André Dewavrin DSO, MC (9 June 1911 – 20 December 1998) was a French officer who served with

Free French Forces __NOTOC__ The French Liberation Army (french: Armée française de la Libération or AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (french: Forces françaises libres, l ...

intelligence services during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Biography

He was born in Paris, the son of a businessman. He graduated as an

army engineer Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics b ...

and in 1938 began to teach as a professor in Saint Cyr military academy. After the outbreak of

, Dewavrin was assigned to Norway in 1940 before he joined General

Charles de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Governm ...

in Britain. He received the rank of major, took charge of the Free French military intelligence unit

Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action The Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action (, Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations), abbreviated BCRA, was the World War II-era forerunner of the SDECE, the French intelligence service. The BCRA was created by the Free French chief- ...

(BCRA), and took the codename "Colonel Passy". He began to help organize the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

movement and cooperated with the SOE. Some of Dewavrin's closest colleagues – Captain Fourcaud and Lieutenant Duclos – were Cagoulards (a right-wing group), but Dewavrin always denied that he was. He insisted that he had supported the

Republic A republic () is a " state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th ...

during the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...

and had opposed the

Munich Agreement The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...

.Lacouture 1991, pp. 254–255 Dewavrin collated information from the French Resistance and planned operations for 350 agents who were parachuted to France to work with them. He secretly traveled to France on occasion to meet with the Resistance and coordinate

intelligence gathering This is a list of intelligence gathering disciplines. HUMINT Human intelligence (HUMINT) are gathered from a person in the location in question. Sources can include the following: * Advisors or foreign internal defense (FID) personnel wor ...

and

sabotage Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...

. On 23 February 1943 Dewavrin parachuted to France alongside Pierre Brossolette to meet with

Jean Moulin Jean Pierre Moulin (; 20 June 1899 – 8 July 1943) was a French civil servant and French Resistance, resistant who served as the first President of the National Council of the Resistance during World War II from 27 May 1943 until his death less ...

. Later in 1943 Dewavrin's organization was merged with the conventional secret service of the Free French Forces to form DGSS under

Jacques Soustelle Jacques Soustelle (3 February 1912 – 6 August 1990) was an important and early figure of the Free French Forces, a politician who served in the French National Assembly and at one time served as Governor General of Algeria, an anthropologist s ...

. Dewavrin served as Soustelle's technical advisor before he took the lead of the organization in October 1944. After the

Normandy Invasion Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norm ...

, Dewavrin became Chief of Staff to General

Marie Pierre Koenig Marie may refer to: People Name * Marie (given name) * Marie (Japanese given name) * Marie (murder victim), girl who was killed in Florida after being pushed in front of a moving vehicle in 1973 * Marie (died 1759), an enslaved Cree person in ...

, the Commander of the

French Forces of the Interior The French Forces of the Interior (french: Forces françaises de l'Intérieur) were French resistance fighters in the later stages of World War II. Charles de Gaulle used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation ...

. After the war, Dewavrin was head of intelligence for de Gaulle's

provisional government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or ...

until de Gaulle resigned in January 1946. His successor accused Dewavrin of embezzling Free French money for his own purposes. Dewavrin was jailed for four months in

Vincennes Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attache ...

. He was eventually acquitted for lack of evidence. British historian

Antony Beevor Sir Antony James Beevor, (born 14 December 1946) is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works on the Second World War and the Spanish Civil War. Early life Born in Kensington, Beevor was educated at tw ...

suspects that Dewavrin might have tried to collect money to work against a possible communist takeover attempt. Dewavrin published three volumes of memoirs in 1947, 1949 and 1951 and eventually retired from the army to become a businessman. He portrayed himself in Jean Pierre Melville's film ''

L'Armée des ombres ''Army of Shadows'' (french: L'Armée des ombres; it, L'armata degli eroi) is a 1969 World War II suspense- drama film written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, and starring Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse and Jean-Pierre Ca ...

''. According to ''The Secret War'' by Max Hastings, a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

spy made a claim in a report to Moscow that Dewavrin had been recruited by

Wilhelm Canaris Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the ''Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi re ...

to work for the Germans. Hastings stated that report was false but supplied no reference to support his statement.

References

External links

* * * *

Books

* Lacouture, Jean. ''De Gaulle: The Rebel 1890–1944'' (1984; English ed. 1991), 640 pp, W W Norton & Co, London. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dewavrin, André 1911 births 1998 deaths Military personnel from Paris French Resistance members Companions of the Liberation Members of the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action Burials at Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery French military personnel of World War II