66 at any one time depending on recruiting and defection. During the war a handful of Breton militants decided to ask for German support in the face of the assassination of several leading figures of the Breton cultural movement, such as l'AbbéJean-Marie Perrot. Having originally been namedBezen Kadoudal, the 1943 assassination of the priest prompted Lainé to give his name to the organization in December of that year.
It had already been envisaged by German strategists that in the event of Allied invasion the Breton nationalists would form a rearguard, and that further nationalist troops could be parachuted into Brittany.[6] In late 1943 sabotage dumps had been hidden for use by the militia.[7]
TheStrolladoù Stourm (also known as Bagadoù stourm), led by Yann Goulet andAlan Louarn, was the armed wing of the Breton National Party. A handful of their members took part in a confrontation with the population ofLandivisiau, on August 7, 1943. Yann Goulet, their leader, forbade participation inBezen Perrot.
By April 1943, the Gestapo had created specific units to combat theFrench Resistance. Formed at the end of April 1944 inLanderneau, the LanderneauKommando took part in these units. It was composed of 18 German soldiers and ten French agents (some of whom were Breton separatists as well as former Resistance members). They fought against themaquis (rural French Resistance units) ofTrégarantec,Rosnoën, andPloumordien. Several Resistance members were tortured, and the Kommando also summarily executed some prisoners.
Several Breton nationalists were assassinated by the Resistance in 1943. The best known wasAbbé Perrot, killed on 12 December 1943 byJean Thépaut, a member of the Communist Resistance. Earlier, on the 3 September,Yann Bricler had been shot in his office by three FTP members, and similarlyYves Kerhoas was killed by the Resistance when leaving a fete in the village ofPlouvenez. When American troops arrived in 1944, communistmaquis members began their repressive actions.Jeanne Coroller-Danio, the Breton historian who worked under the nameDanio, was beaten to death along with her brother-in-law, Commander Le Minthier.
The BNP, dissolved along with theFrench Communist Party in 1939, no longer legally existed. Its activists were hunted down and not distinguished from the Breton militants who wore the symbol of the dukes of Brittany ("ermine-trimmed berets"). Many were deported to detention camps; notably at the Camp Marguerite in Rennes where 150 nationalists were detained for alleged collaborationism.[8] The Breton nationalists sought to defend the fact[citation needed] that their widespread image as an overtly fascist, even Nazi, movement had nothing to do with the actual political backgrounds of their activists, as varied as theAction française (royalist), theFrench Section of the Workers' International (SFIO, socialist), the separatistBreton National Party (PAB), or the French Communist Party.
Several leading Breton activists – regionalists, federalists and separatists – joined the Resistance against the occupation[citation needed]. They had various motivations:
As early as 1940 some joinedSao Breiz, the Breton wing of theFree French. This included several members of theUnion Régionaliste Bretonne (Breton Regionalist Union) and theAr brezoneg er skol association, founded before the war by Yann Fouéré. M. de Cadenet, a member of the latter group, and some of his associates wrote a draft statute, presented to GeneralCharles de Gaulle which would have given Brittany a number of political freedoms after the return of peace. According to Yann Fouéré, this plan was close in spirit to the one that the Breton Consultative Committee wanted to submit in 1943 to Marshal Pétain. Neither of these two plans resulted in anything.
Activists likeFrancis Gourvil,Youenn Souffes-Després andJean Le Maho had before the war been members of minority separatist or federalist movements such as theParti Autonomiste Breton (PAB) or theLigue fédéraliste de Bretagne. These organisations were always clearly anti-fascist and critical of the extreme right. This led their members directly into the underground Resistance. Others joined the Resistance as individuals and after the war restarted their involvement in Breton nationalism. Members of theBagadou Stourm founded theForces Bretonnes de l'Intérieur (Breton Forces of the Interior, a Breton wing of de Gaulle's French Forces of the Interior), and were deported toBuchenwald.
For other groups, such as the Liberty Group ofSaint-Nazaire (composed of young defectors from theBagadoù Stourm), pro-British feeling was the determining factor in pushing them to ally themselves with the French Resistance. The Liberty Group, under the name ofBataillon de la Poche ("Pocket Battalion"), helped to liberate Saint-Nazaire from a pocket of German holdouts in May 1945.
AfterFrance was liberated, it was as collaborators, not as separatists, that the PNB members were punished, and even then it was by no means all those members that were affected. Only 15 to 16 per cent of PNB members appeared in court, and few non-member sympathisers were prosecuted.[citation needed] Most leading members escaped in Ireland or Germany and were not judged.[citation needed] There was no mass repression as claimed in post-war separatist propaganda. However the post-war nationalist movements will tend to minimise the collaboration with Nazi Germany and will create the myth of the separatists' repression by the French government.[9]
Despite the involvement of Breton nationalists with the French Resistance, an effort was made, however, by the post-war Government of theFourth French Republic to discredit allBreton language, cultural, and political activism by depicting it is synonymous withNazism, treason, and collaboration.[citation needed]
Still today, some people[10][11][12][13] are worried by the "collective amnesia" of the current Breton autonomist movement about World War II or by their attempts to rehabilitate the nationalist collaborationists.
On the other hand, it is the standpoint of at least some modern Breton activists is that the collaboration of some Breton nationalists with the Axis Powers during World War II is being both exaggerated and exploited for propaganda by the French government and media to discredit the current aims of the Breton movement, such aslanguage revival, politicaldevolution, and the expansion ofBreton-medium education.[14]
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