Henri Frenay | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Henri Auguste Antoine Frenay 11 November 1905 |
| Died | 8 August 1988(1988-08-08) (aged 82) |
| Known for | Resistance to theNazi occupation of France |
Henri Frenay Sandoval[1] (11 November 1905 – 8 August 1988) was a French military officer andFrench Resistance member, who served as minister of prisoners, refugees and deportees inCharles de Gaulle'sProvisional Government of the French Republic.
Henry Frenay was born inLyon, France, on 11 November 1905,[2] into a Catholic family with a military tradition, and staunch right-wing and anti-communist beliefs. Frenay would later say of his youth, "without knowing, I belonged to a French right-wing, traditionalist, poor, patriotic andpaternalistic tradition.” His father was a soldier, who was awarded theLegion of Honour in 1912 and served in theFirst World War, by the end of which he had reached the rank oflieutenant colonel.
He was educated at theLycée Ampère in Lyon and later studiedGermanic languages at the university ofStrasbourg in 1938, writing a dissertation on the German minority in PolishUpper Silesia.
In 1924, at the age of 19, and having attended apreparatory class at theLycée du Parc, Frenay enrolled atSaint Cyr, graduating in 1926. In 1933, having served abroad in thearmy for multiple years inGermany andSyria, he returned to France, specifically toHyères in south-east France, where he was assigned to the 3rd Alpine Infantry Brigade. He reached the rank ofcaptain in 1934 and studied at theÉcole Supérieure de Guerre in 1935.
At the outbreak of World War II, Frenay rejoined the French army and was assigned to theMaginot Line as astaff officer. On 13 June 1940, the 43rd Army Corps, to which he was deployed at the time, was ordered to retreat, and Frenay was taken prisoner by theGermanarmy four days later inVosges. He managed to escape from a POW camp inAlsace on 27 June 1940, and reached theZone libre on 15 July, heading toMarseille, where he quickly became aware of the severity of France's situation.[1]
Having been warned of the Nazi ideological plans very early on through meetings organised byBerty Albrecht, and convinced that France would recover from its defeat, Frenay set out in August 1940 to gather the beginnings of a network around himself and Albrecht. This network, theMouvement de Libération Nationale (MLN), was the first historical movement of internal resistance in France. Originally, the resistance's goal was not to fight theVichy Regime. Frenay, a military man, sawPétain as a formerMarshal who had led France during the Great War and was consequently willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, hoping that he was playing a double game, preparing for the salvation of France in one way or another.
As a Resistance member, Frenay also became an editor ofunderground newspapers such asVérités (Truths).
In July 1941, Frenay met with formerPrefectJean Moulin, who had been dismissed by the Vichy Regime in November 1940 due to hisRadical, republican ideals and sought to find out the size of the internal resistance movements in France on the orders ofGeneral de Gaulle. Frenay, trusting de Gaulle, trained Moulin and introduced him to the Resistance. In November 1941, Frenay had a hand in the formation of theCombat group.[1][3]
In January 1942, Frenay met with Moulin again following the latter's return fromLondon, where he had been charged with unifying the French Resistance and rallying it to de Gaulle. He continued to met with Moulin frequently until 1943, though the two often disagreed on many matters, with Frenay believing that Moulin favoured pro-Soviet movements over his own, though in reality Moulin had been tasked by de Gaulle to separate the political conflict from the military resistance, with the belief thatFree France, the French government in exile in London and later inAlgiers, should carry out the political function under his leadership. Frenay, on the other hand, believed that the Resistance should be its own, autonomous political movement that created new post-war institutions and did not simply welcome back the old parties and associated networks, citing the failure of the party system under theThird Republic.
In February 1942, to obtain the release of militants from theZone Libre, Frenay twice met withHenri Rollin, head of theDirection de la surveillance du territoire, then theMinister of the Interior of Vichy France,Pierre Pucheu, who suggested that Frenay should connect his movements to the French secret services, a suggestion which Frenay rejected. During a third meeting with Rollin and members of Pucheu's cabinet, Frenay stormed down. Nevertheless, these meetings led to the release of several Resistance fighters.
In theZone Libre, Frenay sought to take military control of the French Resistance, when the three largest movements in the Zone (Francs-Tireurs et Partisans,Libération-sud and Combat) merged, which led to discussions with de Gaulle and Moulin, subsequently leading to the forming of theConseil National de la Résistance, which, despite his leading involvement, Frenay distrusted and generally kept his own group, Combat, as separate from as possible.
When theGestapo captured Moulin in June 1943, Frenay fled to Algiers. In November 1943, he met Charles de Gaulle, who appointed him as a minister of prisoners,refugees anddeportees. Frenay, due to his major role in the internal Resistance, had desired a more important role in the Ministry of the Interior, but the differences of opinion between him and de Gaulle led to Frenay obtaining this lower ranking position.
After the war, Frenay retained his role as minister of prisoner, refugees and deportees until 21 October 1945, during which time he helped organise the return of 1,330,000 prisoners, refugees and deportees from the Allied Zone to France and their reintegration back into national life.
Frenay was a passionate supporter of the post-war moves to European unity. He took part in theHague Congress in 1948, which created theEuropean Movement. From 1950 to 1954, Frenay was President of theUnion of European Federalists. He resigned his presidency after the rejection by France of the European Defense Community (EDC). It was at this time that he definitively broke with General de Gaulle over the latter's opposition to European integration. Frenay retired from political life and became a businessman. He published his autobiography,The Night Will End: Memoirs of a Revolutionary in 1976, which notably criticised Moulin and de Gaulle as reckless.
In 1934, Frenay met and fell in love with Berty Albrecht, a Protestant feminist and anti-fascist, twelve years his senior and married, albeit separated from her husband. Through her, he met German, anti-Nazi refugees and came to be interested inNazism, consequently discovering the threat it posed through readingMein Kampf. Their relationship continued until 1942, during which time they worked together on the underground newspapers. Albrecht was eventually captured by SS OfficerKlaus Barbie in 1943, in a trap likely intended to draw out Frenay, and became a martyr of the resistance, committing suicide to avoid revealing information under torture.
In 1942, Frenay metChilina Ciosi (1909–1997),[4] head doctor of a clinic inFont-Romeu and head of a Resistance transit route to Spain. She gave birth to a child on 6 October 1943.[5] To avoid endangering the mother and child, their son was declared "of unknown father and mother" and placed in a nursery until the end of the conflict.[6] Frenay and Ciosi married after the war, on 25 November 1946.[2]
Frenay died atPorto-Vecchio,Corsica, on 8 August 1988. ThenPresident, and former resistant,François Mitterrand issued a eulogy following Frenay's death, and across France streets have been named after him, including a square in Paris in the12th arrondissement.
