On Saturday, 100 people gathered in the French city of Brest to remember five Trotskyist resistance fighters. Their internationalist legacy is relevant for anti-war struggles today.
Nathaniel Flakin
Nathaniel Flakin
On Saturday, around 100 people gathered in the French city of Brest to commemorate five Trotskyist resistance fighters: Georges Berthomé, Yves Bodénez, Robert Cruau, André Floch, and Albert Goavec. During the Second World War, they fought against the Nazi occupation, as did many thousands of people across France. But these activists of the Internationalist Workers Party (POI) launched a daring operation against the Nazis: They began fraternization work with German soldiers in this city. Using a German-language newspaper, Arbeiter und Soldat (Worker and Soldier), they were able to organize a revolutionary cell inside the Wehrmacht, the Nazi army.
After they were betrayed by an informant, the Gestapo arrested them on October 6, 1943. Now, 81 years later, a plaque at 87 Rue de Richelieu marks their last meeting place, which became a trap. (The whole city of Brest was razed by fighting in 1944, so it was a different building.) The leader, Robert Cruau, was immediately shot by the Gestapo; the others were murdered later in concentration camps.
At a ceremony to unveil the plaque, the historian Jean-Yves Guengant gave a speech, as did François Preneau of the historical association “Amis d’Arbeiter und Soldat.” The mayor of Brest, François Cuillandre of the Socialist Party, praised the activists’ struggle for peace and solidarity: “They make us proud to be Bresters.” Pierre-Yves Cadalen, a member of the National Assembly from La France Insoumise, was also there for a minute of silence. Flags of both the Fourth International (the Trotskyist world party) and the French Resistance were waving, as local press reported.
A bus then took people to a second ceremony several kilometers away, next to the massive concrete U-Boot Bunker that the Nazis had built. This is where the fraternization work began: Trotskyist activists working at the construction site were able to connect with German “workers in uniform.” Despite the extreme repression in Nazi Germany, plenty of soldiers had parents who had been in the Communist Party. Now, a bilingual plaque recalls the internationalist network around Arbeiter und Soldat.
Claudius Naumann, a trade unionist from Berlin, unveiled the plaque and then gave a speech in French, recalling the ideas defended by the resistance fighters: “The enemy is not some other nation — the real enemies are the warmongers of all nations.” This is sadly relevant in our days, as the drums of war beat ever louder.
After the two ceremonies and a big lunch, a conference looked at new research on this Trotskyist cell. Exactly 124 people from different parts of France, and a few from Germany, gathered at Brest’s trade union hall for the discussion. Different political tendencies were present, including the Parti des Travailleurs (PT, Workers Party, with the biggest contingent), the former Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, Révolution Permanente, and even the Socialist Party.
The historians Preneau and Guengant presented their latest investigations, showing how Brest played an important role in the work of the POI, the underground Trotskyist party in France during World War II. I gave a speech about Martin Monath, the Jewish-German exile who edited Arbeiter und Soldat, and especially about the relevance of his break from left Zionism to join the Fourth International.1 Naumann spoke about the Trotskyists who continued to organize in the concentration camps, and produced the famous declaration of the International Communists of Buchenwald. Finally, Olivier Doriane connected the legacy of the Brest Trotskyists to today’s anti-war struggles. Against all the militarist propaganda, working people must understand: “This is not our war.”
The association “Amis d’Arbeiter und Soldat” has produced two issues of a bilingual (French-German) bulletin, and a future publication will include all the contributions to the conference.
I began researching Arbeiter und Soldat seven or eight years ago. It was supposed to be a short project, but I eventually discovered the name of the paper’s secretive editor, Martin Monath, and I ended up writing an entire book about his life. This felt like an isolated obsession of mine — so it has been both strange and inspiring to meet dozens of comrades digging into the same history. This internationalist example of French workers and German “workers in uniform” during World War II joined in struggle is extremely relevant to our struggles against imperialist war today.
Notes
Notes↑1 I will publish an English translation of this speech soon.
Nathaniel Flakin
Nathaniel is a freelance journalist and historian from Berlin. He is on the editorial board of Left Voice and our German sister site Klasse Gegen Klasse. Nathaniel, also known by the nickname Wladek, has written a biography of Martin Monath, a Trotskyist resistance fighter in France during World War II, which has appeared in German, in English, and in French, and in Spanish. He has also written an anticapitalist guide book called Revolutionary Berlin. He is on the autism spectrum.
On Saturday, around 100 people gathered in the French city of Brest to commemorate five Trotskyist resistance fighters: Georges Berthomé, Yves Bodénez, Robert Cruau, André Floch, and Albert Goavec. During the Second World War, they fought against the Nazi occupation, as did many thousands of people across France. But these activists of the Internationalist Workers Party (POI) launched a daring operation against the Nazis: They began fraternization work with German soldiers in this city. Using a German-language newspaper, Arbeiter und Soldat (Worker and Soldier), they were able to organize a revolutionary cell inside the Wehrmacht, the Nazi army.
After they were betrayed by an informant, the Gestapo arrested them on October 6, 1943. Now, 81 years later, a plaque at 87 Rue de Richelieu marks their last meeting place, which became a trap. (The whole city of Brest was razed by fighting in 1944, so it was a different building.) The leader, Robert Cruau, was immediately shot by the Gestapo; the others were murdered later in concentration camps.
At a ceremony to unveil the plaque, the historian Jean-Yves Guengant gave a speech, as did François Preneau of the historical association “Amis d’Arbeiter und Soldat.” The mayor of Brest, François Cuillandre of the Socialist Party, praised the activists’ struggle for peace and solidarity: “They make us proud to be Bresters.” Pierre-Yves Cadalen, a member of the National Assembly from La France Insoumise, was also there for a minute of silence. Flags of both the Fourth International (the Trotskyist world party) and the French Resistance were waving, as local press reported.
A bus then took people to a second ceremony several kilometers away, next to the massive concrete U-Boot Bunker that the Nazis had built. This is where the fraternization work began: Trotskyist activists working at the construction site were able to connect with German “workers in uniform.” Despite the extreme repression in Nazi Germany, plenty of soldiers had parents who had been in the Communist Party. Now, a bilingual plaque recalls the internationalist network around Arbeiter und Soldat.
Claudius Naumann, a trade unionist from Berlin, unveiled the plaque and then gave a speech in French, recalling the ideas defended by the resistance fighters: “The enemy is not some other nation — the real enemies are the warmongers of all nations.” This is sadly relevant in our days, as the drums of war beat ever louder.
After the two ceremonies and a big lunch, a conference looked at new research on this Trotskyist cell. Exactly 124 people from different parts of France, and a few from Germany, gathered at Brest’s trade union hall for the discussion. Different political tendencies were present, including the Parti des Travailleurs (PT, Workers Party, with the biggest contingent), the former Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, Révolution Permanente, and even the Socialist Party.
The historians Preneau and Guengant presented their latest investigations, showing how Brest played an important role in the work of the POI, the underground Trotskyist party in France during World War II. I gave a speech about Martin Monath, the Jewish-German exile who edited Arbeiter und Soldat, and especially about the relevance of his break from left Zionism to join the Fourth International.1 Naumann spoke about the Trotskyists who continued to organize in the concentration camps, and produced the famous declaration of the International Communists of Buchenwald. Finally, Olivier Doriane connected the legacy of the Brest Trotskyists to today’s anti-war struggles. Against all the militarist propaganda, working people must understand: “This is not our war.”
The association “Amis d’Arbeiter und Soldat” has produced two issues of a bilingual (French-German) bulletin, and a future publication will include all the contributions to the conference.
I began researching Arbeiter und Soldat seven or eight years ago. It was supposed to be a short project, but I eventually discovered the name of the paper’s secretive editor, Martin Monath, and I ended up writing an entire book about his life. This felt like an isolated obsession of mine — so it has been both strange and inspiring to meet dozens of comrades digging into the same history. This internationalist example of French workers and German “workers in uniform” during World War II joined in struggle is extremely relevant to our struggles against imperialist war today.
Notes
Notes↑1 I will publish an English translation of this speech soon.
Nathaniel Flakin
Nathaniel is a freelance journalist and historian from Berlin. He is on the editorial board of Left Voice and our German sister site Klasse Gegen Klasse. Nathaniel, also known by the nickname Wladek, has written a biography of Martin Monath, a Trotskyist resistance fighter in France during World War II, which has appeared in German, in English, and in French, and in Spanish. He has also written an anticapitalist guide book called Revolutionary Berlin. He is on the autism spectrum.
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