Boemelburg - Head of the Gestapo in France

Karl Boemelburg took charge of the Gestapo in Paris in the summer of 1940, at the age of 55.

Drawing on the connections he had established with the French police before the war, he waged a relentless campaign against the communist, Gaullist, and independent Resistance. By 1942 he commanded 2,500 men, backed by more than 30,000 French Gestapo agents. In 1943, within a matter of weeks, he arrested the principal leaders of the French Resistance movements: General Aubert Frère (ORA), General Charles Delestraint (Secret Army), and Jean Moulin, president of the Conseil national de la Résistance, whom he dispatched, moribund, on a train to Berlin. He also conducted an intimidation operation against the Resistance in the unoccupied zone — even before its invasion — in the summer of 1942: Operation Donar. And he dismantled the celebrated communist network of the Rote Kapelle.

Boemelburg was thus directly responsible for the arrest of nearly 300,000 French citizens.

It was he who directed the anti-Jewish repression and who was, in large part, responsible for the round-ups that enabled the deportation of 75,000 Jews from France. It was also he who ensured the surveillance and "protection" of Marshal Pétain in Vichy in 1944. In August, he conveyed him to the Hohenzollern castle at Sigmaringen, before allowing the French marshal to make his way to Switzerland in April 1945. This last act of his sinister career was carried out in contradiction with the orders of an Adolf Hitler who was no longer truly obeyed.

This is the first biography of the head of the Gestapo in France — a pivotal figure of the Occupation who has nonetheless been overlooked by historiography. Historian and journalist Gérard Chauvy is the author of numerous works on Nazism and the Second World War. He recently published Les éminences grises du nazisme (Chronos, 2024) and Histoire de la Milice (Chronos, 2025). Businessman, historian, and writer Philippe Valode is the author of a great many historical essays and works. He recently published Heinrich Müller, l'implacable chef de la Gestapo (2024).