Carrière des fusillés Châteaubriant
The Fusillés quarry is the sand pit, located in the commune of Châteaubriant, Loire-Atlantique (then Loire-Inférieure), where twenty-seven prisoners from the Choisel camp were shot by the Nazis on October 22, 1941 in reprisal for the death of Karl Hotz, an Oberstleutnant of the Wehrmacht Heer .
In the autumn of 1941, armed Communist groups carried out a series of operations in Bordeaux, Nantes and Rouen, with the aim of forcing the German army to maintain troops throughout the country. On the morning of October 20, Oberstleutnant Karl Hotz, Feldkommandant of Nantes, was shot dead by Gilbert Brustlein, a member of a commando of young Parisian Communists from the Special Organization. The German army reacts immediately: General von Stülpnagel, commander of the occupying troops in France, has it posted that, "in expiation for this crime", fifty hostages will be shot, as well as fifty more if the culprits are not arrested before midnight on October 23.
The twenty-seven shot at Châteaubriant, all Communists or close to the party, were strangers to the Nantes attack: most of the Communists had been arrested from August 1939 onwards after the announcement of the pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR and their joint invasion of Poland in September. Others were arrested by the Vichy police in autumn-winter 1940-1941. This was the case, for example, of Guy Môquet, arrested on October 13, 1940 by the French police.
General von Stülpnagel chose the names of those shot from a list of 61 inmates of the Choisel internment camp, based on a list supplied by the services of Vichy Interior Minister Pierre Pucheu; 17 of them were among the 27 shot on October 22, 1941. Pucheu's list brought together prisoners presented as "particularly dangerous".
On Wednesday, October 22, 1941, market day in Châteaubriant (so there were lots of people in town) the hostages, who had left the Choisel camp in trucks, sang La Marseillaise the whole way. They all refuse to be blindfolded. They are shot in three groups of nine, at 3:55pm, 4pm and 4:10pm.
List of hostages shot
For each victim a stele is erected in their memory.
Jules Auffret, 39, gas worker, from Bondy, Communist general councillor for the Seine.
Henri Barthélémy, 58, from Thouars, retired from the SNCF, Communist activist.
Titus Bartoli, 58, from Digoin, honorary schoolteacher, communist militant.
Maximilien Bastard, 21, from Nantes, boilermaker, communist militant.
Marc Bourhis, 44, from Trégunc, schoolteacher, Trotskyist communist militant.
Émile David, 19, from Nantes, dental mechanic, communist militant.
Charles Delavacquerie, 19, from Montreuil, printer, communist militant.
Maurice Gardette, 49, from Paris, artisan turner, Communist general councillor for the Seine.
Désiré Granet, 37, from Vitry-sur-Seine, general secretary of the CGT paper and cardboard federation.
Jean Grandel, 50, PTT employee, Communist mayor of Gennevilliers, Communist general councillor for the Seine, secretary of the CGT postal federation.
Pierre Guéguin, 45, from Concarneau, teacher, Communist mayor of Concarneau and general councillor for Finistère, critical Communist: refused to accept the German-Soviet Pact and broke with the PCF, then moved closer to the Trotskyists.
An Huynh-Khuongb,15 dit "Luisne", 29, from Paris, teacher, Communist militant.
Eugène Kérivel, 50, from Basse-Indre, coastal captain (fisherman), Communist militant.
Raymond Laforge, 43, from Montargis, primary school teacher, Communist militant.
Claude Lalet, 21, from Paris, student, leader of the Jeunesses Communistes.
Edmond Lefevre, 38, from Athis-Mons, metallurgist, Communist militant.
Julien Le Panse, 34, from Nantes, house painter, Communist militant.
Charles Michels, 38, from Paris, shoe worker, Communist deputy for the Seine, secretary of the CGT leather and skins federation.
Guy Môquet, 17, from Paris, student, Communist militant, son of Seine deputy Prosper Môquet deported to the Maison-Carrée penal colony.
Antoine Pesqué, 55, from Aubervilliers, medical doctor, Communist activist.
Jean Poulmarc'h, 31, from Ivry-sur-Seine, general secretary of the CGT chemicals federation, Communist activist.
Henri Pourchasse, 34, from Ivry-sur-Seine, prefecture employee, head of the CGT railway workers' federation, Communist militant.
Victor Renelle, 42, from Paris, chemical engineer, Communist militant, creator of the chemical industry technicians' union.
Raymond Tellier, 53, from Paris, chemical engineer, Communist militant.
Maurice Ténine, 34, from Antony, medical doctor, communist militant.
Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 31, from Paris, bronze caster, general secretary of the CGT metallurgy federation, communist militant.
Jules Vercruysse, 48, from Paris, textile worker, general secretary of the CGT Textile Federation, Communist militant.
Source Wikipedia
