Английская Википедия:Henri Lafont

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Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:For Шаблон:More citations needed Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:Infobox criminal Henri Lafont (born Henri Chamberlin, 22 April 1902 – 26 December 1944) was an underworld figure who headed the Carlingue, French auxiliaries to the German security services, during the German occupation of France in World War II.

He was executed by firing squad on 26 December 1944 alongside corrupt policeman Pierre Bonny and footballer-turned-criminal Alexandre Villaplane.

Early life

Henri Louis Chamberlin grew up in a working-class environment. His father was a typesetter and his mother a housecleaner. His father died when he was 11[1] and his mother was said to have abandoned him on the day of the burial in 1912.[2] Left to his own devices, he frequently wandered in the Paris market of Les Halles, working as a courier or laborer.

In 1919 he was sent to a youth correctional facility until he turned 18 for stealing a bicycle. On his release, he was drafted into the 39th Regiment of Algerian tirailleurs. When he was discharged two years later he was sentenced to two years in prison and ten years of banishment from Paris for receiving a stolen vehicle. While in prison he met two men who later became his associates, Lionel de Wiet, a cocaine addict who posed as an aristocrat, and Adrien Estébétéguy, known as "the Basque" or "Cold-Hand", a violent thug from Toulouse who served eight sentences for robbery.[3] He also married while in prison, at Aix-en-Provence, and later had two children.[4]

Файл:Henri Lafont.jpg

He settled in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, where he found work. After a theft of 2000 francs from the store where he worked, he was sent to a prison camp in Cayenne.[5] He changed his name to Norman, then Lafont.

Chamberlin to Lafont

In early 1940, Chamberlin was running a Simca dealership as Henri Normand in the outer Parisian quarter of Porte des Lilas and made contacts among the police. He joined a volunteer brigade but was arrested in Paris for desertion. In June 1940, he was sent to Cherche-Midi prison, then, as the Wehrmacht advanced, to a camp in Cepoy. There, he met a German spy named Karl Hennecke and a Swiss spy named Max Stoecklin, who had been an Abwehr agent for Hermann Brandl since 1934[6] and escaped with them.[7]

"Why not work with us?"

He returned to Paris, by then occupied, with his fellow escapees, members of the Abwehr.[8]Шаблон:Rp Lafont later remarked: "If the guys on the other side, the resistance, had suggested something to me, I would have done it no question. But in July and August 1940, I didn't know about the resistance and hadn't seen anything. I didn't even know what it was."[9]

Agent Max Stoecklin, his fellow prison escapee, set him up as a buying agent for the Wehrmacht, in charge of appropriating French wealth.[10] He made himself useful, buying everything from clothes to furniture to food, and came to the attention of Hermann Brandl, Abwehr special agent, and of captain Шаблон:Ill of the Wehrmacht. He moved several times and wound up at Шаблон:ILL, the property of a Madame Weinberg before the war.[11]

In July 1940, Lafont and Radecke recruited 27 felons from Fresnes prison. Colonel Шаблон:Interlanguage link, their superior, ordered Lafont's arrest on learning of the freed prisoners.

Radecke warned Lafont of this and suggested he find one of the leaders of the anti-Nazi resistance, former Belgian spymaster Otto Lambrecht, sought by the Abwehr, whose capture would earn the favor of the authorities. Lafont arrested Lambrecht in the zone libre Шаблон:Refn brought him back to Gestapo headquarters in Paris in the trunk of his car, bound hand and foot.[12] There he tortured him with his own hands.This resulted in the dismantlement of Belgian counter-espionage after the arrests of 600 people.Шаблон:Clarify

He joined the police and was given badge number 6474 R.[13] He reigned over a band of a hundred-some felons and enjoyed almost complete immunity. A system of penalties from fines to death sanctioned those who did not obey his rules.[12] The band was made up of gangsters and other felons, but also of corrupt policemen. The best-known, Pierre Bonny, became his lieutenant.

Failure in Algiers

Near the end of 1940, Hermann Brandl asked Lafont to smuggle an agent into North Africa, so he could install a secret emitter for communicating with German authorities. Lafont made camp with his team at Cap Doumia near Algiers. But two of his accomplices were arrested by the police and the mission failed. Lafont was sentenced to death in absentia.[12]

Pillage, parties and torture

The Germans used the Bonny-Lafont gang to checkmate the Resistance, and they excelled at this task.[8]Шаблон:Rp

Torture was common in interrogations:[14][15] prisoners' fingernails were torn out, and their teeth filed. They were beaten, kicked, and burned with cigarettes or welding torches; water torture and electric shocks were also inflicted. The gang allegedly also carried out assassinations sponsored by the Germans.[16]

In 1942, the Carlingue was put under the authority of the Gestapo. Lafont outdid himself to please his new superiors, notably giving a sumptuous Bentley as a wedding gift to Helmut Knochen, an aide to Heydrich charged with bringing the secret police to France.

Файл:PilletWill5.jpg
5 rue Pillet-Wills

In early 1942, he reached an understanding with the Devisenschutzkommando (DSK) (Detachment for currency security) based at 5 rue Pillet-Will, which was tasked with the very lucrative battle against the black market. He received a commission of up to 20% on these transactions. It was a matter of introducing himself into high society, gaining the confidence of its members, and concentrating on people with problems who wanted to hide money in Switzerland or obtain travel passes. At the meetup, team members would produce their police credentials and seize the currency. When their victims were Jewish, the team not only confiscated everything but also took them to the SD on Avenue Foch. The gang also committed many burglaries, calling them police raids; in December 1942 Lafont shared fine china looted from the former American embassy among the most prominent German restaurants of Paris.

Lafont, a former petty criminal became the most important man in France,[8]Шаблон:Rp lived large and enjoyed having important people ask him for favors. He organised many society soirées and took his superiors out to the best cabarets and nightclubs of Paris, such as the One-Two-Two. He visited these establishments, many of which his gang was extorting, in German uniform, which displeased the Шаблон:Lang information services.

Frequent visitors to "the 93" included police prefect Шаблон:Interlanguage link, journalist Jean Luchaire, actress Yvette Lebon and her daughter, as well as quite a few women known as the Countesses of the Gestapo. Lafont was on familiar terms with René Bousquet and Pierre Laval,[8] but his relationships with other collaborators like Fernand de Brinon were rather poor.

In 1943, the gang inflicted heavy losses on the Défense de la France network, with the arrests of some sixty members. But Défense de la France survived the blow, but among those arrested was Geneviève de Gaulle, niece of the general, brought in on 20 July 1943 by former inspector Bonny.

Other Parisian gestapistes existed, with whom the Laffont-Bony gang struggled for power: the "Corsican gang", the "Neuilly Gestapo", directed by Frédéric Martin alias Rudy de Mérode, once associated with Шаблон:Ill. The Lafont gang, with the support of the Gestapo, which appreciated its effectiveness against Resistance networks, managed to get these competitors deported.

At the beginning of 1944, Lafont proposed and with Algerian nationalist Muhammad al-Maadi (a former French officer of La Cagoule, created the secret right-wing Шаблон:Ill, made up of men from North Africa.[17] Wearing the uniform of the milice, the brigade saw combat against the résistance intérieure française: the Maquis du Limousin (three sections saw combats against the maquis de Corrèze, notably Tulle), then the Périgord in Dordogne, (one section) with the massacre of 52 hostages at Mussidan.[18] in Sainte-Marie-de-Chignac 23 hostages executed[19] or in an abandoned quarry near Brantôme 26 hostages including Georges Dumas, shot on the command of Alexandre Villaplane[20] and in Franche-Comté (one section). The legion was dissolved in July 1944 and dispersed. Some of its former members went with el-Maadi to Germany and others joined the Free India Legion Шаблон:Lang).

Trial and sentence

Bonny and Henri Chamberlin, Шаблон:Aka Lafont, were interrogated at the Conciergerie.

Brought before the investigating magistrate, Pierre Bonny confessed everything and implicated more than a thousand other people in the "rue Lauriston affair". A wave of panic swept Paris, especially after the discovery of the black market in false Resistance certificates.

The trial started 1 December 1944 and ended on 11 December.[21] A few people testified on Lafont's behalf about his service, including resistance fighters for whom he had done favors or whose family members he had saved. At the farm the police found, 2.5 million francs in small bills in a laundry basket.

When the verdict condemning them both to death was read, Pierre Bonny had to be held up by the gendarmes, while Lafont seemed very relaxed, with a smile on his lips.

On 26 December,[22] Lafont faced a firing squad at the Шаблон:Ill. Moments before he told his lawyer, maître Drieu: Шаблон:Blockquote Henri Chamberlin/Lafont declined a blindfold and died tied to the stake bareheaded with a cigarette between his lips.Шаблон:Citation needed

The French Connection was purportedly financed with funds from the Carlingue via Auguste Ricord, Lafont's employee, arrested in September 1972 in the United States.[8]Шаблон:Rp

See also

References

Шаблон:Reflist

Bibliography

External links

Шаблон:Authority control

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  1. ↑ Archives de Paris online, decals 6e arrondissement, acte n° 1574, cote 6D 163
  2. ↑ Archives de Paris online, 15e arrondissement death, certificate number 4193, cote 15D 239
  3. ↑ The King of Nazi Paris by Christopher Othen, Biteback, 2020, Шаблон:ISBN. Google Books version does not have page numbers, but this episode is discussed in the section titled "The Man Who Loved Orchids"
  4. ↑ The King of Nazi Paris by Christopher Othen, Biteback, 2020, Шаблон:ISBN. Google Books version does not have page numbers, but this episode is discussed in the section titled "One Hour Behind Germany"
  5. ↑ Alain Decaux, La Guerre absolue, 1940-1945, in C'était le 20e siècle, Éditions Perrin, 1998.
  6. ↑ The King of Nazi Paris by Christopher Othen, Biteback, 2020, Шаблон:ISBN. Google Books version does not have page numbers, but this episode is discussed in the section titled "At A Metro Station".
  7. ↑ The King of Nazi Paris by Christopher Othen, Biteback, 2020, Шаблон:ISBN. Google Books version does not have page numbers, but this episode is discussed in the section titled "At A Metro Station".
  8. ↑ 8,0 8,1 8,2 8,3 8,4 Шаблон:Cite AV media
  9. ↑ The King of Nazi Paris by Christopher Othen, Biteback, 2020, Шаблон:ISBN. Google Books version does not have page numbers, but this episode is discussed in the section titled "One Hour Behind Germany"
  10. ↑ King of Nazi Paris, section titled The Man Who Loved Orchids
  11. ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
  12. ↑ 12,0 12,1 12,2 Шаблон:Cite book Translated to Spanish by Éditions El Ateneo, 2007 Шаблон:ISBN
  13. ↑ Alain Decaux, La Guerre absolue (Absolute War), op. cit, p.106.
  14. ↑ The French Resistance by Olivier Wieviorka (review) Academic Journal By: Black, Jeremy. Journal of World History. Jun2019, Vol. 30 Issue 1/2, p250-256. 7p. DOI: 10.1353/jwh.2019.0020., ISSN: 0016-1071
  15. ↑ The forgotten story of ... the France football captain who murdered for Hitler: Alex Villaplane said captaining France was ‘the happiest day of his life’. Fourteen years later he was shot dead for being a traitor, Paul Doyle, The Guardian, 16 November 2009
  16. ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
  17. ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
  18. ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
  19. ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
  20. ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
  21. ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
  22. ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
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