Theclandestine press of the French Resistance was collectively responsible for printing flyers, broadsheets, newspapers, and even books in secret in France during theGerman occupation of France in theSecond World War. The secret press was used to disseminate the ideas of theFrench Resistance in cooperation with theFree French, and played an important role in theliberation of France and in thehistory of French journalism, particularly during the1944 Freedom of the Press Ordinances [fr].
Counterpropaganda such as leaflets,broadsheets (such as the first pages of theValmy newspaper [fr]), brochures, posters, and clandestine newspapers began to appear in France.[when?][1]In September 1941, German police in Paris reported discovering leaflets written in German and co-signed by the Communist Parties ofGermany (KPD) andAustria (KPÖ).[2]On 10 July 1942, GeneralKarl Oberg posted a notice in every town hall in theOccupied zone announcing penalties applicable to the families of anyone convicted of disseminatingpropaganda against theoccupying force (writers, typographers, middlemen, distributors), recalling ancient GermanSippenhaft-style collective punishment measures. These measures didn't stop the spread of information by theResistance, and by 1944, 1,200 underground newspaper titles were being published with a total circulation of two million copies, totaling nearly twelve million copies over the course of the war.[3]
The first French underground newspapers emerged in opposition to German andVichy control over French radio and newspapers.[4] In the German-occupied zone, the first underground titles to emerge werePantagruel andLibre France, which both began in Paris in October 1940.[5] In Vichy France, the first title to emerge wasLiberté in November 1940.[6] Few produced issues for both German and Vichy zones, thoughLibération was an early exception.[7] In early newspaper issues, individuals often wrote under a number of pseudonyms in the same issue to convey the impression that a team of individuals was working on a newspaper.[8] Initially underground newspapers represented a wide range of political opinions but, by 1944, had generally converged in support ofGaullist Free French in the United Kingdom.[9]
The four major clandestine newspapers during the German occupation wereDéfense de la France,Résistance,Combat andLibération.Défense de la France was founded by a group of parisian students in the summer of 1941. After the invasion of the Soviet Union, these were joined by a number of communist publications includingL'Humanité andVerité.[7] These newspapers were anti-Nazi propaganda, but practiced propaganda themselves by misreporting events, and glorifying and enlarging Allied victories. The reporting in these newspapers was often subjective, as they aimed to capture and shape public opinion rather than accurately represent it. The extent to which underground newspapers actually affected French popular opinion under the occupation is disputed by historians.[10]
Profession-specific newspapers also existed.Le Médecin Français advised doctors to immediately approve known collaborators forService du travail obligatoire while medically disqualifying everyone else.La Terre advised farmers on how to send food to resistance members.Bulletin des Chemins de Fer encouraged railroad workers to sabotage German transportation.Unter Uns ("Among Us"), published in German for the occupiers, printed stories of German defeats on theeastern front.[11]
A small number of underground presses were also active in printing illegal books and works of literature. The most notable example of this wasLe Silence de la mer byJean Bruller published illegally in Paris in 1942. This marked its publisher, "Les Éditions de Minuit", as an emerging clandestine publisher of Resistance material;[12] they later became a successful commercial literary publisher in post-war France.
TheBibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) began a project in 2012 to digitise surviving French underground newspapers. By 2015, 1,350 titles had been uploaded on itsGallica platform.[13]
Censorship in France was the enemy of the underground press during the Second World War. Under theGerman occupation and the laws of theVichy regime, freedoms of the French people were suppressed, particularly with the end offreedom of the press. The decree-law of 24 August 1939 authorising seizure of newspapers and their suppression as well as the official establishment of censorship on 27 August led to the disappearance of newspapers which had been denouncing the German occupation.[14]The only media that survived under the occupation were ones that served the propaganda needs of the German occupier and of Vichy.[15]
It also spelled the end offreedom of speech, and any citizen caught reading the foreign press or listening to foreign radio were judged as opponents and enemies of the regime.[citation needed]
The occupying force and the police paid particular attention to counterpropaganda printed matter from the outset. One of the first missions of the police was to discover clandestine newspaper printing locations, and their leaders. The first arrests were therefore those of journalists involved in counterpropaganda such asJean-Baptiste Lebas, who launched "L'homme libre" (The Free Man) and who died after being deported, orClaude Bourdet, director of the clandestine newspaperCombat arrested in March 1944. Out of 1200 workersof the book Resistance fighters[clarify] 400 were killed (deported, decapitated, shot).[15]
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In the face ofrepression, underground newspapers faced many problems with supplies. Paper, ink and typewriters were scarce, expensive and their sale was meticulously controlled. Printing centres were also few and far between and were used forpropaganda newspapers.
The first clandestine newspapers were therefore handwritten with very few copies. However, two processes were useful for clandestine production: the "roneo"Gestetner and thespirit duplicator, which was small in size and therefore easy to transport and hide. It was operated by a small crank handle, and could print between 700 and 800 copies per hour.
Everything was done with the utmost secrecy governments and also of people not involved in the clandestine work. The penalties for being involved in the printing and distribution of a resistance newspaper were very strict.
For the delivery and distribution of newspapers, Resistance members assumed the risk of being arrested and imprisoned. From the beginning, railway workers played an essential role in long-distance transport. The bicycle was also one of the best means of transport for delivering printed material. Other means were also used to distribute newspapers, allowing the anonymity of the distributors to be maintained: slipping the issues into letterboxes, under doors, or in a pocket, or dropping them on a bench or table.
In spite of strong repression and censorship nearly 1200 titles totaling over ten million copies of underground newspapers were printed between 1940 and 1944.[15][page needed]
After theFall of France in 1940, theBBC opened its studio to the first members of the Resistance who fledOccupied France.Radio Londres was born and would become the daily rendezvous of the French people for four years. It opened its transmission with, "Ici Londres. Les Français parlent aux Français..." ("This is London. The French speaking to the French..."), now a very famous quote in France. It was the voice ofFree French Forces underCharles de Gaulle, who, on 18 June 1940, made his famousAppeal of 18 June, inviting his compatriots to resist the occupation, and rise up against it.
The press was constrained onFrench territory to considerable supply difficulties and strongpolitical repression. Radio, which broadcast mainly from abroad, was not subject to the same forms of repression.Radio Londres, broadcast by the French section of theBBC[16] seemed better placed to make the voice of theFrench Resistance heard and to have a psychological influence on the French. Its broadcasts could be listened to both throughout the country and within the homes themselves, but in 1940 there were only five million receivers and the transistor hadn't yet been invented. Moreover, the broadcasts only provided a view of events from the outside, and had limited knowledge of what was happening within French territory.
Radio London and the clandestine newspapers thus had complementary functions in their common objective of bringing as many French people as possible to the Resistance. The radio was able to reach the entirety of the French population, while the press had the mission of fighting directly on the home front until it was able to spread more and more to the territory as a whole.[15][page needed]
The content of clandestine newspapers focused exclusively on the motivations and nature of the Resistance struggle, and why it was necessary.
The duty to act is clearly stated in the first issue ofLibération of July 1941 which stated that the newspaper per se is an action and that the situation can only be changed "by action and through action".[a]Combat followed it by giving in January 1942 "guidelines for action".[17]
There was only one cause common to all underground newspapers: to appeal to as many French people as possible to join the fight against the occupier, to "chase away the invader" [b] asLibération wrote in August 1941, with the aim of liberating French territory. The first form of action targeted by the underground press was the call to read and circulate copies of the clandestine press. It also encouraged the reader to become a distributor. It was a form of "combat through words", asCombat wrote in December 1941. The situation at the time only allowed for resistance via verbal struggle. "We will take part in the crushing of Germany, even at the risk of our own lives," [c] wrote the August 1941 issue ofLes Petites Ailes. [fr][17]
The clandestine press worked to counter the ideas of theVichy regime andNazis by taking up the key themes of the official propaganda. By 1943, the watchwords of the counterpropaganda struggle taken up by all of the underground press, were opposing theService du travail obligatoire, the Nazi-imposed obligatory work program, and calling for demonstrations, strikes and sabotage of French-made goods destined for Germany.[17]
ThePetites Ailes ("Little Wings") appeared in theForbidden Zone in theNord-Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. In theOccupied andFree zones, it became known asLes Petites Ailes de France. In August 1941, its title changed: in the northern, Occupied zone, toRésistance; in the southern zone, toVérités (Truth). The group in the north was destroyed.[clarification needed] In the south, during the merger of theNational Liberation Movement (1940-41) [fr] (MLN) with theLiberty [fr] Resistance group,Vérités becameCombat, a new newspaper common to all three zones; its title was adopted by the MLN group, thenceforth known asCombat,[18] whose first issue came out in December 1941[19] under the influence ofBertie Albrecht andHenri Frenay. Production ofCombat was directed byAndré Bollier. Thanks to the structures put in place, circulation reached 1000 copies in 1943, and attained 5,000 with issue number 50[20] of 1 November 1943.[21][22] and 30,000 in December 1943.
After the Liberation,Combat was led byAlbert Ollivier,Jean Bloch-Michel [fr],Georges Altschuler [fr] and especiallyPascal Pia, who dragged his friendAlbert Camus there in the fall of 1943.[23]Jean-Paul Sartre,André Malraux,Paul Gordeaux [fr] andEmmanuel Mounier also contributed, and laterRaymond Aron andPierre Herbart.
A few Parisian students decided to found a clandestine newspaper to denounce the occupation of France. Benefiting from the support of industrialists and printers, the young Resistance fighters managed to produce an increasingly professional newspaper which ended up having the highest circulation of any underground paper as of January 1944.
The first issues were printed on aRotaprintoffset press hidden in the cellar of theSorbonne, to whichHélène Viannay held the key as a volunteer fire fighter, with the following sentence fromBlaise Pascal: "I only believe stories whose witnesses would have their throats cut".[d]
Initially focused on non-violent action, the Resistance segued into armed operations in 1944. Despite setbacks dealt by the German and French police,Défense de la France managed to print both its newspaper and those of other movements until theLiberation.
Among the printers werePierre Virol [fr], who was arrested in 1944, deported, and died inLager Ellrich, asubcamp ofMittelbau-Dora concentration camp on 23 January 1945, and his son-in-law Robert[clarification needed], who died 27 December 1944 in the same subcamp. After Liberation, from 8 August on, the paper was printed inRennes, on the presses of the newspaperOuest-France, presenting itself as the "evening daily of theNational Liberation Movement [fr]".
Distributed by the networksCombat andTémoignage chrétien inGrenoble,Clermont-Ferrand,Lyon andBretagne,Défense de la France became the underground paper with the highest circulation, with 450,000 copies per day as of January 1944.[25]
In March 1944, after multiple moves, the newspaper was housed in a three-story industrial building on rue Jean-Dolent, behindLa Santé Prison in the14th arrondissement of Paris, with "Big Margot", a six-ton "double-jesus" machine,[26] alinotype, apaper cutter, and a supply of paper, gasoline, food, water and two tons of coal for the foundry.[citation needed]
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Franc-Tireur was a movement of the French Resistance founded in Lyon in November 1940 under the nameFrance Liberté,[27] and renamedFranc-Tireur in December 1941.
Le Franc-Tireur is also the name of the movement's underground newspaper, which printed thirty-seven issues between December 1941 and August 1944.[28][e] It became one of the chief newspapers of the Resistance, and continued to be published until 1957 after being renamed "Franc-Tireur" at Liberation, with the motto: "In the vanguard of the Republic." From 1957 to 1959, it had the titleParis Journal and thenParis Jour from 1959 to 1972.
The leader of the movement wasJean-Pierre Lévy. Under the aegis ofJean Moulin, the movement merged withLibération-sud andCombat to create the newMouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR).
Franc-Tireur is a movement in the southern zone that has the most roots in Lyon. Founded in 1941 by a group of men from various backgrounds, it is a movement of personalities with the same political sensitivity, opposition to the armistice and, from the outset, to the MarshalPétain himself.[29]
The initiators of the movement met at home or during card games at the CaféMoulin joli. The first members wereAntoine Avinin, member of theYoung Republic League political party and left-wing Catholic,Auguste Pinton [fr], former city councillor,Élie Péju [fr], andJean-Jacques Soudeille [fr], former communists turned radicals.[30]
They and a few others got together at the end of November 1940 and founded a movement they called "France-Liberté" whose mission was to fight against government propaganda and to mobilize against defeat and the authoritarian order which was taking hold. The group began by writing leaflets against the Nazis and Pétain, which were limited to small numbers of hand-typed copies due to lack of funds.[30]
The group had its first wave of success with the arrival of Jean-Pierre Lévy, an Alsatian refugee who brought aronéo in the spring of 1941 and launched the idea of expanding its influence by publishing a real newspaper.[30]
With the support of the printerHenri Chevalier [fr], 6000 copies of the first issue were published in December 1941. They were printed on four pages of 21 x 27.5 cm (8 1/2 x 11 inch) format. The title "Franc-Tireur" is an allusion to the groups of volunteers who formed outside the normal military framework to defend their country and the Republic in theFranco-Prussian War. The tone of articles was humorous (the newspaper's ironic subtitle was, "monthly as far as possible, and by the grace of the Marshal's Police".[31][f] then "monthly in spite of the Gestapo and the Vichy police"[32][g] and took an offensive tone against the Marshal and the Germans. The main themes were opposition to the new order and the occupying Germans, denunciation of their misdeeds, and the call to resistance by all people of good will. Issue number one ended with the words, "There is only one task: to resist, to organize.".[30][h]
On 27 August 1939, theÉdouard Daladier government banned publication ofL'Humanité after it approved theGerman-Soviet Pact.
L'Humanité then appeared clandestinely for five years (383 issues of 200,000 copies)[33] and refrained from attacking the Germans until August 1940. Many of its journalists and manufacturing staff perished in the struggle against the Nazi occupier, such asGabriel Péri (responsible for an international column, shot on 15 December 1941 at theFort Mont-Valérien, andLucien Sampaix. The newspaper reappeared openly once more on 21 August 1944, during theLiberation of Paris.
The clandestine issue of 20 May 1941 contained an appeal of theFrench Communist Party (PCF) concerning the creation of theNational Front for the Struggle for the Liberation and Independence of France:
The CP is directed to all those who think French and want to be act their Frenchness... In this National Front for Independence there is room for all French people except for the capitalist dogs and traitors in the service of the invader, so that France may be France and not become a Nazi colony national unity must be achieved... against the invaders and traitors, against the Vichy government which obeys the orders of the German occupiers.
The National Front published numerous national and local clandestine newspapers and flyers.[34]From the spring of 1943 to theLiberation, 79 publications were published.[35]In 1944-1945 they published, according to an internalFrench Communist Party (PCF) source, "Seventeen dailies, one million sales. three weeklies:La Marseillaise (Île-de-France),France d'abord,Action. Five literary weeklies, 35 periodicals (weeklies) in the provinces.".[36]
Among them, were:
They also published books and brochures, such as a book about theOradour-sur-Glane massacre.[39]
The underground paperLibération was the voice of the Resistance movementLibération-Sud.It was launched in July 1941 byRaymond Aubrac andEmmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie. It became one of the most important and widely distributed of all Resistance newspapers.Libération reappeared openly in regular publication at theLiberation of France in August 1944.
The first published edition ofLibération, dated July 1941, resulted in the distribution of over 10,000 copies. In autumn 1942, Jules Meurillon was named in charge of the propaganda and distribution service of the organization and successfully increased the annual circulation ofLibération to over 200,000 copies by August 1944.[40]
This paper published by Resistance movementLibération-Sud, is thesame paper that was reestablished in 1973 byJean-Paul Sartre andSerge July.[41]
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On 16 November 1941 in Lyon, Jesuit priest FatherPierre Chaillet secretly published the firstCahier du Témoignage chrétien ("Christian Testimony Notes"). Entitled, "France, beware of losing your soul",[i] in the form of a small pamphlet (hence the name). It contained a vibrant appeal to oppose Nazism in the name of Christian values. It was entirely written by FatherGaston Fessard. "Christian Testimony" was originally due to be called "Catholic Testimony", but due toecumenism and following the participation ofProtestants in the secret cell initially made up ofJesuits theologians from the Theologate ofFourvière (Lyon), the adjective "Catholic" was changed to "Christian". Parallel to theCahiers du Témoignage Chrétien, which dealt with a single topic in each issue, there was also theCourrier Français du Témoignage Chrétien (French Christian Testimony Mail) from May 1943, appeared in a print run of 100,000 rising to 200,000 copies.
The editorial team was headed by FatherPierre Chaillet, and included severalJesuits, especially from the Jesuit theologate ofFourvière in Lyon, includingGaston Fessard andHenri de Lubac, secular priests includingPierre Bockel [fr] andAlexandre Glasberg [fr], who were joined by lay persons André Mandouze, Joseph Hours,Robert d'Harcourt.[42] It was printed secretly by a printer from Lyon,Eugène Pons, who ended up deported, and died.
A unique feature ofTémoignage Chrétien compared to other Resistance newspapers, was its claim to aspiritual resistance [fr]. In fact, the basis forTémoignage Chrétien's opposition to Nazism is the Gospel and Christian ideals. The subtitle of theTémoignage Chrétien is Linking the Front of spiritual resistance against Hitlerism.[j] Thirteen issues ofCourrier du Témoignage Chrétien and fourteen of "Cahiers" were distributed before the liberation.
Prohibited from publication in 1939,La Vie ouvrière [43] reappeared as an underground paper in February 1940. In the early days of the occupation,Benoît Frachon,André Tollet,Eugène Hénaff, and a few other union activists from the formerUnited General Confederation of Labor, excluded from theGeneral Confederation of Labor in September 1939, who had escaped the search by the French police, relaunched the newspaper. Two hundred twenty-three issues were published throughout the occupation, focusing on daily life: cost of living, food shortages, supply problems, low salaries, and so on. It called for struggle, union reunification of unions, and fought against internal division. It denounced employers who had largely sunk into collaboration with the occupiers, and reported regularly about the struggles taking place in business.[citation needed]
Others includeArc [fr], which published 20 issues of two- to three hundred copies, the first eight of which were under the nameLibre France. It stopped publishing early in 1941.[citation needed]. The underground paperL'Espoir [fr] was published inGuérande, in the northwestern part of France, and was published from 13 August 1944 to 10 May 1945, after the local paper, thePresqu'île guérandaise, was forbidden to publish by the German military authorities in March 1944. In issue number one, on 13 August, they ran an editorial about their goals:[44]
This little open flyer shouldn't be called "Hope", but rather, "Liaison agent". Certainly, it brings hope that we will soon be welcoming our liberators, hope that this war, forced upon us by the Germans, will end as soon as possible, but also, it acts as a connection among people, among families, all friends dreaming the same dream. It's the intermediary that will bring you the voice broadcast by Radio London."[k]
— "Éditorial", La Presqu'île guérandaise (13 August 1944)
On 7 May 1945, they published a "special victory edition", and the next day, they ran a story about the joy in Guérande after they learned of the liberation the day before at 4:30 pm.[45] The last issue came out 10 May 1945 after the electricity came back on, once again allowing the populace to hear the news live from Radio London, and no longer needing to read a printed account of what the radio had broadcast the day before.[45]
A small number of underground presses were also active in printing illegal books and works of literature. The most notable example of this wasLe Silence de la mer byJean Bruller published illegally in Paris in 1942. Its publisher, "Les Éditions de Minuit", became a successful commercial literary publisher in post-war France.
See also the French categoryJournal clandestin de la Résistance française
In France the most popular symbol of resistance was the doublebarred cross of Lorraine, adopted by the London - based leader of the Free French, General Charles de Gaulle.
During World War II, the underground fighters of the French Resistance adopted the cross of Lorraine
When de Gaulle in London in 1940 lighted the flame of French resistance, he had had no political experience. In this there were advantages as well as disadvantages. He chose as the symbol of his movement the Cross of Lorraine.
The first issue was in circulation by 11 November 1940.Le premier exemplaire circula dès le 11 novembre 1940.
