Chanson d'automne Radio

Drôle de guerre (2008)

 

 

 

I'd like to start in 1940 before we rewind to 1866.  Radio Londres was a radio station broadcast from 1940 to 1944 by the BBC in London to Nazi-occupied France.  It broadcast entirely in French, and was for the most part, operated by escaped French nationals living in England. It's main purpose was to counter the propaganda broadcasts of the Vichy government's Radiodiffusion Nationale, and also the German-controlled Radio Paris. It's secondary, covert purpose was to send coded messages to the French Resistance.

As you'd expect, the Germans banned Radio Londres and did their best to jam it. Radio Paris had been broadcasting since 1922 and the Germans took it over in 1940. Radiodiffusion had only began broadcasting in July of 1939. It was nick-named Radio Vichy for it's studio location: Vichy Casino.

But the French collaborators were broadcasting essentially the same right-wing propaganda as Radio Paris: Philippe Henriot, Alain Laubreaux, Jean Hérold-Paquis, Paul Creysse, Lucien Rebatet, Marcel Déat to name a few. None of them would fare well after the war.

But back to those secret coded messages. It was routine to proadcast messages intended for French resistance cells. The best known today is probably the two part messages intended to cue operation Overlord. The first was to alert listeners that D-Day was imminent. The second indicated that specific, previously coordinated actions should be taken. These lines were taken from the Paul Verlaine poem Chanson d'automne.

The phrase "violins of autumn" indicated that Overlord was to start within two weeks. That was broadcast on on Thursday, June 1st, 1944. This was followed by the action order "Wound my heart with monotonous langor."  This quote meant that Overlord would start within 48 hours. The French resistance should begin sabotage operations. It was broadcast on Monday, June 5th, 1944. Verlaine had been dead for 48 years.

The poem Chanson d'automne ("Autumn Song") is a poem by the French poet Paul Verlaine. It was published in Verlaine's first collection, Poèmes Saturniens, in 1866. The poem forms part of the "Paysages tristes" ("Sad landscapes") section of the collection. Not everything on Radio Londres was so poetic. Other known coded messages include  "Jean has a long moustache" and "There is a fire at the insurance agency."

The text of the broadcast in that recording is as follows:

"This is London Calling the European News Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation.  Here is the news. But first here are some messages for our friends in occupied countries: The Trojan war will not be held. John is growing a very long beard this week. The long sobs of the violins of autumn. Les sanglots longs des violons d'autumne. Wound my heart with a monotonous langour..."

Radio Paris in WWII (Part 2)

Back in 1936 there were three primary radio stations in France: Tour-Eiffel, Paris-PTT and Radio-Paris. In 1940 they were all either shut down or repeaters for Radio-Paris.  On May 8th, 1942 the Radio Vitchy transmitter in Bourges was blown up by the Resistance. In November of 1942 the Avis occupied even the the zone libre. The French government, such as it was, became less independent, and more controlled by the Nazis. Radio-Londres, was even less popular with the fascists. More here

Starting in 1942, Jean Herold-Paquis broadcast daily propaganda news reports on Radio Vitchy, in which he regularly called for the "destruction" of the United Kingdom. His catch phrase was "England, like Carthage, shall be destroyed!" It's broadcasts were pitched directly against the BBC broadcasts of Radio Londres by Free French figures like Pierre Dac, who sang the taunting refrain "Radio Paris ment, Radio Paris ment, Radio Paris est allemand."  That roughly translates to "Radio Paris lies, Radio Paris lies, Radio Paris is German.") He set it to the theme of 'La Cucaracha'. (The song dates back to the 1700s) More here.

Listening to the BBC was outlawed and after 1942 it was punishable by death. Nonetheless the ban was regularly flouted. The BBC was more trusted for news than the propaganda outlets. In December 1943 Philippe Henriot was appointed Secretary of State for Information. During his career he created propaganda programs and broadcast through Radio Paris, becoming the government's spokesman. He waged a war of propaganda against the Free French Forces and in particular the BBC. For his efforts, Henriot was nicknamed the "French Goebbels". More here.

Source claim that about 45% the daily output of Radio Paris was devoted to music. The rest was news and propaganda. But even the music was often propaganda... numerous parodies of popular songs were composed with new pro-fascist lyrics. More here. This is not to say that every DJ was a fascist. Many resisted passively by avoiding pro-fascist music. Pierre Hiegel at Radio Paris, for example, did not collaborate but also never alluded to political affairs. He played primarily French composers, avoiding Germans but also Jewish composers. (After the war he became "Monsieur Musique" for Radio Luxembourg.)

Radio Paris was shut down on the evening of August 15th, 1944 by French Forces, as part of the liberation of Paris. In September 1944, The Vichy government fled, and became a government-in-exile in Sigmaringen, across the border in Germany. Herold-Paquis advised collaborators at Radio Paris to leave France. They piled into a truck and headed for Germany. They claimed in their final broadcast that Germany would win because of their 'secret weapons.'  Germany was no permanent safe-haven and some subsequently fled to Switzerland, or further afield.

On June 28th, 1944, Philippe Henriot was assassinated by members of COMAC (Comite d'Action Militaire). After the war, Petain was tried and convicted for treason. He was originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Petain died in 1951. Jean Herold-Paquis was captured in Switzerland. In 1945, he was handed over to the French, who executed him for treason on October 11th, 1945.

Radio Paris in WWII (Part 1)

After a topic like freedom fries, it feels necessary to defend the French. When it comes to the size of their military they come in behind Greece, but ahead of Spain, Germany and most of their other European neighbors. Nonetheless they retain, at least in the West, a poor military reputation. Despite the nature of their loss in WWII, a portion of their population remained engaged in resistance through out the war, and that includes propaganda efforts. As you may have guessed, in the 1940s that would include radio.

France declared war against Germany in September of 1939 in response to their invasion of Poland. But there was little fighting between 1939 and 1940. Winston Churchill called this 8-month period the "Twilight War."  The Germans agreed, calling it the sitzkrieg or "the sitting war."  In France it is referred to as the drôle de guerre the "strange" war. U.S. Senator William Borah [R] called it the "Phoney War" [note the British spelling] and many historians continue to use that term today. In May 1940 Germany invaded  Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg definitively ending this 8-month interregnum.

So let's back up twenty years and we can get back to our strange, phoney, twilight sitters. Radiola was a privately owned French radio station founded by  engineer Emile Girardeau. It broadcast under that name from November 6th, 1922 until March 28th, 1924 with the intention of promoting the sale of domestically produced Radiola brand radios. This Paris-based station made its first test transmissions on June 26th, 1922. Ownership was eventually transferred to the French Government, and it was renamed Radio Paris on March 29th, 1924. More here.

Back to 1939. In the so-called Twilight War, not all of the French were aligned with the Allies. In may of 1940 German invaded France and the country was divided into German-occupied France and a free zone in  Southern France. But the new government under Philippe Petain in Southern France was very authoritarian and committed to appeasement with Germany.  So it's not surprising there were collaborationists even in Vichy France. Jacques Doriot was a staunch pro-German and supported Germany's occupation of northern France in 1940. Radio Paris became a propaganda outlet. In the unoccupied zone Radiodiffusion Nationale became another propaganda outlet, Radio-Nationale de Vichy.

Doriot was so pro-fascist he actually moved from Vichy France to German occupied France to espouse pro-German and anti-Communist and anfi-British propaganda on Radio Paris. More here. State-run broadcasting suffered in the first months after the Strange War. But the transmitter of the Eiffel Tower was sabotaged on 6 June 1940 so that the Germans could not use it and on the 10th, the public radio station was relocated to Bordeaux where the programs resumed. On October 30th, 1940, Petain made state collaboration official, declaring on Radio Paris: "I enter today on the path of collaboration."

*****More in Part 2 Next Week*****