La Résistance

THE FRENCH RESISTANCE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR
  © IWM (HU 56936)

Hauptmann Kurt-Joachim Winkler was sipping a whiskey as the train he was riding left the outskirts of Château-Thierry. He was heading home on leave, this would be the first time he had been home since leaving the year before in March as his unit was getting ready for the invasion of France.

He had mixed feelings about this trip, his unit was being redeployed to Russia, where, as he understood it, things were not going very well. His colonel had arranged things so that Winkler might spend a few days with his wife and two children before reporting for duty in southern Russia with Army Group South.

Winkler was a reservist, an artilleryman from Baden who had seen action at the tail end of World War I. After that war had ended, he had stayed with the small army allowed to the Germans by the victorious Allies. Promotions had been slow, but Winkler was content. His pay was sufficient to allow him to support a wife and children and maintain a small cottage in the little town of Gengenbach in the Schwartzwald.

Though war had come again, he didn't mind, in the artillery ...

Winkler set his whiskey down as the train's brakes began to squeal, what the devil? As the train lurched to a stop, the whiskey spilled and soaked his trousers.

"Diese verdammten Franzosen können nicht einmal eine anständige Eisenbahn betreiben!¹" Winkler muttered as he stood up and tried to wipe the liquid from his trousers.

Furious he got to his feet, looking for someone to berate, that's when he heard gunfire.

Guillaume Micheaux aimed down the tracks at the train which had come to a stop just short of the farm cart which his resistance unit had placed on the tracks. Capitaine Duroc, their unit commander, had received orders to launch attacks on the French rail system. A bold move, one which the Germans couldn't ignore.

He could see the men of his unit talking with the locomotive's engineer, that's when a German soldier stepped off the the car behind the tender. The man had a rifle and was shouting back at someone else in the car.

One of the Frenchmen turned and looked at the German, who was now unslinging his rifle, the man, without a word, raised his machine pistol and shot the German. The soldier collapsed without a sound beside the train.

"Let's go, lads." Henri Laurent was up and moving towards the train, his machine pistol at the ready. Guillaume followed, he could see other resistance men and women running up to the train and entering the cars.

Winkler was bleeding from a wound on his forehead where one of the French had hit him with the butt of a pistol. His hands were on the back of his head, his tunic soiled with blood, his trousers with spilled whiskey. He found himself at his wit's end, what were these people doing? What hope did they have of fighting back against the Reich?

The French had them moving up to the head of the train, he started when he saw the body of a dead soldier lying beside one of the lead cars. It was only then that Winkler felt a hint of fear.

One of the Frenchmen noticed him, apparently Winkler was the only officer on the train.

"Ah, un officier nazi, très gentil. Où vas-tu, cochon²?"

Winkler had no idea what the man had said, he spoke very little French, only enough to order a whiskey, really.

"Ich verstehe nicht, was ...³" Winkler began to answer.

The rifle butt hit him low in the abdomen, driving the air from his lungs and driving him to his knees. He was gasping for air and his eyes were tearing up.

He looked up at the Frenchman who had struck him and saw emptiness in the man's eyes. It was then that Winkler realized that this was the end.

Pierre Mouton fired a single shot into the German's head. It snapped over and the man slumped to the ground, dead. Guillaume, who had struck the man first was angry. Not only were his trousers now soiled with blood and brain matter, he had wanted to kill the German.

"Don't fret Guillaume, we have five other captives, you can shoot one of them."

When Pierre said that, one of the captive Germans blanched, he spoke fluent French.

"Please, gentlemen, there is no need for ..."

Hans Volkmann was shoved from behind as he tried to plead his case. Then another Frenchman grabbed his tunic collar and began pulling him to the front of the train. When he realized what was going to happen, he tried to break away and run, he didn't get far.

Guillaume chambered another round then looked to Duroc. The captain was forcing the surviving Germans to kneel in front of the locomotive. Guillaume noticed two men in police uniforms, not Germans, were among the group being forced to kneel.

"Are those Frenchmen?" he asked Pierre.

Pierre nodded, "Collaborators, they help the Boche. They are worse than the Nazis."

When the partisans left, slipping back into the woods, they left seven dead Germans and two dead Frenchmen.

The Germans began rounding up hostages within hours of the attack.

¹ These damned French can't even run a decent railroad!

² Ah, a Nazi officer, very nice. Where are you going, pig?