The Affiche Rouge (French pronunciation: [a.fiʃʁuʒ] Red Poster) is a notorious propaganda poster, distributed by Vichy France and German authorities in the spring of 1944 in occupied Paris, to discredit 23 immigrant French Resistance fighters, members of the Manouchian Group . The term Affiche Rouge also refers more broadly to the circumstances surrounding the poster's creation and distribution, the capture, trial and execution of these members of the Manouchian Group.
In mid-November 1943, the French police arrested 23 members of the Communist Francs-Tireurs et Partisans de la Main d'Oeuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI), who were part of the French Resistance. [1] They were called the "Manouchian Group" after the commander, Missak Manouchian. The group was part of a network of about 100 fighters, who committed nearly all acts of armed resistance in the Paris metropolitan region between March and November 1943. [2]
Its membership included men of different backgrounds. 22 of them were Poles, five Italians, three Hungarians, two Armenians, three Spaniards, 1 French man and a Romanian woman; eleven members were Jewish. [3]
After having been tortured and interrogated for three months, the 23 were tried by a German military court. To discredit the Resistance, the authorities invited French celebrities (from the world of the cinema and other arts) to attend the trial and encourage the media to give it the widest coverage possible. All but one of the Manouchian Group's members were executed before a firing squad in Fort Mont-Valérien on 21 February 1944. Olga Bancic, who had served the group as a messenger, was taken to Stuttgart, where she was beheaded with an axe on 10 May 1944.
In the spring of 1944, the Vichy authorities launched a propaganda campaign, designed to discredit the Manouchian Group and defuse public anger over their execution. They created a poster, which became known as Affiche Rouge, due to its red background. It featured ten men of the group, with nationality, surnames, photos and descriptions of their crimes; the Germans distributed an estimated 15,000 copies of the poster. [4]
Along with these posters, the Germans handed out flyers that claimed the Resistance was headed by foreigners, Jews, unemployed people, and criminals; the campaign characterized the Resistance as a "foreigners' conspiracy against French life and the sovereignty of France": [5]
Si des Français pillent, volent, sabotent et tuent...
Ce sont toujours des étrangers qui les commandent.
Ce sont toujours des chômeurs et des criminels professionnels qui exécutent.
Ce sont toujours des juifs qui les inspirent.
C’est l’armée du crime contre la France.
Le banditisme n’est pas l’expression du patriotisme blessé, c’est le complot étranger contre la vie des Français et contre la souveraineté de la France.
C'est le complot de l'anti-France!...
C'est le rêve mondial du sadisme juif...
Étranglons-le avant qu'il nous étrangle, nous, nos femmes et nos enfants!
If Frenchmen loot, steal, sabotage and murder...
It is always foreigners who command them.
It is always unemployed and professional criminals who execute.
It is always Jews who inspire them.
It is the army of crime against France.
Banditism is not the expression of wounded patriotism, it is the foreign plot against the lives of the French and against the sovereignty of France.
It is the plot of anti-France!...
It is the world dream of Jewish sadism...
Let's strangle it before it strangles us, our wives and our children!
—Affiche rouge
Although the poster attempted to depict the group as "terrorists", the campaign seems to have had the effect of highlighting the feats of people whom the general public considered to be freedom fighters. [5] Legend has it that supporters scribbled the words MORTS POUR LA FRANCE across the posters ("They died for France" - the phrase used on official monuments to soldiers of France who died in combat) and put flowers beneath some of the posters. In 1975, historian Philippe Diaz Raymond claimed that there was no historical record of such activity. [6] But more recent research has in fact confirmed that such additions by residents took place. [5]
In 1955, Louis Aragon wrote a poem memorializing the Manouchian Group, "Strophes pour se souvenir". The poem was published in 1956 in Le roman inachevé . In 1959 Léo Ferré set it to music and recorded it as "L'Affiche rouge". Rouben Melik and Paul Éluard also wrote poems in honour of the Manouchian Group. [7] [8]
In 1997, at the prompting of Robert Badinter, a French senator and former Minister of Justice, the French Parliament authorized a monument to commemorate the execution at Mont-Valérien of 1,006 citizens and members of the French Resistance, including the Manouchian Group, between 1940 and 1944. The sculptor Pascal Convert was commissioned to create the monument and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin dedicated it on 20 September 2003.
In the 1980s, some French political factions suggested that, because of political infighting, some members of the Resistance had been complicit in the capture of many of the members of the Manouchian Group. A film documentary by Stéphane Courtois and Mosco Boucault, Des terroristes à la retraite , shot in 1983 and broadcast by Antenne 2 in 1985, included interviews of surviving FTP-MOI members and families of the victims. Boucault accused the French Communist Party (PCF) of having deliberately sacrificed the fighters in the power struggle with the Gaullists for control over the National Council of Resistance (CNR). He suggested this was done because the fighters' foreign origins undermined French depictions of the Resistance as a native patriotic movement. In Des terroristes à la retraite, Boris Holban was accused of having betrayed groupe Manouchian, sparking a heated dispute known as L’Affaire Manouchian. [9] The film was rebroadcast in 2001, minus 12 minutes deleted to reflect more recent historical research. [10]
La traque de l'Affiche rouge, a documentary produced by Denis Peschanski and Jorge Amat , broadcast by France 2 on 15 March 2007, refuted Courtois and Boucault's allegations. [11] [12] Quoting the historian Denis Peschanski, who had access to new documents from the Russian, French and German archives, the new documentary alleged that the fall of the Manouchian Group had been due exclusively to the French police. The two newly created branches of the Renseignements généraux (RG) intelligence agency—the Brigades spéciales 1 and 2—had trailed the Résistance fighters for months. On 28 September 1943, Marcel Rayman, with several others, shot and killed the SS General Julius von Ritter . [13] [14] Ritter organized the forced labor of the Service du travail obligatoire (STO). At that time, Rayman had already been under surveillance for two months. The French Milice arrested and dismantled the Manouchian Group after the attack, aided by information given by some members under torture.
In September 2009, the dramatic film L'Armée du crime opened in France, featuring the story of the Manouchian Group. Directed by Robert Guédiguian, a Marseille-based filmmaker of German and Armenian parentage, it was adapted from a story by Serge Le Péron. It reflects some of the divisions among the Résistance. [15] In association with the film's release, reporters interviewed the last surviving member of the FTP-MOI group, Arsène Tchakarian. He decisively refuted the allegation that the PCF had betrayed the Manouchian Group and said that 35 members of the 40 in the group were communists. [16] The film opened in the United States in 2010.
The poster reads:
Des libérateurs? La libération par l'armée du crime!
"Liberators? Liberation by the army of crime!"
From left to right, and top to bottom, individual portraits are labeled:
The bottom features photographs of:
Missak Manouchian was an Armenian poet and communist activist. A survivor of the 1915–1916 Armenian genocide, he moved to France from an orphanage in Lebanon in 1925. He was active in communist Armenian literary circles. During World War II, he became the military commissioner of FTP-MOI, a group consisting of European immigrants, including many Jews, in the Paris Region which carried out assassinations and bombings of Nazi targets. According to one author, the Manouchian group was the most active one of the French Resistance. Manouchian and many of his comrades were arrested in November 1943 and executed by the Nazis at Fort Mont-Valérien on 21 February 1944. He is considered a hero of the French Resistance and was entombed in the Panthéon in Paris.
"L'Affiche rouge" is a song from the album Les Chansons d'Aragon (1961) by Léo Ferré. Its lyrics are based on the poem Strophes pour se souvenir which Louis Aragon wrote in 1955 for the inauguration of a street in the 20th arrondissement in Paris, named "rue du Groupe Manouchian" in honor of 23 members of the FTP-MOI executed by the Nazis in the Mont-Valérien. The affair became known by the name of the Affiche rouge because the Germans plastered Paris in the spring of 1944 with thousands of red posters denouncing those executed as immigrants and Resistants.
The Francs-tireurs et partisans – main-d'œuvre immigrée (FTP-MOI) were a sub-group of the Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP) organization, a component of the French Resistance. A wing composed mostly of foreigners, the MOI maintained an armed force to oppose the German occupation of France during World War II. The Main-d'œuvre immigrée was the "Immigrant Movement" of the FTP.
Fort Mont-Valérien is a fortress in Suresnes, a western Paris suburb, built in 1841 as part of the city's ring of modern fortifications. It overlooks the Bois de Boulogne.
Wolf Wajsbrot was a member of the French Resistance under the Nazi occupation. He was born in the Polish town of Kraśnik. His parents moved to France shortly after his birth due to increasing antisemitism and a worsening economic climate, eventually settling in Paris.
Szlama Grzywacz (1909–1944) was one of the members of the French resistance executed at the fort of Mont Valérien as a member of the Manouchian group, a volunteer of the French liberation army FTP-MOI. His name is one of the ten which featured on the Affiche Rouge displayed by the Germans during the trial of the 23 captured members of the Manouchian group. His photograph is displayed with the caption Grzywacz juif polonais 2 attentats.
Thomas Elek, also known as Tamás Elek and KERPAL was one of 22 members of the French Resistance convicted and executed at the fort of Mont Valérien as one of the Manouchian Group, part of the French liberation army FTP-MOI. After the executions, the Vichy government sought to discredit the resistance members, and widely distributed and posted thousands of copies of the Affiche Rouge. Named for its red background, the poster featured ten of the Manouchian group, including Elek. It identified him as "Elek Juif Hongrois 8 déraillements".
Joseph Boczov or József Boczor, aka Ferenc Wolff was a Romanian chemical engineer, Hungarian Jew, and volunteer fighter for the French liberation army FTP-MOI. In 1942 Boczov founded and led the 4th detachment, called the dérailleurs, as they specialized in derailing trains. A specialist in explosives, Boczov had participated in military operations during the Spanish Civil War. He was executed in 1944 by the Germans after a show trial in Paris of the Manouchian Group.
Célestino Alfonso was a Spanish republican, a volunteer in the French liberation army FTP-MOI, and a part of the resistance operation led by Missak Manouchian. He was, by profession, a carpenter.
Marcel Rajman was a Polish Jew and volunteer fighter in the FTP-MOI group of French Resistance fighters during World War II, and the head of "Stalingrad", a highly active militant group.
Maurice Fingercwajg also Mojsze, Fingercweig, was a volunteer soldier in the French liberation army FTP-MOI and a member of the group of Missak Manouchian. He was one of the resistance fighters shot at Fort Mont Valérien.
Robert Witchitz was a volunteer soldier in the French liberation force FTP-MOI in the group of Missak Manouchian.
The Army of Crime is a 2009 French drama-war film directed by Robert Guédiguian and based on a story by Serge Le Péron, who is also one of three credited for the screenplay. It received a wide release in France on 16 September 2009 and opened in the United States in 2010.
Spartaco Fontanot was one of the members of the French resistance shot at Mont Valérien as a member of the Manouchian group. He was an Italian volunteer soldier in the French liberation army FTP-MOI. His name is one of the ten featured on the "affiche rouge", the propaganda poster displayed by the Germans during the trial of the 23 members of the Manouchian group. His photograph is also on the poster, with the caption "Fontanot, Italian communist, 12 attacks".
Salomon Wolf Willy Schapiro, was a Polish Jew, and a soldier in the FTP-MOI French liberation army in the Manouchian group).
The Mémorial de la France combattante is the most important memorial to French fighters of World War II (1939–1945). It is situated below Fort Mont-Valérien in Suresnes, in the western suburbs of Paris. It commemorates members of the armed forces from France and the colonies, and members of the French Resistance. Fifteen representative French fighters were buried here in an elaborate ceremony on 11 November 1945. The present memorial was opened on 18 June 1960. It has a wall in which are set sixteen bronze reliefs that represent in allegorical terms the different phases, places and participants in the struggle.
Arsène Tchakarian was a French-Armenian historian, former tailor and member of the French Resistance. He was a member of the Manouchian Group of the FTP-MOI, a wing of the larger Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP) composed of fighters of foreign immigrant origin. Tchakarian was the last surviving member of the Manouchian Group, a Paris-based resistance cell led by Missak Manouchian.
Boris Holban was a Russian-born Franco-Romanian communist known for his role in the French Resistance as the leader of FTP-MOI group in Paris and for l’Affaire Manouchian controversy of the 1980s.
Des terroristes à la retraite is a 1985 French documentary film about the FTP-MOI, a sub-group of the Francs-tireurs et partisans (FTP) organization, a component of the French Resistance during the German military administration in occupied France during World War II. It was written and directed by Mosco Boucault.
Benoît Rayski was a French journalist and essayist.