Assassination of Karl Hotz
Karl Hotz was a Lt. Colonel in the German military during World War II. With the occupation of France by Nazi Germany in June 1940, Hotz became the military governor of the German military administration in Nantes. He was assassinated in Nantes by French communists on 20 October 1941, one of the first German soldiers killed by the French Resistance. His assassination led to a massive manhunt for his killers and the retaliatory execution of 48 French citizens by the Germans. Relations between the German occupiers and French officials in Nantes had been cooperative until the executions which contributed to worsening relationships between the French and their German occupiers.
Early life
Hotz was born in 1877 in Wertheim am Main. He became an army officer and served in Metz where he learned to speak French. He lived in Nantes from 1930 to 1933 as head of a project to build an underground canal system beneath the city. On his return to Nantes as military governor in 1940, he was described by a French employee as "an old man, dry, short, dressed in an artillery officer's uniform" with "a broad smile and kindly expression." Hotz was a music lover and was invited to play the trumpet and piano at the homes of prominent citizens of Nantes and its region.Background
The German occupation forces in France, under General Otto von Stülpnagel, encountered little violent opposition after the armistice between France and Germany on 22 June 1940 until the 22 June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union.The Soviet Union, an ostensible ally of Nazi Germany, had instructed the French Communist Party to take no action against the German occupying power. With the invasion of the Soviet Union, the French communists changed course and embarked on a "campaign of sabotage and assassination."
On 13 August 1941, a group of 100 young people formed by the PCF youth wing walked out of the Strasbourg – Saint-Denis station singing la Marseillaise under the tricolor flag. French police intervened and German soldiers opened fire. Samuel Tyszelman was hit in the leg. Henri Gautherot fled but was caught in the nearby Boulevard Saint-Martin. Tyszelman and Gautherot were executed on 19 August. Two days later, on August 21, 1941, the first assassination of a German military officer followed as revenge. The naval management assistant Alfons Moser was shot in the Barbès - Rochechouart metro station by the communist party member Pierre "Frédo" Georges in Paris, accompanied by Gilbert Brustlein. In retaliation, six French prisoners were convicted, sentenced to death and executed by a newly constituted French special court under pressure from the German occupying forces.
On 22 August, the Germans in Paris announced that all prisoners in French jails because of offenses to the Germans would be regarded as hostages and could be executed in response to resistance to the German occupation. The announcement blamed the attacks on "Jewish Bolsheviks." On 3 September, unknown persons shot and killed Sergeant Ernst Hoffman in Paris. The German army executed three communist prisoners in response. German leader Adolf Hitler was dissatisfied with the "limited executions" and ordered more "drastic measures" with 50 to 100 executions for each assassination of a German soldier.
On 15 September, German officer Wilhelm Scheben was shot and killed in Paris. In retaliation, the Germans executed twelve hostages on September 19. The Germans attempted to execute only hostages who had committed sabotage or other serious crimes but if they ran short of hostages they executed people convicted of minor offenses. Six of those executed had been convicted of minor crimes.
About 15 October the French communists extended their attacks on German military personnel to the provinces. The leaders of the self-named "Battalions of Youth," Georges and Albert Ouzoulias, sent Gilbert Brustlein and Guico Spartaco from Paris to Nantes.
Assassination
At 7:30 a.m. on 20 October 1941, Hotz and Captain Wilhelm Sieger were walking across the cathedral square in Nantes en route to their offices when the two assassins, Brustlein and Spartaco, opened fire on them. Brustlein fired three shots into the back of Hotz who died immediately; Spartaco's pistol jammed and Sieger was unharmed. The two ran from the scene into the maze of streets surrounding the square and were not apprehended. The killing of Hotz was random; at the time the assassins did not know that they killed the commander of the German occupiers of Nantes. Fifty years later Brustlein said that the assassination was an "act of war" and that it ignited the resistance in western France.The immediate reaction of the French authorities in Nantes was to try to placate the Germans. The French had had good relations with Hotz. The mayor of Nantes and the prefect of the province presented their condolences. The Germans told them that the response to the assassination would be decided by their superiors in Paris and Berlin. The French in Nantes issued an appeal to the citizenry to find Hotz's assassins and condemned the "odious crime." The newspaper blamed the killing on agents of London and Moscow, complimented Hotz on his fairness, and repeated the appeal to find the assassins.
German reprisals
Hitler learned of Hotz's assassination at 10:30 a.m. He advocated the execution of 100 to 150 hostages, a curfew in western France, and a one million franc reward for information leading to the capture of the killers. Hitler blamed the British for the assassination. The responsibility for carrying out Hitler's wishes fell on Otto von Stülpnagel, based in Paris and the military commander of occupied France. Stülpnagel argued for a three-day delay in executing the hostages to allow time to catch the killers. Hitler decreed that fifty hostages would be executed immediately and 50 more if the killers were not caught in two days. The situation was complicated when another communist assassin killed a civilian working for the German military in Bordeaux on 21 October.French authorities drew up the list from men already in internee and prison camps, using it as an opportunity to rid France of communists. Thirty of the fifty chosen were communists; the other twenty were a varied group, including one man whose offense had been not surrendering his hunting rifle to the Germans. Last minute negotiations between the French and Germans reduced the list to 48. On October 22 the 48 men were executed by the German military and the Schutzstaffel. Their names were published in newspapers the following day. Those executed included Guy Môquet, Charles Michels and Jean-Pierre Timbaud.
French authorities and private citizens tried to persuade the Germans to call off the execution of 50 additional men for the assassination of Hotz as had been ordered by Hitler. Stülpnagel agreed and sent a message to Berlin: "the attacks were carried out by small terror attacks and English soldiers or spies who move from place to place;...the majority of Frenchmen do not support them...shooting hostages only embitters the people and makes future rapprochement more difficult...I personally have warned against Polish methods in France."
Exiled French leader Charles de Gaulle weighed in on October 23 advising the French in a BBC radio broadcast not to kill Germans because the Germans could retaliate with massacres. He promised to attack the Germans in France when it became possible. On October 28, Hitler suspended the execution of the additional hostages.
The executions (October 22, 1941)
In Châteaubriant and Nantes, hostages in each of the three detention sites were gathered early in the afternoon without being formally informed of the reason. French Catholic priests assigned to provide moral support were the ones to notify them of their fate. According to the priests’ accounts, their very presence in the room was enough for the hostages to understand their impending execution. The priests collected letters and personal items to pass on to families.The priests were not permitted to accompany the condemned to the execution sites, although German military chaplains were present.
The bodies were buried anonymously in different cemeteries. By dispersing the corpses, the Germans aimed to prevent the creation of pilgrimage sites that could fuel hostility against them. However, this dispersion did not stop the graves from being adorned with flowers from the very first days and throughout the war.
In Paris, the executions were carried out more swiftly. Families of the executed learned of their deaths through the publication of the list of 48 names in the press on the morning of October 23.
Arrival at Choisel Camp
"Mr. Sub-Prefect was among the condemned, informing them of the horrific fate awaiting them and urging them to write farewell letters to their families without delay. It was under these circumstances that the priest arrived at the barracks entrance. In front of the barracks stood a line of German soldiers with weapons at the ready. Around the barracks, a cordon of French gendarmes was stationed at intervals of about six meters. Inside, the condemned were all writing their letters—some seated at the few benches in the room, others leaning against the barrack walls as they wrote..."Châteaubriant: The Sablière Quarry
At Choisel Camp, the hostages gathered in Barrack 6 were assisted by Father Moyon, the priest of Béré. At 2:00 PM, three German trucks arrived to collect them. They were taken to the Sablière Quarry on the outskirts of Châteaubriant. They were executed in three groups of nine at 3:50, 4:00, and 4:10 PM.Among them was Guy Môquet, the youngest of the executed at 17 years old. He refused to let his comrades intercede on his behalf, saying, "I am as much a communist as you are," to Dr. Ténine. All refused blindfolds or restraints and died singing "La Marseillaise".
Other notable individuals among the executed included Charles Michels, a communist deputy from Paris's 15th arrondissement, and Jean-Pierre Timbaud, secretary of the Parisian CGT metalworkers' federation. Also present were two Trotskyists: Marc Bourhis and Pierre Guéguin, the mayor of Concarneau, who had broken with the French Communist Party after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
That evening, the bodies were taken to the town's château, which housed the sub-prefecture and placed haphazardly in a room. The following evening, they were placed in coffins and buried in groups of three across the cemeteries of nine nearby communes, including Moisdon-la-Rivière, Saint-Aubin-des-Châteaux, Petit-Auverné, and Villepot.