French WWII resistance hero Raymond Aubrac dies aged 97

BBC ^ | 11 April 2012

[CougarGA7]

One of the leading figures of the French resistance against the Nazis, Raymond Aubrac, has died aged 97, his family says....

[CougarGA7]

A French resistance fighter or perhaps a informer after his 1943 capture. Either way, RIP to another player in World War II.

[CougarGA7]

Ping for the realtime list.

[iowamark]

Aubrac was a Stalinist. Many French resistance fighters were communists, they were fighting for Stalin, not for France.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[nathanbedford]

Indeed there is a school of historical thought that argues that French elites, especially the military, would rather lose to Hitler than to the communists and this mindset accounts for their lackluster defense of France in 1940.

[kearnyirish2]

“Indeed there is a school of historical thought that argues that French elites, especially the military, would rather lose to Hitler than to the communists and this mindset accounts for their lackluster defense of France in 1940.”

That can be directly attributed to the murder of over 7,000 priests (including 12 bishops) and over 100 nuns in Spain during their civil war of 1936-1939; the Stalinists & Anarchists were ruthless, and Spain was saved from them by the intervention of Mussolini & Hitler.

[nathanbedford]

It is startling to consider the parallels between the French revolution and the Communist occupied areas of Spain during that war. It did not just extend to anticlericalism but to confiscation of property, terror, etc.

Small wonder the French were wary of a repeat of their own 18th-century terror and could regard fascism not the lesser of two evils but as an actual savior.

[drpix]

The neo-Stalinist in Russia will probably give him an Order-Of-Stalin medal, if he doesn't already have a secret one.

The "French" Resistance was a Stalin initiated and controlled front operation. French "resistance" did not appear during the entire first year of Germany occupation after June 22, 1940 - when the Hitler-Stalin pact was in effect. It was not until after the June 22, 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union - on June 22, 1941 - that the 1st "resistance" attack occurred in France. That was the August 21, 1941 assassination of a German officer.

As for Raymond Aubrac's background before WWII, here's from the machine generated translation of Wikipedia French article on Aubrac (LINK):

"During these student years, Raymond attends Labour University, a study circle {of} Marxist Communist intellectuals."

The article continues with his post war career as a Communist collaborator, sympathizer and asset. It was one of various government positions under Communists as their closest and most trusted fellow traveler dancing to every tune they played.

In 1946 he even had Ho Chi Minh living with his family in Paris for several months (and makes Ho "godfather" of one of his daughters) before Ho returned to Vietnam to begin the First Indochina War (against France) in late 1946.

[FreeAtlanta]

I hate that he was a stalinist, but I respect his courage in resisting the Nazis.

If things go more wrong here, will we have a resistance?

[kearnyirish2]

“It did not just extend to anticlericalism but to confiscation of property, terror, etc.”

Absolutely; Spain did away with any titles of respect as the French addressed everyone as “Citizen (whatever)”, and everybody started wearing farm clothes to avoid being targeted. When Franco won, he nullified any land titles issued from July 1936 through the end of the war in the Communist zone (though by that time many of the original owners were dead - at least the property could remain with surviving family). The US treatment of the generals’ revolt (which originally didn’t even include Franco) to this day is a disgrace; we live in a very post-Christian culture.

I was shocked that the “Nazi Collaborators” series actually ran a commercial in which it described the motives of people involved (opportunist and such); it describes some as trying to “save their people”. For a very one-sided series, I was impressed that the commercial was so frank about what motivated some back then.

[BroJoeK]

kearnyirish2: "That can be directly attributed to the murder of over 7,000 priests (including 12 bishops) and over 100 nuns in Spain during their civil war of 1936-1939; the Stalinists & Anarchists were ruthless, and Spain was saved from them by the intervention of Mussolini & Hitler."

Those are extraordinarily interesting numbers, because they suggests a "holocaust" of clergy in Spain under the Communists ranked roughly equal to the next "holocaust" by Nazis of clergy during WWII.

Can you cite a source for those numbers?

Here are WWII numbers from just Poland:

"During the Nazi occupation, the Catholic Church in Poland experienced enormous clerical and material losses.
According to the latest research by W. Jacewicz and J. Woś, in the years 1939–1945, 2,801 members of the clergy lost their lives; they were either murdered during the occupation or killed in military manoeuvres.
Among them were 6 bishops, 1,926 diocesan priests and clerics, 375 priests and clerics from monastic orders, 205 brothers, and 289 sisters. 599 diocesan priests and clerics were killed in executions, as well as 281 members of the monastic clergy (priests, brothers and sisters).
Of the 1,345 members of the clergy murdered in death camps, 798 perished in Dachau, 167 in Auschwitz, 90 in Działdowo, 85 in Sachsenhausen, 71 in Gusen, 40 in Stutthof, and the rest in camps such as Buchenwald, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen, Majdanek, Bojanowo, and others."

Clearly Hitler's National Socialists and Stalin's International Socialists shared one conviction: a lust to murder Christian clergy.

[kearnyirish2]

“Can you cite a source for those numbers?”

“The Last Crusade” by Warren Carroll (1996); he gives great examples (dates, locations, and I believe he names all of the bishops killed). Basically most of the clergy in the southern “government zone” (Barcelona, Madrid, etc.) were killed within the first year of the war; the Basques kept their religion in the northern zone, seeking independence instead of Communist “utopia”. Oddly enough, the intervention of Hitler & Mussolini saved the Church in Spain.

Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI have canonized a number of these martyrs, and I suspect the following Popes will for decades.