...despite Gaubert's threats, he kept me by his side. This journalist wanted to refer the matter to the minister. I do not know what he did.
From 1943 onwards, when victory began to look doubtful on the German side, attitudes gradually shifted. First came indifference, then sympathy. But the Communist Party had rallied to the Resistance ever since Germany had declared war on Russia. Many Berrichon resisters were reluctant to follow them. But as I used to say, "I would rally with goats if need be to drive the Germans out of France."
On the military side, this was perhaps even more evident than on the civilian side. Many military men and officers had, owing to the lowering of age limits, risen one or two rungs in the hierarchy. They rallied to de Gaulle in good time and ultimately became more Gaullist than we were, at a point when they no longer risked anything by displaying their opinions. All they stood to gain was keeping their hastily acquired rank and, if need be, advancing further under a new government. They all rushed to meet victory, to come to its rescue.
Here are the circumstances under which I left the prefecture and Châteauroux. Threatened from all sides, I fled. I left just in time. Two hours later, it would have been too late. And had the prefect not acted toward me as he did, I would surely have died at Dachau or been shot.
The Germans had forced me to change offices. Suspicious of me, they had unceremoniously expelled me from the Dauvergne building, so named because it had been erected by the departmental architect of that name. For my peace of mind and to facilitate clandestine visits, I had set myself up near the archives building, somewhat removed from the heart of the prefecture.
Now, on 30 May 1944, I received a visit from a civilian wearing blue-tinted glasses. And there was no sun: "I am Alsatian-Lorrainer," he told me. "I am a deserter from the German army, where I was forcibly conscripted. I would like you to prepare an identity card for me. I know from very reliable friends that you make them, etc., etc." But those blue-tinted glasses, that claim of being an "Alsatian-Lorrainer" — which is a German construction, as one is either Alsatian or Lorrainer — put me on alert, made me suspicious. I felt I had already seen that face, which I suddenly recognised despite his grotesque disguise. I had seen him in front of the Gestapo building, and the odds were nine out of ten that the man before me was a German agent. I did not lose my composure. Far from it. I had my loaded pistol in my pocket. Indeed, that weapon had not left me for a single day during the time our enemies were in Châteauroux. I went
into the next room where I had the telephone and asked my visitor to wait a few moments. Without him hearing me, I telephoned directly to the German commander of the Châteauroux garrison, Major Müller.
"You are a German officer," I told him, "and like me, you have no love for deserters — those who abandon their flag. Well, at this very moment in my office there is a German soldier, dressed in civilian clothing, who wishes to desert. I abhor cowards and deserters and, in all honesty, I am reporting him to you. What would you have me do with this man?" "I thank you," he replied, "you are acting as an officer should. I am sending military police to arrest him immediately."
Less than five minutes later, a German car with four German military policemen and a non-commissioned officer arrived at my office and arrested the supposed deserter, who was truly stunned and understood nothing. He was thus taken away by these gentlemen wearing their insignia on their chests, and he had the sense to say nothing, even as the Feldwebel swiftly ushered him out of my office and thanked me for my initiative, which he said was worthy of a German officer. But this affair gave me no comfort. I had understood. The Gestapo wanted to obtain proof of my anti-German activities. Had I given a false identity card to this man, he would have returned the next day with his associates to shove the evidence of my resistance activities "under my nose" and would have arrested me.
I reported this incident to the prefect, who, having been warned shortly before by the militiaman Coste that I would probably — indeed certainly — be arrested soon, urged me insistently to leave my post that very day. "Go to Vichy," he told me, "stay there for a few days on liaison duty; after that, you will decide, but leave, leave as quickly as possible and as far away as you can. It is in your interest, your life is at stake — do not stay here, do not come back." So I departed "on liaison duty" to the Hôtel des Célestins, where the Ministry of the Interior was housed, taking the opportunity to gather information about natives of the Indre department held at the Nexon camp, with a view to requesting their release. I lodged at the Hôtel Albert 1er, where I was, I must say, very comfortable — certainly more so than I would have been at Dachau.
Before leaving, on 31 May 1944, I hastily removed all the incriminating correspondence accumulated in my office, including all postal and telephone intercepts liable to cause trouble for their senders. All the lists of patriots, of people likely to be of service to us in the Resistance — all these files were burned, and in haste. I was right to do so, for two days later the Gestapo came directly
34. Internment camp for political prisoners and Jews located south of Limoges. (Editor's note).
into my office, forced the door open and conducted an exhaustive search, taking away documents of no importance — what interested them having already disappeared.
But I had done something even more important by removing a crucial file. Among my various duties at the prefecture, I was the organiser of the transport plan in the event of an Allied arrival and the cessation of rail services — a plan intended primarily for the Germans, for their evacuation and their supply. I had lists of my own making, methodically compiled under the watchful eyes of our occupiers. They included the owners of motor vehicles, drivers, coal depots for gas generators, requisitions to be carried out in order of priority, and so forth. All of this was to be placed at the Germans' disposal immediately and without delay when they so requested. Files, itineraries, prepared requisition orders — all of it went into my office stove in less than an hour. I could leave with a clear conscience. And so, when they left Châteauroux a little later, the Germans demanded these documents. Naturally, nothing was found. Files missing, lost — the Germans were furious. Everything was turned upside down in the search for these documents. The prefect blamed the Gestapo for having taken them during their search conducted in his absence, and since the Gestapo had acted on its own initiative, the Germans could not blame the prefect, who, in truth, genuinely did not know that I had destroyed the files they so desperately sought. Only Mademoiselle Leydet suspected what had happened. She came to our home, 29 rue Fleury, to see if I had perhaps brought those famous documents there, as they were urgently needed. She came as a matter of form and with a smile, she told me later. But since the Châteauroux militia had also come to search my home and had taken a quantity of "papers," they too were blamed by the Germans for having removed and lost the famous transport plan. In short, the plan could not be implemented; the requisitions were carried out haphazardly. Much German equipment was left behind and, fearing the Allied advance, the German detachment departed on foot one fine morning, without having it announced by the town crier.
A word about the search that took place at my home. It was led by one Villeneuve, a young dandy who was head of the city's militia. They took papers — "always papers" — and my Citroën car, brand new. Then, since no profit is too small, they took a new suit, equipment, my reserve petrol and my tools. On the other hand, in their zeal, they failed to notice the case of military cartridges sitting right there, which served us well later at Le Poinçonnet, during our encounter with the German troops withdrawing from the Atlantic coast.