Fernand Pauriol: Difference between revisions

'''Fernand Baptistin Pauriol''' (13 September 1913 in [[Mallemort]] – 12 August 1944 in [[Fresnes, Val-de-Marne|Fresnes]]) was a French communist, journalist and resistance fighter with the [[French Communist Party]] (PCF) during [[World War II]].<ref name="Maitron">{{cite web |last1=Lemarquis |first1=René |last2=Pennetier |first2=Claude |last3=Guillon |first3=Jean-Marie |title=PAURIOL Fernand. Pseudonymes in the Resistance: Fernand Duval, Maurice Rivière |url=https://fusilles-40-44.maitron.fr/spip.php?article75920 |website=Maitron Fusillés |publisher=University of Paris, Centre for Social History |access-date=17 October 2023 |language=fr}}</ref><ref name="Bourg">{{cite book |last=Bourgeois |first=Guillaume |title=La Véritable Histoire de l'Orchestre rouge |publisher=Nouveau Monde |series=Le Grand Jeu |isbn=9782369420675 |date=2015|page=381}}</ref> As a young man, Pauriol trained and worked as a sailor, later specialising in [[wireless telegraphy]]. Under the influence of his father, he became interested in communist politics and that led him to join the PCF. In the later interwar period, he swapped his maritime career for a career working underground in the PCF. When the war started, his skills in building radio transmitters enabled him to become the director of communications for PCF. on He2 becameMarch a1942 memberwhen ofhe areplaced SovietCharly espionage group later called the [[Red Orchestra (espionage)|Red Orchestra]] ("Rote Kapelle") by the [[Abwehr]]Villard and used the alias "Duval". He was eventually arrested by the [[Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle]] and shot.

At the beginning of the war, the communist parties in Europe needed to continue communications with parties in the Soviet Union, for example the [[Communist International]] (Comintern) and in this respect the PCF was no different. In 1938, Pauriol was evaluated twice by the executive committee of the PCF to prove his electrical engineering and radio telegraphist skills were up to par.<ref name="Maitron"/> When he was released from his conscription, he immediately went to work underground for the now banned PCF, using the new name of "Duval".<ref name="Maitron"/> He lead, along with this wife Hélène, led a permanent team of around twenty French and Spanish people, providing radio communications for the group.<ref name="Bourg"/> The PCF seconded Pauriol to a Soviet espionage network that was run in Europe by [[Leopold Trepper]]<ref name="Maitron"/> in February 1942.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Perrault |first1=Gilles |title=The Red Orchestra |date=1969 |publisher=Schocken Books |location=New York |isbn=0-8052-0952-2 |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/redorchestra00perr_0|page=104}}</ref> In April 1942, Pauriol constructed a radio transmitter that was used by Hersch and Miriam Sokol to provide a link to London for Trepper to transmit intelligence from an apartment in [[Maisons-Laffitte]]. The cipher clerk was Vera Ackermann.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bourgeois |first=Guillaume |title=La Véritable Histoire de l'Orchestre rouge |publisher=Nouveau Monde |series=Le Grand Jeu |isbn=9782369420675 |date=2015|page=118}}</ref> At the time this was only link between the Rote Kapelle in France and the Soviet Union.<ref name="Maitron"/>

In May 1943, Pauriol was contacted via the PCF liaison agent Juliette Moussier<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tasca |first1=Angelo |last2=Peschanski |first2=Denis |title=Vichy 1940-1944 : quaderni e documenti inediti di Angelo Tasca |date=1986 |publisher=Feltrinelli Editore |isbn=978-88-07-99044-1 |page=128 |language=fr}}</ref> who informed him that she had first been visited by [[Abraham Rajchmann]]<ref name="Perrault_p355">{{cite book |last1=Perrault |first1=Gilles |title=The Red Orchestra |date=1969 |publisher=Schocken Books |location=New York |isbn=0805209522 |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/redorchestra00perr_0|page=355}}</ref> and then later [[Hillel Katz]]. On both occasions, she had pretended she did not know them.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Perrault |first1=Gilles |title=The Red Orchestra |date=1969 |publisher=Schocken Books |location=New York |isbn=0805209522 |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/redorchestra00perr_0|page=356}}</ref> The meeting with Moussier had been arranged by Gestapo officer [[Karl Giering]] of the [[Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle]] and was part of a German [[Funkspiel]] operation. Trepper was in custody of the [[Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Perrault |first1=Gilles |title=The Red Orchestra |date=1969 |publisher=Schocken Books |location=New York |isbn=0805209522 |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/redorchestra00perr_0|pages=354–355}}</ref> Ostensibly the operation was to prove to Soviet intelligence that he was still free and enable the Funkspiel operation to continue, otherwise he would likely have been executed<ref>{{cite book |last=Bourgeois |first=Guillaume |title=La Véritable Histoire de l'Orchestre rouge |publisher=Nouveau Monde |series=Le Grand Jeu |isbn=9782369420675 |date=2015|pages=299–311}}</ref> but in reality it was an operation by Trepper to pass a message to the PCF that confirmed the espionage network had collapsed. Trepper had instructed Moussier not to recognise anybody from the Trepper network except himself.<ref name="Perrault_p355"/> On 10 May 1943, Trepper finally obtained permission from [[Karl Giering]] to meet with Moussier directly.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bourgeois |first=Guillaume |title=La Véritable Histoire de l'Orchestre rouge |publisher=Nouveau Monde |series=Le Grand Jeu |isbn=9782369420675 |date=2015|page=419}}</ref> In early June 1943, Trepper met Moussier<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kaňák |first1=Petr |last2=Vajskebr |first2=Jan |last3=Zumr |first3=Jan |title=Heinrich Reiser – válečný zločinec ve víru studené války |journal=Securitas Imperii: Journal for the Study of Modern Dictatorships |date=30 June 2021 |volume=38 |issue=1 |page=241 |doi=10.53096/YFLY3966|language=Czech|doi-access=free }}</ref> and passed a message from Giering, supposedly from Trepper to inform Soviet Intelligence that the French Rote Kapelle was still functioning, as well his own report{{efn|Treppers report survived and was found in 1990 in the archives of the Comintern. Bourgeois has analysed the report.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bourgeois |first=Guillaume |title=La Véritable Histoire de l'Orchestre rouge |publisher=Nouveau Monde |series=Le Grand Jeu |isbn=9782369420675 |date=2015|pages=421-440421–440}}</ref>}} and a letter instructing Duclos to send the report to Soviet intelligence as soon as possible.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Perrault |first1=Gilles |title=The Red Orchestra |date=1969 |publisher=Schocken Books |location=New York |isbn=0805209522 |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/redorchestra00perr_0|page=357}}</ref> After the meeting, Moussier went into hiding. During the summer Pauriol visited Moussier and her husband Milo in Beugne l'Abbe, west of [[Luçon]] and arranged for the couple to dissapeardisappear.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bourgeois |first=Guillaume |title=La Véritable Histoire de l'Orchestre rouge |publisher=Nouveau Monde |series=Le Grand Jeu |isbn=9782369420675 |date=2015|page=441}}</ref>

Giering knew about the existence of Pauriol from the ''V-Mann'' [[Abraham Rajchmann]].{{efn|''V-Mann'', short for ''Vertrauens-mann''.<ref name="Hogg2016">{{cite book|last=Hogg|first=Ian V. |title=German Secret Weapons of World War II: The Missiles, Rockets, Weapons, and New Technology of the Third Reich|date=12 April 2016|publisher=Skyhorse|isbn=978-1-5107-0368-1|page=48}}</ref> (German:[[:de:V-Mann|V-Mann]], plural V-Leute). They were generally prisoners who agreed to work as undercover agents on pain of death, should they have refused.}} When Moussier disappeared, he ordered the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle to search for Pauriol all over France, but months past and there was no sign of him.<ref name="Perrault.p363">{{cite book |last1=Perrault |first1=Gilles |title=The Red Orchestra |date=1969 |publisher=Schocken Books |location=New York |isbn=0-8052-0952-2 |language=en |url=https://archive.org/details/redorchestra00perr_0|page=363}}</ref> Giering decided to adopt another approach and used the Funkspiel to request Soviet intelligence send them the name of a radio technician to repair Trepper's malfunctioning radio transmitter.<ref name="Perrault.p363"/> The plan worked as they received the name of a [[Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis|Saint-Denis]], Paris based repair technician, named Georges "JoJo" Vayssairat.<ref name="Perrault.p363"/> Vayssairat was arrested and tortured, and became a ''V-Mann''. Vayssairat exposed the name of Auguste.<ref name="Perrault.p363"/> He was arrested and gave the name of Michel who was tortured for 12 days in [[Fresnes Prison]] before giving the name of an individual François who was hiding in [[Bordeaux]].<ref name="Bourgeois_p445">{{cite book |last=Bourgeois |first=Guillaume |title=La Véritable Histoire de l'Orchestre rouge |publisher=Nouveau Monde |series=Le Grand Jeu |isbn=9782369420675 |date=2015|page=445}}</ref> He was arrested by the Sonderkommando on 13 August 1943 during a meeting with Vayssairat<ref name="Bourgeois_p445"/> and taken to [[Fresnes Prison]].<ref name="Perrault.p363"/> Pauriol was tortured for three weeks but choose to remain silent before eventually exposing his own identity as Pauriol.<ref name="Perrault.p363"/> However, he never exposed any information on the Rote Kapelle or the PCF.<ref name="Perrault.p363"/> The Sonderkommando discovered six storage locations in different areas of Paris during the investigation of Pauriol, with the main one located in a house in [[Longjumeau]] that contained all the modern equipment necessary to build radio transmitters.<ref name="Bourg"/>

On 19 January 1944, Pauriol was sentenced to death at a Luftwaffe court martial held in Paris by Judge Advocate [[Manfred Roeder (judge)|Manfred Roeder]].<ref name="Maitron"/> On 12 August 1944, he was shot in the yard of [[Fort Mont-Valérien]] and buried in the [[Cimetière parisien de Bagneux]] cemetery in Bagneux, Paris, alongside [[Suzanne Spaak]]<ref name="Maitron"/> who was shot on the same day by Gestapo officer, [[Heinz Pannwitz]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Léopold Trepper|title=Die Wahrheit: Autobiographie des "Grand Chef" der Roten Kapelle|year=1995|publisher=Ahriman-Verlag GmbH|isbn=978-3-89484-554-4|page=385}}</ref>