From the Morvan Maquis to the Gestapo Trap: André Rondenay, Agent of Free France

On the night of 12 September 1943, French agent André Rondenay landed on the soil of occupied France. This 30-year-old graduate of the École Polytechnique, who had escaped from German prisoner-of-war camps, had just been trained by British intelligence services after being recruited by the BCRA, which regarded him as one of its finest assets. The missions of the man who would become the representative of Free France to the internal Resistance across the entire Northern Zone were of the utmost importance: directing Plan Tortue, aimed at delaying the arrival of Panzer units at the future landing sites by at least eight hours, destroying industries vital to the German war effort, sabotaging railway lines… But his most difficult mission would be to unite the Morvan maquis groups, divided into organisations with sometimes diametrically opposed political orientations, and forge them into one of the most powerful bastions of the French Resistance.

In this high-risk undertaking, he would have to face the worst slanders from within his own camp, until, betrayed and arrested, he was executed by the agents of the Gestapo, the Abwehr and the Milice who had hunted him relentlessly, just days before the liberation of Paris.

By following the journey of a hero of the shadow war, Joël Drogland takes us as close as possible to the lives of clandestine fighters, tracing their victories as well as their defeats and fratricidal struggles.

PRIX PHILIPPE VIANNAY-DÉFENSE DE LA FRANCE 2019, AWARDED BY THE FONDATION DE LA RÉSISTANCE