Olier Mordrel (29 April 1901 – 25 October 1985) is theBreton language version ofOlivier Mordrelle, aBreton nationalist and wartime collaborator with theThird Reich who founded the separatistBreton National Party. Before the war, he worked as an architect. His architectural work was influenced byArt Deco and theInternational style ofLe Corbusier. He was also an essayist, short story writer, and translator. Mordrel wrote some of his works under thepen namesJean de La Bénelais,J. La B,Er Gédour,A. Calvez,Otto Mohr,Brython, andOlivier Launay.
The son of aCorsican woman who had married GeneralJoseph Mordrelle (died in 1942), Olier Mordrel was born in Paris and spent most of his childhood there (paradoxically, the place where he also learned Breton). After studies at theÉcole des Beaux-Arts, he became an architect inQuimper for ten years.
He joinedBreiz Atao in 1919 and became president ofUnvaniez Yaouankiz Vreiz ("Youth Union of Brittany") in 1922. Together withRoparz Hemon, he created theliterary magazineGwalarn (1925), and was included in the Breton delegation to theFirst Pan-Celtic Congress inDublin (alongsideFrançois Jaffrennou,Morvan Marchal, andYves Le Drézen). Subsequently, Mordrel became co-president of theBreton Autonomist Party (Parti Autonomiste Breton, or PAB), and then its secretary forpropaganda. During the same year, he started mixing his political and aesthetical ideals, adaptingArt Deco to Breton themes, and aligning himself with the Breton art movementSeiz Breur.
In 1932, he created theBreton National Party (PNB), a nationalist and separatist Breton movement that would be outlawed byPrime MinisterÉdouard Daladier in October 1939, for its connections withNazi Germany. In an article he contributed to the 11 December 1932Breiz Atao, Mordrel launched ananti-semitic attack, one aiming to addNational-socialist rhetoric to his discourse against Frenchcentralism: "Jacobin rime avec Youppin" - translatable as "Jacobin rhymes withYid". The same year, he conceived theStrollad Ar Gelted Adsavet (SAGA,Party of RisenCelts) and its Nazi-like platform - which included Bretons in theNordic "master race".
Mordrel also launchedStur, a magazine which displayed the swastika in its title, and the 1936Peuples et Frontières (initially titledBulletin des minorités nationales de France), which served as the voice forseparatistminorityethnic groups throughoutEurope. A noted contributor was theAlsatianHermann Bickler, who later became aGestapo commander. On 14 December 1938 Mordrel andFrançois Debeauvais were each sentenced to one-year suspended imprisonment for "attack on the nation's unity".
Throughout this period Mordrel was working as an architect. He created a number of buildings in Quimper which were the most advanced examples of modern architecture in the city, adopting theStreamline Moderne style. The most important of these is the Ty-Kodak building at the new-town area of cité Kerguelen. It has been described as "the most original and much the most beautiful" of modern buildings in the city.[1] It was constructed in 1933. The building has a wrap-around structure comparable to work by Le Corbusier and alternates smooth white surface with blue tiling. According to the architectural critic Daniel Le Couedic, the "gentle sweep" of the broad white bands around the corner is contrasted dramatically with the strong angular and stabilising vertical structures of the windows.[2] It is signed with the architect's name on the boulevard facade.
Several other Mordrel buildings are no longer extant, including his Garage d’Odet, a garage/factory designed to use modernist style to achieve space for maximum efficiency of manufacturing and repair.[2]
Just beforeWorld War II erupted in 1939, Mordrel, Debeauvais, and their families (including Debeauvais's wife,Anna Youenou, who has since published an account of the travel) left for Berlin, via Belgium and the Netherlands. While inAmsterdam, the two leaders issued amanifesto calling for the Bretons not to back the French forces. ALizer Brezel ("Letter of War") they wrote to PNB members in January 1940 stated that "a real Breton does not have the right to die for France" and "our enemies are first and foremost the French, it is they who have not ceased causing misfortune to Brittany".
Amilitary tribunal inRennes tried Debeauvais and Mordrelin absentia and sentenced them to death for separatist activities,treason, maintaining active a banned group, and incitement todesertion or treason. In early May, the Germans awarded Mordrel the leadership of a self-designatedgovernment in exile, theBretonische Regierung; nonetheless, the two Bretons were not given the status of "leaders of Brittany", and the Germanpassports they carried readstateless (Statenlos). They were allowed to travel only because of their connections with influential German army officers. With the start of theGerman occupation of France, the activists returned to Brittany on 1 July, re-founded the PNB, and Mordrel started printingL'Heure Bretonne (edited byMorvan Lebesque).
By the end of June and early July, Breton independentists could take it for granted that Brittany could be independent when a military governor was appointed to rule over the five départements of ancient Brittany. After a self-designated Congress inPontivy founded theBreton National Committee, Mordrel took charge of the PNB in late October, and subsequently led a campaign againstVichy France that was tacitly encouraged by the Germans. His relation withCélestin Lainé became tense after Lainé'sparamilitaryLu Brezhon started competing with the National Committee in October. Mordrel's actions against Vichy did not have the intended effect, and the PNB's appeal was minimal; at the same time, Germany had started placing its trust with Vichy leaderPhilippe Pétain, and in the end, supported Mordrel's ousting from the Committee in December. He seems to have been disappointed with the PNB's position himself. In November, he stated: "Our force is within ourselves. Neither Vichy nor Berlin will render the Breton people the necessary status forself-determination, regrouping, and giving itself a path. Our fate is being decided in our fibres... Let us not expect anything that is not from ourselves". He resigned his positions with the PNB and its journal, being replaced byRaymond Delaporte.
Mordrel was assigned residence in Germany: first inStuttgart, then, from January 1941, in Berlin. However, he was barred from Brittany and from separatist activism.Leo Weisgerber offered him the position ofCeltic languages professor at theUniversity of Bonn and orchestrated his return to Paris in May. He was allowed to settle inMayenne, where he was frequently visited and consulted by his Breton friends - includingJean Merrien,Rafig Tullou,Jean Trécan, andRené-Yves Creston; throughout 1943, he kept contacts with his fellow writer and Occupation regime figureLouis-Ferdinand Céline. In September Mordrel was allowed to return to Rennes, where, while both the PNB leadership and Vichy agents called on the Germans to expel him, he was kept as an alternative by the Nazi authorities. After 1942 he was again even allowed to editStur.
After theAllied invasion during thebattle of Normandy, Brittany was taken on 13 August 1944 and Mordrel was forced to flee to Germany. In February 1945 Mordrel began talks with French fascist leaderJacques Doriot and hisParti Populaire Français, Mordrel acting on his own. The two sides agreed on a programme of Breton independence within a "Swiss-like"federation. After being briefly active in theumbrella group created by Doriot, he had to flee to Italy, where his wife died in the difficult conditions to which the couple on the run was reduced. Seeing no way out, he gave himself up to the American army. He was detained and interrogated for several months by the secret service. He saved his life by telling everything he knew of his fellow Breton separatists, the members of the Irish Republican Army and relations with different German secret services. In an agreement with the head of the British secret services, he was released but was officially declared to have escaped from prison because the new French authorities claimed him for execution. Again “on the run”, but with the backing of the American secret services, he found refuge inBrazil, thenArgentina, and finally inFrancoist Spain. He was again sentenced to deathin absentia, in June 1946, but continued to contribute material to the magazineAr Vro asBrython.
Mordrel returned to France incognito in 1972 and continued writing forLa Bretagne Réelle asOtto Mohr (a name he had used in 1940), as well as editing several books - including a history of theWaffen-SS (Waffen SS d'Occident). In the 1980s, he was among the founders ofKelc'h Maksen Wledig ("EmperorMaxentius' Circle"), together with such figures of thefar right asYann Ber Tillenon andGeorges Pinault; later, he was active in theGRECE, an organization associated with extremist politics, led byAlain de Benoist. Nonetheless, in the1981 presidential race, Mordrel backedSocialist candidateFrançois Mitterrand.
Mordrel's sonTristan Mordrelle (pen nameAndré Chelain) is a far-righthistorical revisionist who runs theAssociation bretonne de recherche historique (ABRH) and edits its journalL'Autre Histoire.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
