For years before the war, the Nazis had established contact with reactionary Rightist circles in France. One such circle which in America has been accused of having been influenced by the Germans and having perhaps contributed to France’s downfall is the Croix de Feu, at one time generally considered as the future Fascist movement of France. I must say that I could find neither proof nor indication that the Croix de Feu had played Germany’s game. On the contrary, the Petit Journal, published by Colonel François de la Rocque, the Croix de Feu leader, assumed a more courageously anti-German attitude after the armistice than did most other papers published under the control of the Vichy government.
Two other less conspicuous, but perhaps more influential Right-wing groups were, however, definitely approached by the Germans during the prewar years. One of them was the secret revolutionary organization popularly known as the Cagoulards (the Hooded ones); the other was the group which published the weekly, Je Suis Partout. These contacts were established chiefly by Otto Abetz, infamous “special delegate” of Nazi Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, who was expelled from France shortly before the war. On his initiative, members of both groups undertook several trips to Berlin between 1937 and 1939 to discuss means of action.
The German secret service had a particular interest in these two groups because, while entirely independent of each other, they had one thing in common—far-reaching ties with the French Army.
The Cagoulard group was headed by French officers of high rank—majors, colonels, and even generals. General Dusseigneur was among those arrested when the Cagoulard movement was uncovered shortly before the war after it had planted bombs in Paris. The dissolution of the movement made its members more cautious, but its underground activities continued.
If any further evidence of German support for the Cagoulards had been needed beyond that already turned up by the French police, it was provided by the Germans themselves. When they occupied Paris, one of the first things they did was to demand that the French national police turn over the files on the Cagoulard case. From these files, the Germans learned the names of the police commissioners who had unearthed the Cagoulard plot, and immediately arrested those who were in occupied territory.
This was in striking contrast to the treatment of the arrested Cagoulard leaders, all of whom had been released by the French government by the beginning of the war. Shortly after the start of hostilities I met in the train the brother of one of the Cagoulards who had been arrested. In the ensuing conversation, I remarked that I was astonished that responsible adults should have indulged at such a time in what then appeared to have been a somewhat childish imitation of a motion picture conspiracy. Nettled by my attitude, my interlocutor answered:
“You don’t understand how serious this movement was. It was organized by the Deuxième Bureau (the department of the army concerned with espionage and counterespionage). It was at the instigation of the military secret service that my brother and his friends organized the Cagoulards. That can’t be told now, of course, but the day will come when all the truth will be known, and my brother will be considered a hero for the time he has spent in prison.”
“The Deuxième Bureau!” I exclaimed incredulously. “Why in the world should the Deuxième Bureau want to foster a revolutionary movement when it’s already so near the power itself?”
“Ever since the 1936 elections,” he answered, “important members of the French secret service have been very much worried about the influence the Communist movement has gained in this country, and so they decided to take matters into their own hands. The Cagoulard movement was formed to do that. The Popular Front ministers got my brother and his friends put in jail, but you’ll see that they haven’t said their last word yet.”
Je Suis Partout, the weekly which was another outpost of German propaganda in France, belonged originally to the publishing house of Fayard, which put out books and another and more prosperous political weekly, Candide. Je Suis Partout was a money loser and publisher Arthème Fayard decided several years ago to discontinue it. When the news got out, Pierre Gaxotte, editor of the paper, proposed to Fayard that he turn the paper’s name over to him instead of giving him severance pay, since he thought he might be able to keep the magazine going himself. Fayard agreed, and Je Suis Partout continued to appear without interruption, and so far as the public knew, without any change in its control. Circulation did not increase. Advertising continued low. The paper showed no signs of prosperity—but it did not show any signs of having financial difficulties any more either.