A Resistance organizer who moved from Vichy sympathies to opposition
“I believed in Marshal Pétain, in the double game, and even in a humane and social National Revolution.”
Henri Frenay was a French army officer who turned military discipline and patriotism into an organizing force for clandestine resistance after the defeat of 1940. He initially hoped that Pétain and the National Revolution might save France, but changed course as Vichy’s collaboration and repression became clear. With Berty Albrecht, he founded the Mouvement de Libération Nationale and expanded an underground press into Combat, one of the principal resistance movements, before overseeing the return of prisoners, deportees and refugees after the war.
Career Timeline
- 1924–1926Cadet, École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr
- 1935–1938École supérieure de guerre; German studies
- 1939–1940Staff officer, 43rd Fortress Army Corps on the Maginot Line
- 1940Escaped captivity and began organizing the MLN
- 1941–1943Founder and leader of Combat; organized its underground press
- 1943–1945Commissioner and minister for prisoners, deportees and refugees
- 1948–1954President, Union of European Federalists
- 1976Published The Night Will End: Memoirs of a Revolutionary