André Dewavrin
André Dewavrin ( born June 9, 1911 in Paris, † December 20, 1998 in Neuilly -sur -Seine ) was a French officer who established the Military Intelligence Bureau Central de Renseignements et d' Action ( BCRA ) of the Free French Forces.
Dewavrin visited the son of an industrialist, after school, the Lycée Louis -le- Grand in Paris and the École Polytechnique, where he finished as an engineer 1932-1934. Thereafter, he completed a study of law and entered the army as a lieutenant in the 4th Regiment pioneer in Grenoble, where he taught as a professor in the military academy Saint- Cyr 1938/39. Dewavrin was like Marie- Pierre Koenig participated in the Franco-British attempt at a Norway surgery in Narvik 1940, from where he returned under General Antoine Béthouart on 17 June 1940 after Brest and join the Free French in common with his division under General Charles de Gaulle England joined.
Promoted to the rank of Major Dewavrin was entrusted with the construction of its own French military intelligence, which was initially called the Bureau Central de Renseignement et d' Action Militaire ( BCRAM ). It was founded without agents and without any means of communication. Dewavrin built with André Manuel from the Service de Reseignement (SR ) it quickly an organization, which made
- A section action militaire (AM) was prepared and future agents on landing operations and parachute jumps,
- A section of documentation militaire, which had the task to collect all relevant information of the SR and militarily to sift in order to extract information (green, blue, purple) for its own military planning,
- A section of non- militaire, which should deal with the various issues and advise the provisional government on domestic issues and
- A section counterintelligence.
Under the name of fighting Colonel Passy, he organized, supported by the Special Operations Executive (SOE ), the Resistance in France. In this capacity he collected the information of the Resistance, himself traveled on secret paths to France to speak with agents of the Resistance and planned the operations and sabotage of 350 agents who bailed over France by parachute.
Dewavrin and his deputy Pierre Brossolette jumped by parachute on 23 February 1943 from France to take part in the discussions with Jean Moulin, which led to the construction of the " resistance Parliament " Conseil National de la Résistance CNR in May 1943.
In June 1943, the BCRA was with the remains of the Deuxième Bureau of the Vichy army of General Henri Giraud, the Direction Générale des Services Spéciaux ( DGSS ) merged, which was placed under Jacques Soustelle. In the following six months Dewavrin worked as Sous Telles technical consultant in Algiers. Then Dewavrin left the DGSS and joined in February 1944 General Marie- Pierre Koenig, commander of the Force de l' interieur Français (FFI ) and Force Français en Angleterre, his chief of staff, he was after the Allied landings in Normandy. In October 1944, he was called back to the top of DGSS. He was now actually sent by de Gaulle with numerous special jobs to America, India, China and Indochina with the rank of colonel.
Dewavrin was intelligence chief of the Provisional Government of de Gaulle, to de Gaulle resigned in January 1946. Dewavrin was shortly afterwards accused of de Gaulle's successor, to have funds that were intended for the Resistance, misappropriated for their own purposes. He was taken four months in Vincennes in custody before the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. The British historian Antony Beevor believed that Dewavrin could have tried funds to cover the case of a communist coup attempt.
1947, 1948 and 1951 Dewavrin published his memoirs in 1953 became the technical advisor of the Banque Worms and 1963-1972 he was General Manager Europe of the American textile company group DHJ. Between 1967 and 1976 he also served as Chairman of the company Japy.