Cordier, Daniel

Date of birth:: August 10th, 1920 (Bordeaux, France)
Date of death:: November 20th, 2020 (Cannes, France)
Nationality:: French

Biography

He was not yet 20 years old and awaited his planned incorporation on July 10, when, near Pau where his family resided, he heard the announcement of the request for an armistice made on the radio by Marshal Pétain on June 17, 1940.

Revolted by this speech, he decided to continue the fight, and gathered 16 volunteers, including his friend Philippe Marmissolle-Daguerre, with whom he embarked on June 21 from Bayonne on a Belgian ship, the Leopold II, for North Africa. . Routed to England, it reached Falmouth on June 25.

Daniel Cordier joined the "Legion de Gaulle" with his comrades on June 28, 1940. In transit for a few days at the Olympia Hall, he was assigned to the Battalion of Chasseurs then in formation. He arrives at the beginning of July at Delville Camp, where he follows training until the end of the month. The Chasseurs Battalion then moved to Camberley and then to Old Dean camp where Daniel Cordier continued his military training.

The Battalion being dissolved, it is assigned to an officer cadet platoon. Promoted aspirant in August 1941, when the planned departure for the African theater of operations did not materialize, he was eager to take action and obtained to be assigned, in the summer of 1941, to the "Action" service of the Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action (BCRA), that is to say the secret services of Free France in London.

For a year, he underwent special training in the schools of the Intelligence Service on sabotage, radio, landings and parachutes. Daniel Cordier, under the code name of Bip W, was parachuted into France near Montluçon on July 26, 1942, as radio and secretary to Georges Bidault, head of the Information and Press Office (BIP), an underground press agency.

In Lyon, on August 1, he met for the first time Rex, alias Jean Moulin, representative of General de Gaulle and delegate of the French National Committee, who hired him to organize his secretariat in Lyon. He sets up a clandestine staff, without means or personnel - especially at the beginning - before being assisted by Laure Diebold, then by Hugues Limonti in particular.

In March 1943, Daniel Cordier organized and directed in Paris, according to the directives of Jean Moulin, his northern zone secretariat.

After the latter's arrest on June 21, 1943 in Caluire, he continued his mission in the northern zone as secretary of the General Delegation in France to Claude Bouchinet-Serreulles, interim successor to Jean Moulin.

At his post until March 21, 1944, chased by the Gestapo, he escaped through the Pyrenees. Interned in Spain, in Pamplona then in Miranda, he returned to England at the end of May 1944 and was appointed head of the section for parachuting agents of the BCRA.

Integrated into the General Directorate of Studies and Research (DGER) in October 1944, he unearthed, with Vitia Hessel, the BCRA archives to enable the drafting, which Stéphane Hessel is responsible for, of the BCRA White Paper.

Chief of staff to Colonel Passy, director of the DGER, he resigned after the departure of General de Gaulle in January 1946.

After the war, Daniel Cordier wanted to devote his life to painting and started a collection of contemporary art.

In 1956, he opened an art gallery in Paris and New York until 1964. In 1979, he was appointed member of the purchasing committee of the Center Georges Pompidou to which, in 1989, he donated his collection including a part is in the Museum of Modern Art of Toulouse, "Les Abattoirs".

Since the beginning of the 80s, Daniel Cordier has become a historian to defend the memory of Jean Moulin; abandoning his artistic activities, he devoted himself to historical research on Jean Moulin, of which he published since 1983 a colossal biography in six volumes.

Daniel Cordier has been a member of the Council of the Order of the Liberation since September 2005. In October 2017, he was appointed Chancellor of Honor of the Order of the Liberation.