André Dewavrin DSO, MC (9 June 1911 – 20 December 1998) was a French officer who served with Free French Forces intelligence services during World War II.

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 In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Ortho ...

. After the outbreak of World War II, 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 Government ...

in Britain. He received the rank of major, took charge of the Free French military intelligence unit Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action (BCRA), and took the codename "Colonel Passy". He began to help organize the French Resistance movement and cooperated with the

SOE SOE may refer to: Organizations * State-owned enterprise * Special Operations Executive, a British World War II clandestine sabotage and resistance organisation ** Special Operations Executive in the Netherlands, or Englandspiel * Society of Opera ...

. Some of Dewavrin's closest colleagues – Captain Fourcaud and Lieutenant Duclos – were

Cagoulards La Cagoule (''The Cowl'', press nickname coined by the ''Action Française'' nationalist Maurice Pujo), originally called the ''Organisation secrète d'action révolutionnaire nationale'' (Osarn or OSAR; Secret Organisation for revolutionary nat ...

(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 c ...

during the Spanish Civil War and had opposed the Munich Agreement.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 and sabotage. 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 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 than two months l ...

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

DGSS The German Society for Social-Scientific Sexuality Research (German: ''Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozialwissenschaftliche Sexualforschung'', DGSS) is a sexuality research and counselling organization (cf. sexology) based in Düsseldorf, Germany. It ...

under Jacques Soustelle. 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 Norma ...

, 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 T ...

, the Commander of the French Forces of the Interior. After the war, Dewavrin was head of intelligence for de Gaulle's provisional government 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. He was eventually acquitted for lack of evidence. British historian Antony Beevor 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 Casse ...

''. According to ''The Secret War'' by Max Hastings, a Soviet spy made a claim in a report to Moscow that Dewavrin had been recruited by Wilhelm Canaris to work for the Germans. Hastings stated that report was false but supplied no reference to support his statement.

References

External links

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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