Article published in the September 1983 edition of the Espoir periodical (no. 44)

Gaston Palewski's Introduction for Daniel Cordier:

Daniel Cordier retraces his memories of working with Jean Moulin at the heart of the Resistance.

He gives short shrift to the absurd accusations of those who accused this true hero of having sought to bind together the Resistance for the benefit of Communism.

This takes me back to my own memories of what might be termed the pre-Resistance in the long years that led up to the war. At that time, the demarcation line was not drawn between right and left, but between those who were caught by the contagion of the monstrous totalitarian evangelism poured forth from the propaganda machines of Hitler and Mussolini, and those who were aware of the dangers and sought to protect the traditional current of French politics.

The first clash in this battle came before and after Munich. The view of our opponents could be summed up as, "Let Germany and Russia fight it out between themselves and let us not get mixed up in it", as if the winner, whichever it might prove to be, would not then have been in a position to subjugate the rest of Europe.

Such were the views of those like Pierre-Étienne Flandin and company, and Vichy was to show how far that view extended into the administration, the union movement, the neo-socialist party and virtually everywhere into the life of the nation.

And then there were those known by their opponents as the "war-mongers", who claimed that a German attack was imminent.

During this first phase, the Communists were with us and I myself believed that they should be included in the national union. With Paul Reynaud, we advised Léon Blum to negotiate for a government "from Thorez to Marin" which would have set the seal on a union of all the forces of resistance to Nazism. This attempt was to fail in the face of the opposition from Pierre-Étienne Flandin.

After Daladier and Bonnet's disastrous trip to Munich, the government continued its policy of Chamberlain-like temporising while the Soviets, on the other hand, sought to protect themselves against the danger of a reversal of alliances.

So it was that Stalin replied favourably to German overtures suggesting a German-Soviet non-aggression pact, and the French Communists docilely abandoned the policy of resistance to Nazi Germany.

Jean Moulin, an intelligent young Prefect and artist, a patriot to the core and a friend of Max Jacob whom he had known in Quimper, had become private secretary to Pierre Cot who, like us, had been in favour of an understanding with the Communists as long as they supported the anti-Nazi line that made them part of the national community.

With that fierce determination to resist, the first signs of which he demonstrated when the Germans arrived in Chartres, Jean Moulin in his first steps towards resistance sought the aid of those of his old friends who seemed to offer sufficient guarantees of national spirit.

We could feel that the war was coming. My office in the rue de Rivoli was busy with visits from men like Munzenberg, Sforza, Weizman, all those at pains to bring down the monstrous plot, while at the same time de Gaulle, Paul Reynaud and myself did everything in our power to convince the general staff to adopt the strategy of an armoured corps that would have enabled us to strike back successfully against the German advance.

All these efforts were to fail. Then came the invasion, and collapse! At this moment in its history, the country was lucky enough to find itself with men like General de Gaulle and Jean Moulin, servants who decided to save her honour and theirs at the side of her allies. How they set about this, how the flame of the French Resistance gradually burned brighter, Daniel Cordier describes here with panache.