Georges Guingouin

Georges Guingouin born the February 2nd 1913, with Magnac-Laval in the High-Vienna and deceased on October 27th, 2005 with Troyes was militant French Communist party and played a leading role in the French Résistance to the head of the Maquis of the Limousin.

Youth

The father of Georges Guingouin, Warrant officer of career, was killed with Bapaume in 1914. His/her mother, girl of a Working porcelain, was director of elementary school. Guingouin is initially raises at the higher elementary school of Bellac (High-Vienna), then it is allowed at the Teacher training school teachers of Limoges. After its military service, it is named, in October 1935, Instituteur with Saint-Gilles-the-Forests (High-Vienna).

It adheres to the Communist party, becomes secretary of the “ray” of Eymoutiers, which gathers five then canton S rural. He writes articles of foreign politics in the weekly magazine of the Party, the Worker of the Center .

The “prefect of the maquis”

Mobilized in 1939 in the capacity as 2nd class, it is wounded with the arch of the eye brows on June 18th, 1940, looked after with the military hospital of Moulins (Allier) that it voluntarily leaves to avoid being made prisoner. Of return to Saint-Gilles-the-Forests, it includes in clandestinity its activities of Communist militant and writes in August 1940 a Appel with the fight . In September 1940, revoked its functions of teacher, it renews contact with the clandestine apparatus of the Party and becomes federal secretary of High-Vienna. It decides however not to diffuse the n°9 bulletin the Life of Parti' (September 1940) which declares: “We must be without hatred with respect to the German soldiers. We are against de Gaulle and the capitalist clan whose interests are related to Vichy.” …

It publishes in January 41 the first number of the Travailleur the Limousin clandestine. He will write later that he abstained from any attack against De Gaulle and the the United Kingdom, thus deviating from the official line of the party. In April 1941, it takes the maquis, which causes the astonishment of Gabriel Roucaute, one of the representatives of the direction of the Party in Southern zone. It organizes in the night from September 30th to October 1st the first recovery with weapons of ration cards, which will be worth to him to be condemned by contumacy to the Forced labors to perpetuity by a military tribunal in January 1942.

He baptizes his first armed groups “Frank Gunners”, at one time when FTPF are not created yet. In March 1942, whereas the Communists frankly began in the armed struggle, but only in the urban centres, Roucaute the nap to stop its action. Guingouin refuses and its relationships to the party become tended. Thereafter, it integrates FTPF.

Called Lo Grand “the Large one” by the peasants, it organizes its first maquis, in particular that of the forest of Châteauneuf-the-Forest (High-Vienna). Certain types of action which it takes will make it call the “prefect of the maquis”: in December 42, it tries to stop the requisitions of hay and corn while making jump the sheaf-binding machine of Eymoutiers. It constitutes a fixed unit, the “1st Brigade of Walk Limousine” and units “flying”, with variable manpower.

Its unit sabotages and destroys the Viaduc of Bussy-Varache on the line Limoges-Ussel, on March 13rd, 1943; it will not be rebuilt before the end of the war.

In the night of May 9th, 1943, at the request of the English, Guingouin directs personally a commando who sabotages the boilers of the rubber factory of the Palate-on-Vienna, very close to Limoges, and thus blocks for five months the production of the second rubber factory of France. From the return, the commando escapes from little from a ambush from the gendarmerie.

July 14th, 1943, the buried cable connecting the underwater base of Bordeaux to Berlin is sabotaged in the Limousin. Following this action, the Germans require that serious measures be taken against what they called “small Russia”. Under the direction of the general Wood, 15 squadrons of the Guard, 12 squadrons of GMR and suppletive forces of the gendarmerie are sent for the “maintenance of law and order”, without much result.

In August 1943, Georges Guingouin again undertakes to prevent the corn deliveries to the Germans by destroying the threshing-machines. Like “prefect of the maquis”, it regulates the agricultural scales, as well as the rates of blutage for the manufacture of the bread, in order to counter the black-market and the cheatings. At the same time, it receives the first parachutings of weapons of SOE English.

During the month of January 1944, it brings together with the Château of Ribérie 120 volunteers for a military formation. A little later, the German division of the general Brehmer tackles the stronghold of Guingouin, which refuses the combat and disperses its troops.

In May 1944, High-Vienna counts approximately: 8000 armed men. It is the department which counts some more in all France. After the fusion of the resistance movements (Armed Secret, ORA) and FTPF to form the FFI whose Georges Guingouin ensures the command in the department, the structures of armed Resistance remain however confused, since in spite of the common organization FTPF preserved the possibility of acting in a relatively autonomous way. (Of the photographs of this maquis and its chief were taken at the time by the photographer Izis Bidermanas which had taken the weapons with him) After the Unloading in Normandy of the June 6th 1944, the men of the maquis of High-Vienna are mobilized to carry out the greatest number of possible sabotages in order to paralyze the German communications. The Division S Das Reich (exactly 2nd PzD S ), which left the Tarn-et-Garonne to join Normandy, reached Limoges on June 9th. June 10th, a detachment of this division makes the massacre of Oradour-on-Glane. June 10th at the evening, of the men of the “1st Brigade of the Limousin” capture the Sturmbannführer S (commander) Kämpfe, considered as the “hero” of division. The general Lammerding, ordering division Das Reich , request its release in exchange of 40 resistant imprisoned. Guingouin, which was not informed of the massacre of Oradour, refuses; the Sturmbannführer is shot, which involves new reprisals, but is made lose 48 hours with the division Das Reich , which sets out again towards Normandy only the 12 in the morning. This delay was considered by Eisenhower as an important component in the exit of the battle of Normandy.

At at the beginning of July 1944, Guingouin had been informed that a German offensive prepared against the maquis which it directed. The 17, the “1st Brigade” is attacked by the brigade German of the general Von Jesser, strong of 500 vehicles, is supported by various reinforcements, which starts the Bataille of the Mount Gargan: the men of the maquis lose 97 men (38 dead, 5 missings, 54 wounded), against 342 killed or wounded for the Germans. It is one of the rare combat of the Resistance of the interior in an arranged battle.

At the beginning of June 1944, Guingouin had received Leon Mauvais tallies important of the Communist party, chief of the ftp in Southern zone, the order to take Limoges. He had refused, considering the action premature and dangerous for the population, quoting to justify its decision the tragic example of the premature Tulle release (in reprisals, 99 men had been hung with the balconies of the principal artery of the city, 101 other deportees). This refusal will weigh heavy, thereafter, in the relations between Guingouin and the hierarchy of the Communist party.

Guingouin will encircle Limoges on August 21st, and will make receive by Jean d' Albis the capitulation of the troops of the Gleiniger general without the least bloodshed. Guingouin is named lieutenant-colonel of FFI.

Thereafter, it will be shown to be directly or indirectly person in charge of certain exactions which accompanied the release by Limoges and the Limousin, in particular in connection with a dark business of appropriation of the nest egg of an old building site of youth in Chamberet (Corrèze) which was to show six summary executions (including three members of the secret Army).

Communist party bet

November 20th, 1944, Georges Guingouin is seriously wounded during an car accident (it will evoke a sabotage of its vehicle) and is hospitalized in Limoges. He is reformed in April 1945 after a long convalescence.

In May 1945, he is elected mayor of Limoges. Its relationships to the Party worsen quickly. It is not proposed to sit at the Central committee nor invested with the delegation. At the assembly of the communist elected local officials of France, on November 12th, 1945, it is the object of an attack on behalf of Auguste Gillot (near to Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos) which reproaches him for having increased the tariff of the trams of Limoges - what is false. Guingouin will not have the possibility of answering him, the meeting being raised at once… The next month, it is dislocated of its functions within the communist federation of High-Vienna.

In 1947, Guingouin loses the town hall of Limoges to the profit of a Socialist, Leon Betoulle, mayor of Limoges before war, while its old adversary, Socialist SFIO Jean the Lease, scorned by all “the authentic resistant ones”, became appointed of High-Vienna.

The same year, on May 19th, the Court of Appeal of Grenoble pronounces a stop condemning in particularly severe terms the newspaper the Time which had shown ten seven months before worse crimes Georges Guingouin.

In February 1950, Guingouin seems to be returned in the graces of the party since, become secretary of the communist section of Limoges, it profits from the noble statute from “permanent”. It is only one illusion, because it is cunningly fought (one always reproaches him for having disobeyed the orders of the Party by not investing Limoges of force in June 1944), and its frank speech, in particular with regard to high ranking officials of the party (of which Leon Mauvais) does not arrange anything. In XIIe congress of the party, 27 of the 84 elected members of the central committee are not re-elected, among which close relations of Guingouin. Itself will end up being blamed. Summoned to subject itself to the decisions of the party, it gives up its functions of permanent in March 1952 and request its rehabilitation in teaching. In a public meeting in September 1952 with Nantiat, Jacques Duclos in person includes on its account part of the charges carried at one time by the Time in connection with a “war treasure” that the former prefect of the Maquis would have diverted with his profit… In October, the communist authorities require of the cell to which belongs Guingouin to exclude it; the members of the cell refusing, it authoritatively will be changed cell, to assign it to another the more obliging which will pronounce its exclusion the next month.

Exiled

At this point in time he asks and obtains his change as teacher in the Paddle, department of origin of his wife, Henriette (they married in 1945 in Limoges).

December 24th, 1953, he is convened in front of the Tulle examining magistrate about a business of murder of two peasants in whom members of the Résistance are shown who would have acted under his authority. According to the historian Michel Taubmann, it is the beginning of a machination assembled by police officers and magistrates who would have acted against him of the time of Resistance. The instigator of this machination would be the police superintendent C. who formerly, in 1943, would have instrumented against him at the time of the destruction of the viaduct of Bussy-Varache. At his sides, one finds the inspector A. who, it, had inquired into the business of the removal of explosives to the mine of Saint-Léonard and who, during the transfer of an internee, would have declared with this one: “It is not another only me which will descend Large” the .

Imprisoned to the Tulle prison, it passed to tobacco by guards in his cell to the prison of Brive. Wounded and unconscious, it is transferred from night in Toulouse where it will arrive in a psychological and physical state very degraded. The press making state of an suicide attempt, the old resistant ones of the Haute-Garonne, gathered in a Departmental committee of Resistance are moved and, under their pressure, the examining magistrate charges three medical experts with examining Guingouin from the mental point of view. In their report/ratio, they will give a report on the traces of the maltreatment that it underwent, writing “that the state of Guingouin inspires by real concerns for its life”. It will be finally released before on November 13rd, 1959, in Lyon, the Thomas magistrate charged to require against him states “not to understand, in its heart and conscience that one considered continuations against Georges Guingouin”. This one will profit from a withdrawal of case.

November 21st, 2001, at the time of a conference in front of the professors of history of the Aube, Georges Guingouin declared “Stopped the day before Christmas 1953, imprisoned with the prison of Brive, I were to undergo there such maltreatment that, by twice, I traversed the way of failing which re-examines their life with back in their last moments until dazzling the light”.

In March 1957, it adhered to the democratic and national communist Mouvement of Auguste Lecoeur and Pierre Herve. In 1961, it entered in talks with the Party for a rehabilitation: one proposed to him, affirms it, “to reinstate it with the help of his silence”. Refusing this proposal, it was devoted then to its trade of teacher and took his retirement in 1969. In 1988, the Communist party “rehabilitated” officially Georges Guingouin in spite of the indifference of this last.

In 1985, the newspaper of extreme-right-hand side Crapouillot , relayed by Minute , showed part of the charges carried before against Guingouin, designating it as person in charge of the summary executions made in the area of Limoges. Georges Guingouin carries felt sorry for and receives on this occasion the support of members of the general advice of the High-Vienna.

Deceased in Troyes on October 27th, 2005, Georges Guingouin was buried, according to his wish, with Saint-Gilles-the-Forests.

In June 2005, it had been high with the rank of commander of the Légion of honor. It was in particular Compagnon of the Release (decree of October 19th, 1945), holder of the Military Cross with palm, the Médaille of Resistance with rivet washer and the King' S Medal for Courage (GB).

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