RAIDS AND ARRESTS IN THE STRASBOURG UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS
NOVEMBER 25, 1943: THE BIG RAID AGAINST THE FACULTIES
During the summer 1943, the Gestapo conducted simultaneous actions against Mithridate* and the ORA*. In July, Hugo Geissler arrested in Vichy two agents of Mithridate, who were on their way to Rennes, where they intended to set a new antenna, and who carried documents, weapons and radios. This enabled him to store information, which led to more than 150 arrests, including 2 regional leaders: Andre Aalberg and Paul Gaubin. Aalberg, who tried to escape, was seriously wounded and died at hospital, without being questioned by the Gestapo.
In parallel, Geissler developed operations against the ORA. In October again, he invested barracks of the 13th military zone, in Clermont-Ferrand, Royat and Romagnat, where he seized a number of files and arrested 32 people, including 16 officers, among whom Lieutenant-colonel Jacques Boutet and his assistant Commander Henri Madelin.
It was obvious that both Resistance networks had been infiltrated by German agents.
Besides, there were Alsace-Lorraine students among the arrested people: Ernest Unguerrer in Mithridate, François Marzolff and Henri Weilbacher in the ORA.
That was the justification for the launching of a police operation, which was in fact a true military operation, to dismantle Strasbourg University, this "nest of spies".
During the whole operation, the Gestapo was backed by a unit of the Lufwaffe. To avoid drawing attention, the convoy started from Aulnat, where German planes were stationed.
Faculties, libraries and administrative services constitutive of the University were spattered on a large ground limited on one side by boulevard de Gergovie, on the other side by avenue Carnot, with the cours Sablon as a medium axis.
On thursday November 25, 1943, the entire Gestapo force of Clermont-Ferrand and Vichy, backed by men of Sicherei Dienst and Probing Kommando and a special unit of the Luftwaffe, 200 men strong, under the command of a Colonel Elsatz, encircled the University buildings, then moved into them.
The Gestapo wanted to start questioning people on the spot and as soon as could be after the mass arrests. For that purpose, Blumenkampf and Ursula Brandt were sent a reinforcement of six men, all of them specialists in this kind in work: Kaltseis, Roth, Bisinius, Krabbe, Gothry and Buhler.
But there was a seventh man: George Mathieu.
Referring to the deposition of Mathieu at the time of his lawsuit, the operation was planned as follows:
"It was decided that the manpower of Gestapo would be distributed in the following way:
In the main building : Blumenkampf, Brandt, Roth, Bisinius and myself. In the library: Krabbe and two others, whose names I do not In the Law Faculty: Gothry. In Vercingétorix University: Buhler. In Gallia: no member of Gestapo.
The scheme was:
1°) Arrest the people whose names appeared on a list of 17 names given during previous questionnings, inter alia: Eppel, Sadron, Fush and his/her son, Girard and Miss Kuder.
I had personally reported Miss Kuder, because when I was arrested I carried an identity cardtoto the name of Murat, which had been established by the secretariat of the University where Miss Kuder was in charge of issuing identity cards.
Other names on this list were: Thomas, Floret, Professor Weiss, from the Faculty of Medicine, Baker and Papes, members of the Masson organisation, and others I forgot.
2°) Arrest all foreign students, whatever their nationalities, and all the Jews.
3°) Arrest all people born in Alsace-Lorraine, aged from 18 to 30, and likely to work in the Resistance, in order to check their activities.
4°) Arrest the Faculties deans".
As soon as they entered the main building, Mathieu, Roth and Kalteiss, holding revolvers, walked straight to the secretariat to seize the teachers addresses. Paul Collomp, a professor in the Faculty of literature, who happened to be there, tried to oppose this intrusion. He was shot on the spot by Kaltseiss. Without worrying, Mathieu and his aids left the body by the door and took the addresses of the Professors whose names were on the list of 17 names. They had to arrest at home those who were not at university, like Professor Robert Eppel, a teacher in the Faculty of Protestant theology. Kaltseiss went directly to his place in the suburbs and shot him in the stomach on arresting him, wounding him seriously. In addition, in the Vercingétorix University, Buhler killed a 15 years old schoolboy, Louis Blanchet, who was trying to escape through a window, and wounded two other students. Meanwhile, people were brought in the University courtyard from all parts of the campus, either on foot or carried in trucks, but always under military and police escort. Around midday, 1200 people were parked in this enclosure and the German soldiers were taking photographs from the windows, with rifles to their shoulders.
Then, the questioning started.
On the 1rst floor, in the main building, were brought a table and 3 seats, on which took place Bisinius and Ursula Brandt, with Mathieu in the middle. The arrested people had to go upstairs, one by one, and show their identity papers, this in hierarchical order: the teaching body first, then civil servants and finally the students.
The examination consisted in both checking identity papers and assessing membership to the Resistance.
Most of the Alsace-Lorraine students and those under Numerus clauses * (the 3 % students of Jewish origin who were accepted in University by to Vichy's law of June 21, 1941) had forged identity cards. These cards had been made by the Combat Etudiant Propaganda group. Mathieu knew that perfectly since he had himself collected such card's from Feuerstein, I being the go-between on 2 or 3 occasions).
Mathieu displayed the greatest zeal in reporting a number of people who had forged papers just after they had successfully passed a first checking by Bisenius. Such was the case of a student named Dumas, to whom Mathieu had given his identity card a few days before, in a friendly way. Mathieu reported all those who had been related to the Resistance, even loosely.
After several hours, the 1 200 prisoners had ravelled. There were two groups in the big hall : on the left, approximately 400 people, most of them from Clermont-Ferrand, who were going to be released; on the right, nearly 800 people, mainly from Alsace-Lorraine, who were to be transferred to the 92th RI Prison.
Another sorting session took place within the prison. At 2 am, Mathieu, Blumenkampf, Ursula Brandt and Roth carried out new identity checkings, and they went on, with some pauses, along the following day.
Finally were jailed, and thereafter sent to deportation, the people belonging to one of the 3 following groups:
- those suspected of being related to the Resistance,
- those, aged between 18 and 30, originating from Alsace-Lorraine, ,
- those of Jewish origin, or having foreign sounding names.
The others were released. Blumenkampf greeted the departure of the Seniors with a cheerful: "So, one is sending the old Gentlemen back home"
On December 9, 1942, Abetz sent a telegram to Berlin, under the serial number "7595 secrecy", which is the official statement of a successful operation :
| "Within the frame of investigations
against the Movements of Resistance in Clermont-Ferrand (Puy de Dome),
investigations during which, several weeks ago, arrests, inter
alia, of enemy agents were conducted, and during which deposits of
material of espionage and of weapons, were updated, On November 25 took place an action of large scale against the Strasbourg University in Clermont-Ferrand. The University buildings were occupied by the police force, with the support of a Luftwaffe unit, and approximately 1 200 people were arrested. 600 of them were released immediately, and the remainder after further checking, except for 110 of them. Among the latter ones are to be found foreign Jews and people who have been convinced to work for organisations of Resistance. During the action, fire weapons had to be used; on this occasion a teacher and a student were killed and two students were seriously wounded. The library, the secretariat and the archive department have been temporarily placed under ban. They are occupied by the police force. The French Head of the State was informed by the Dean, and the Minister for Education has taken contact with the Embassy for a rapid re-opening of the University buildings. In connection to these events, it has to be pointed out that in all recent actions against various movements of the Resistance, provable bonds have been found to exist with the Strasbourg University. One year and a half ago, our Embassy had already brought the French Government's attention on the intolerable situation in this University, and had then felt that it should rightly be dismanteled. The French Minister of Education is convinced of the need for a rapid solution, but thinks it to be within the Government's capacity. Within the framework of activating the Government policies, the Ambassador will press Laval on this question, in the direction of a forced dissolution ". Signed: Abetz
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He also rejected the principal count of indictment, i.e. the high number of students of Jewish/foreign origin, declaring that it was not higher that in any other University (referring to the Numerus clausus Law*)
All of this was inaccurate but it was for a good cause that Vice Chancellor Danjon had camouflaged the truth. This made an impression on Vichy and the Strasbourg French University did not close down.
In his deposition, when he was himself facing his juges, Mathieu reports the immediate afterwards of the Great Raid:
A report by Dean Danjon was sent to Laval. Laval forwarded it to Geissler, expressing concern that such an operation had been carried out against the Strasbourg University, which did not count more resistant ones than. Danjon added that the number of Jews and Foreigners was the same as everywhere else. He added that 17 arrests had been made according to a list, but the others had been conducted arbitrarily by myself. Which was totally wrong. Two days after this operation, the students files were seized and transferred to the Gestapo. Blumenkampf ordered to have a list established of the people who had escaped Alsace-Lorraine (it would be deducted from the dates of registration). Which was done. Personally, a month and a half later, I burnt myself the file of a student who was searched for. The rest of the files remained in a safe - 2bis, avenue de Royat. They were still there when I left, on August 13.
Some days after the business of the University, Stumbenfurher Lang, whose cousin was a librarian at the Strasbourg University, came to Clermont-Ferrand in order to open an investigation into the Center for High Germanic Studies. He blamed Blumenkampf for not having arrested any member of this Center. I know he conducted himself the searching in the office of the Center's Secretary, a Mr. Martin. He found documents, concerning Colonel Rivet, who was in command of the Deuxième Bureau* (intelligence office) in Algiers, Commander Mercier, of the same body, and other French officers in the Information Services. None of these officers, some of whom had already departed to North Africa, were questioned. The Gestapo requested from the German government the closing down of the Strasbourg University, but his was refused. Another request was made in April 1944, and met another refusal. Then, no more mention was made of it."
On the day of the Great Raid, which was thursday November 25, 1943, Cauchi was in Paris and Feuerstein in Lyon. I was then in the 1rst year of my doctorate. At 10 am, I left the University library, where I was working. At around 11.30 am, I was place de Jaude when suddenly students turned out shouting: "There are Germans, they encircle the Faculties and they arrest everybody !"
We rushed for information. I saw Wehrmacht troops on the boulevard de Gergovie and on boulevard Carnot, though from a distance, for one could not get closer.
At the end of the afternoon, we started to gather news, as they came, from the students who had been released. We learnt about the deaths of Professor Collomp and of young Blanchet, about the arrest of whoever was there and about the gathering in the courtyard and the ensuing questionings.
When I heard that in the trio who conducted the questionings there was George Mathieu, sitting between 2 members of the Gestapo, I first refused to believe it. But testimonies flooded: Mathieu was denouncing all those who had escaped the first Gestapo inquiries.
I did not return home. I left Clermont-Ferrand the following day. I came back on December 15, 1943. The first term had started. I asked for an appointment with Dean Delpech. I told him that my position made it impossible for me to attend classes. Considering these circumstances, he granted me an exemption, which I still have. It says:
That was both little and great, for it meant that whatever would turn up in the future, Strasbourg University would go ahead.
ON MARCH 8, 1944 : ARRESTS IN THE HOSPITAL
RETURN TO CHAPTER TWO