THE MUR "MOUVEMENTS UNIS DE RÉSISTANCE" ARE CREATED
November 27, 1942 was a turning point for Combat Universitaire. That day, the Germans invaded Zone Sud and assaulted the barracks of the 92d Infantry Regiment Headquarters in Clermont-Ferrand. General Codechèvre and his men were disarmed, and the barracks were turned into a Gestapo prison.
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Sturdze tried to gain England through Spain. He was arrested and later died in deportation.
Cauchi replaced him by a student in literature named George Mathieu. Mathieu, born in Clermont-Ferrand, was then 23 years old. He was big, bony, with a fair hair macassared and parted on the side. He had blue protruding eyes and broad teeth which lifted his lips in a grin. He often wore a very French "béret". He seemed serious because he was cold, laconic and liked using the military language. As a matter of fact, in May 1940 he had passed the entry exam to the famous Saint-Cyr military school, but he had declined to join in the "Marechal Pétain" promotion. The reason he gave Cauchi was that he intended to escape to London, and hoped to succeed soon, with the assistance of Christiane Cuirot, a girl he was engaged to marry, who was the secretary of a member of the Army staff in Vichy, called Captain Burcez. Mathieu thus seemed a valuable element in the University Resistance.
Prior to November 1942, Resistance amongst the students could still be regarded as a kind of exciting game, in spite of the dangers. But thereafter it turned to a tragedy with 139 fatal casualties.
Early in 1943, three major liberation movements, Combat, Libération and Franc-Tireur, merged as the MUR (Mouvement unifié de la Résistance), with Henri Ingrand as the Chief of Area 6, which was formed of the largest part of the "département de la Haute-Loire". Ingrand maintained Cauchi as the head of the Strasbourg University students movement.
In the months which followed, events went accelerating. Gauleiter Sauckel claimed 250 000 men for the war effort, and the Germans established compulsory work service (STO) for young men. A first convoy left Montluçon for Germany on November 27, 1942.
The response came instantly : in order to escape from STO, a number of young men fled to the countryside where they grouped together, and later formed the "Maquis", fighting groups named after the places where they were settled. One of the first maquis was formed in Fournols.
Cauchi then gave new instructions. With the German presence in Clermont Ferrand and the STO, the essential work of the Propagand section became the forging of identity papers of all sorts, under the control of Feuerstein.
Four of us worked permanently at the beginning, then only Feuerstein and myself remained, since Leon Greisammer was arrested on June 26 in the raiding of the "Gallia" and Joseph Fertig left for the maquis. The Alsace-Lorraine students needed forged documents, as the Germans considered them as traitors and deserters. So did every young man who wanted to escape the STO and join the maquis.
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We thus manufactured several hundreds of forged identity cards during the spring of 1943. I brought from there a batch for Jewish children, whom I gave has one their persons in charge with Saint-Etienne.
Identity cards or rationing cards generally reached us by the channel of Serge Fischer, the University librarian who was the Regional chief of the National Front, a movement of resistance. We got seals and plugs by various means. here were truths and forgeries of them. In addition, Cauchi met through the Mithridate network a clerk in the local STO office, called Alphonse Aubertin, who provided us with cards of exemption from the compulsory work.
For the members of the "Combat Etudiant" Action group, the change was even more radical. After November 27, 1942, Combat, represented by Emile Coulodon and Combat Etudiant established closer contacts with some intelligence networks.
These intelligence networks, which had been established in Auvergne in the earliest days of Occupation, were in contact with London. So were the Alibi network led by George Charaudeau, the Phalanx network led by Christian Pineau, the Kléber network led by colonel Rivet...
In the very start of 1943, some networks, like Mithridate, the ORA and the Burning ones, wanted to associate with Alsatian-Lorraine students, whose patriotism was well known and who, being bilingual, might be of great use.
Mithridate had been created in August 1940. Colonel Herbinger was the head, Andre Aalberg, an Alsatian, was his assistant, and Paul Gaubin was a local chief. Cauchi got acquainted with the representatives of Mithridate, who asked him to create an antenna. He succeeded in this task, and a few months later he fulfilled the same mission for the Navarre network.
The ORA (Organization de Résistance de l'Armée) was locally represented by Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Boutet, assisted by Lieutenant-colonel Jean Carcie and Commander Madelin.
In agreement with the ORA, Doctor Fric took the direction of the military organization of the Movement of the Resistance of the Prisoners of war led by François Mitterrand. François Marzolff and Henri Weibacher, both law students, worked for them.
The "Ardents" group was formed in 1941 in Chamalières, with the merging of 2 groups led one by General Coche, the other by Roger Lazard, called Général François. Their symbol was Joan of Arc's blazing flame. They undertook mass demonstrations, commando attecks and intelligence action. Alfred Klein, a law student who was a also a teacher in Chamalières, joined them.
I did not take part to the group "Action" . Mathieu, whom I met sometimes, when he would come and collect forged identity cards, never said anything to me. As for Cauchi, he travelled a lot for Mithridate and Navarre. I saw him from time to time, when he made a short term deposit of a package in my place, or when he made me carry one, and then he would make me swear not to open it. I also went with him twice to Lyon, as a cover.
Cauchi never answered questions, but sometimes he let go to some confidence. One day, he told me (and that appears me to summarize the objective of the group perfectly): "I am the University "job office" for networks, irregular forces and maquis of any kind". Then he added: "I never meet myself those who wish to enter the Resistance. They get through two or three filters according to the person to whom they have connected first. I do not want to make myself known".
* "ligne de demarcation" : the frontier between Occupied France, ruled by the Germans, and "Zone Sud", i.e. non-occupied France, under the control of the Vichy Governement.