Pierre Brossolette, a freemason

Somewhat overshadowed by the figure of Jean Moulin at the time of the Liberation in 1945, Pierre Brossolette remains one of the main figures of the French Resistance during the Second World War. But did you know that Pierre Brossolette was a Freemason ? His commitment to the Resistance was, of course, based on his political and democratic convictions, but the fact that Pierre Brossolette was a Freemason certainly influenced his vision of man and society. Above all, his death was that of a Freemason who applied the law of silence to the end.

Pierre Brossolette before the war

Pierre Brossolette was born on 23 June 1903 in Paris. His father, Léon, was an inspector of primary education in Paris and his mother, Jeanne, was the daughter of Francisque Vial, who was to become general inspector of public education in 1919 and director of secondary education in 1924. In such an environment, studies were obviously valued and even Pierre's two sisters were agrégation holders, which was quite rare for women at the time. Pierre graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in 1922, first in his class and second in the agrégation in history and geography. Having completed military training during his studies at the École Normale Supérieure, he fulfilled his military obligations and was promoted to reserve sublieutenant in 1925.

In 1926, he married Gilberte Bruel (1905-2004), who in 1946 became France's first female senator. They had two children, Anne and Claude, officially known as Claude Pierre-Brossolette (1928-2017), who was secretary-general of the French presidency between 1974 and 1976 and later became a banker.

The engagement of Pierre Brossolette and Gilberte Bruel

Pierre Brossolette went into journalism and wrote for several left-wing newspapers. He also joined the League of Human Rights and the International League against Anti-Semitism. On 22 January 1927 (or 23 April, depending on the source), he was initiated into the Émile Zola Lodge of the Grand Lodge of France, and then into the higher degrees of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite within the Supreme Council of France. In 1937 he joined Lodge L'Aurore Sociale in the Orient de Troyes of the Grand Orient of France. He was a very active Mason until the outbreak of the war.

From 1929, he took an active part in politics, joining the SFIO (Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière, which was to become the main component of the Socialist Party founded in 1969). He stood in the 1936 legislative elections under the banner of the Popular Front, but was not elected. Initially a pacifist, he changed his mind in the face of Hitler's warmongering. He openly criticised the Munich Agreement of 1938 and was sacked from Radio PTT in January 1939.

Pierre Brossolette during the war 

In 1939, Pierre Brossolette was mobilised with the rank of lieutenant, then promoted to captain. During the German offensive in 1940, he enabled his unit to withdraw in order and with their weapons, for which he was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

In the winter of 1940-1941, he joined the Musée de l'Homme network, one of the first organised resistance movements in the occupied zone. He then helped to set up two other networks, Libération-Nord and the Organisation Civile et Militaire (OCM). With his wife, he bought a bookshop in Paris, which served as a mailbox and meeting place for the Resistance.

On the night of 27-28 April 1942, Brossolette flew secretly to London to meet General de Gaulle as a representative of the Resistance. He brought with him a great deal of very useful information for the Free France. He asked to be allowed to return to France to rally various political figures to the Free French cause. He did this successfully, bringing back to London two leading figures from the SFIO, but also, more surprisingly, Charles Vallin (1903-1948), a former Maurrassian and member of the Catholic Right, who had initially been loyal to the Vichy regime. Together, Brossolette and Vallin officially joined the Free French Forces on 29 September 1942.

Pierre Brossolette's false identity card

In liaison with Colonel Passy (André Dewavrin, 1911-1998, head of the Free French secret service), Brossolette became the intermediary between the Resistance in the northern zone and London, in the same way as Jean Moulin (1899-1943) did for the southern zone.

Parachuted into France for the second time on 27 January 1943, Brossolette managed, not without difficulty, to unite the Resistance movements of the northern zone within the CCZN (Comité de Coordination Zone Nord). This committee, set up on 26 March 1943, was an important step towards uniting all the Resistance movements in the North and South within the National Council of the Resistance (CNR), set up by Jean Moulin on 27 May 1943.

On his return to London on 18 June 1943, Brossolette was one of the speakers at the anniversary celebrations of the 18 June Appeal at the Albert Hall. And on 13 August, he joined de Gaulle in Algiers, from where he left on a final mission to France. His mission was to reorganise the Resistance, which was suffering from dysfunction. 

The arrest and death of Pierre Brossolette 

It was at the end of this last mission that, after several unsuccessful attempts at exfiltration, Brossolette was arrested by the German army on the Brittany coast in February 1944. He was imprisoned at the Rennes Kommandantur, before being identified by the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, the SS intelligence service) on 16 March 1944. Brossolette was then transferred to Gestapo headquarters in Paris, along with Émile Bollaert (1890-1978), another Resistance leader arrested with him.

The two men were tortured for two days and on 22 March 1944, taking advantage of a guard's inattention, Brossolette threw himself out of a window. Seriously injured, he was taken to the Salpêtrière hospital, where he died at around 10pm. He had not spoken, and the only name he had revealed to his torturers was his own. He was cremated on 24 March 1944 and his ashes were laid to rest in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

We cannot help but compare Pierre Brossolette's tragic end to Hiram's death as depicted in Masonic legend : both preferred to die rather than betray the secret they held.

The posterity of Pierre Brossolette 

At the time of the Liberation, Pierre Brossolette was undoubtedly the greatest figure of the Resistance. But Jean Moulin, who was also tortured by the Gestapo and died in July 1943 while being transferred to Germany, was preferred. It was Jean Moulin's ashes that General de Gaulle, then President of the Republic, decided to transfer to the Panthéon in 1964. Why was the memory of Pierre Brossolette relatively obscured ? There were several political reasons. The government wanted to create a mythical narrative of the Liberation and to support the idea of a single leader of the Resistance in France who would act as a counterpart to the leader of the Resistance in London, General de Gaulle. But why Moulin and not Brossolette ? Undoubtedly, Brossolette was too far to the left and, above all, he had always wanted to keep the political parties, which he considered responsible for the defeat, out of the Resistance movements, whereas Moulin was more lenient towards them. We can imagine that some party leaders held a certain grudge against him.

Pierre Brossolette in front of the Free French emblem

Nevertheless, Pierre Brossolette was honoured throughout France, with almost 500 streets bearing his name, as well as several public educational establishments. Freemasonry was not to be outdone, with two lodges bearing his name, the Pierre Brossolette-Compagnon de la Libération Lodge of the Grand Lodge of France and the Pierre Brossolette-Terre des Hommes Lodge of the Grand Orient of France. The Grand Lodge of France also named its public lecture series the Condorcet-Brossolette Lecture Series, and in 2014 it named its Grand Temple on rue Puteaux in Paris the Pierre Brossolette Temple.

Finally, in 2013, a committee was formed to propose the transfer of Pierre Brossolette's ashes to the Panthéon. French President François Hollande signed the decree on 7 January 2015 and Pierre Brossolette finally entered the Panthéon on 27 May 2015, 51 years after Jean Moulin.