Rino Della Negra (18 August 1923 – 21 February 1944) was a French

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who was active in the Resistance 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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Life and career

Della Negra was born in

Vimy Vimy ( or ; ; Dutch: ''Wimi'') is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France. Located east of Vimy is the Canadian National Vimy Memorial dedicated to the Battle of Vimy Ridge and the Canadian soldiers ...

, France to Italian parents, and grew up in nearby

Argenteuil Argenteuil () is a Communes of France, commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the Kilometre Zero, center of Paris. Argenteuil is a Subprefectures in France, sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise Departments of France, ...

. Playing as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

right winger A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

, he began his football career with local club

, before joining

Red Star Olympique Red Star Football Club, also known simply as Red Star (), is a French association football club founded in Paris in 1897, and is the fourth oldest French football club, after Standard AC of Paris, Le Havre AC and Girondins de Bordeaux. In t ...

in mid-1942. Combining his playing career while working in a factory, Della Negra became active in 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 ...

in October 1942, and went into hiding in February 1943. Della Negra, a Communist, was a member of the

Manouchian Group 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 arm ...

; he was wounded in an attack in November 1943, and he was executed by firing squad in February 1944. His execution, along with twenty two fellow ''résistants'' is the subject of the famous propaganda poster, l'"

Affiche rouge The ''Affiche Rouge'' (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 Gro ...

". Before he died, Della Negra wrote a letter to his brother saying "hello and goodbye to Red Star." His brother was present on 21 February 2004 as the club revealed a plaque in his honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Della Negra, Rino 1923 births 1944 deaths FTP-MOI People from Vimy French people of Italian descent French footballers Red Star F.C. players Association football goalkeepers Association football wingers Members of the Francs-tireurs et partisans French people executed by Nazi Germany Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Sportspeople from Pas-de-Calais French civilians killed in World War II Footballers from Hauts-de-France