Historian Fabrice Grenard publishes a new book on the French Resistance

With his new book The Resistance years, 1940-1944Fabrice Grenard delivers a work richly illustrated with documents, most of them unpublished.

Don’t tell Fabrice Grenard that the French Resistance, by its clandestine nature, left very few documents. All his work, prolific over this period, shows the opposite. His latest book, The Resistance years, 1940-1944is, in this respect, a real gem.

More than two hundred documents, most of them unpublished, dot this abundantly illustrated work. “François Hollande decided to open all of the Second World War archives in 2015,” explains Fabrice Grenard. We were thus able to access the archives of the secret services and the purges. There are also the archives of the repression. Finally, there are the archives of the resistance fighters themselves. »

Following a chronological plan, Fabrice Grenard traces four years of struggle on French soil. “At the end of this work, I am able to affirm that the Resistance is very early,” he assures. It develops immediately and quickly takes an organized form. »

Two exceptional published documents allow us to see this. “The manuscript by François de Menthon is particularly moving

. Most early resistance fighters were not prepared to live in hiding. The manuscript, which dates from early 1941, describes what a resistance movement should be. He thought about the rules he had to follow to survive. »

Means of repression

The other document is the organization chart of a clandestine crossing network across the demarcation line, established by the Germans in March 1941 (**). It shows the extent of the network. Above all, it shows that the occupier quickly deployed significant means of repression. “The Germans very early on sought to fight against resistance networks. They did not want to relive what they had experienced in 1870-1871 when groups of snipers were created behind their lines. »

Throughout the book, it is this type of documents that the author distills. From Jean Moulin’s mission order annotated by Charles de Gaulle to the poster of the “corrèze maquis prefecture”, from photos of members of the Nemrod network to the list of “STO defaulters” for Haute-Vienne, everything tells the story of men and women, known or unknown, who decided, sometimes without realizing the risks, to oppose the occupier.

For anyone interested in the period, this book is necessary.

Page 116 of the book.
(**) Pages 46 and 47.History graduate, Fabrice Grenard has written numerous Books on the period of the Second World War, notably on the maquis, Georges Guingouin and the Tulle massacre. Today he heads the research and teaching department of the Fondation de la Résistance.