Degliame, Marcel 'Fouché - Dormoy'

Date of birth:: December 23rd, 1912 (La Cassine, France)
Date of death:: September 7th, 1989 (Sennevières, France)
Nationality:: French

Biography

In September of 1938 Degliame was mobilized to war. On June 18, 1940 he was made prisoner by the Germans at Fougerolles in Haute-Saône. Sent to a camp in Germany, he escaped in September of 1940 but was recaptured a few days later. Moved to Stalag IV C situated in central Europe, he proceeded to escape again in March 1941 to rejoin, with seven other escapees, Syria, after traversing Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey.

Enrolled in the army of General Dentz, he was hospitalized at Beyrouth and rejoined the Free French Forces (FFL) after the campaign in Syria.

Sent to France in order to organize the resistance with the unions, he left for Marseille in August 1941 and took contact with an intermediary of Claude Bourdet in the movement of Libération National (which would become Combat) founded by Henri Frenay.

After having met Frenay at Lyon, Marcel Degliame became one of the most important people responsible for Combat. He made an effort to develop a discipline close to the clandestine workers organizations. He would take the pseudonyms "Fouché" and "Dormoy".

In the summer 1942, he was arrested at Draguignan, but managed to escape. Later on, he installed himself in Lyon and participated in the publishing of the newspaper Combat with André Bollieret and Jacqueline Bernard. He also founded, at the request of Henri Frenay, the Action Ouvrière (AO) of Combat whose goal was to organize, under strict isolation, operations of sabotage in the factories which worked for the Germans. He took action in close contact with the others responsible for the movement such as Jean-Guy Bernard and René Hardy. At the same time, the movement Libération-Sud created an AO which combined with that of Combat after the constitution of United Movements of the Resistance (MUR).

In 1943, he held the same position within the MUR and then, in 1944, in the Movement of National Liberation (MLN) which succeeded the MUR. Under his direction, AO developed first in the southern zone before spreading throughout the entirety of France.

As a member of the Directing Committee of Combat, Marcel Degliame was also responsible, starting in the summer 1943, for the MUR’s (and then the MLN’s) Commision for Immediate Action that worked alongside the AO (now directed by Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont), other resistance groups or maquis, and the Résistance-Fer. Under his orders, the service participated principally in the blocking of French manufacturing which was serving the Germans. In October 1943, Degliame founded the newspaper Action, published until 1952.

In 1944, as a member of the director’s committee of MLN, he also participated in the constitution of the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) and represented the movement Combat within the National Council of the Resistance (CNR) after the arrest of Claude Bourdet by the Gestapo in March 1944. In favor of immediate action and of a fighting army, he rejoined the ranks of insurrectionists within the CNR.

In spring 1944, he was made the other national head of French State Body of Liberation (CFL) which brought together the Armée Secrète (AS), the resistance groups, Résistance-Fer, and the maquis de MLN. Delegated by the Action Committee of the Resistance (COMAC), he also occupied the functions of general delegate of the FFI for the southern zone. Later, General Koenig conferred on him the rank of lieutenant-colonel in order to carry out important functions. This obliged him to travel across France, just up until the Allied landing at Normandy, in perfect understanding with the military delegate of the southern zone, Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury.

Under his orders, Degliame undertook the military operation of completing the liberation of Lyon September 3, 1944.