The Broken Threads. Part 3
Erich Radsack: The Doubled Dubber (1939-1945)

‘Perhaps he was right, to a greater or lesser extent; no one could risk more than their own life. Each according to their strength and disposition – the main thing being: to resist.’
– Hans Fallada, Alone in Berlin

Between 1939 and 1945, whilst Erich Radsack’s fate intersected with that of his wife and daughter, it differed markedly from theirs due to the different identity labels imposed upon them. Whilst he was not identified as Jewish, he was a stateless person of German origin who had taken refuge in France, a fact which had a considerable influence on his commitments and his life’s course. This section draws in particular on the reports, held in the archives of the Prefecture of Police [205], written by the General Intelligence services because he was a foreigner under surveillance.

Initially, Erich joined the Foreign Legion to fight against Germany, out of anti-Nazi sentiment, and with the aim of acquiring French nationality. Following the collapse of the French forces and the signing of the armistice, he fled to the southern zone to avoid being arrested and executed by the Germans as a ‘traitor’ to his country. Subsequently, still hoping to become a French citizen once the conflict was over, Erich agreed to join the Resistance as an interpreter (FFI in Toulouse) and then the secret services (the Second and Fifth Bureaux of the National Armed Forces General Staff, Etat-Major National des Armées). On this occasion, he was given new identities – administrative alter egos recognised by the French state: the ‘dubber’ is doubled. Arrested, imprisoned and then deported to the Dachau concentration camp, he survived by maintaining his false identity.

I – German by Origin, Enemy of Germany (1939-1943)

Erich, a German national who lived in France first as a foreigner and later as a stateless person, fought for the country that had granted him refuge against the country where he had lived for three decades. Like many legionnaires, his enlistment reflected both a conviction and a self-interest [206]: alongside his anti-Nazi stance and a certain attachment to France, he was drawn by the promise of rapid naturalisation [207] offered to volunteers. A logical conclusion to a rejection of Germany that had been developing throughout the 1930s, the year 1939 thus marked an irreversible break. Erich, now stateless, rejected his former German identity and sought to replace it with a French one, which he considered incomplete without naturalisation. Survival and identity: survival no longer meant fleeing danger, but throwing oneself into it with the aim of achieving a change of identity. After the debacle, he had to take refuge in the southern zone: had he returned to the occupied zone, he would have run the risk of being arrested and executed as a traitor to the German fatherland.

1) The Legionnaire: Enlisting for France (1939-1940)

On 1 September 1939, Germany launched its invasion of Poland. Two days later, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. Erich did not hesitate: in the very first days of the conflict, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion, thereby becoming a foreign volunteer (légionnaire). Like him, a total of more than 80,000 foreigners enlisted over the course of eight months [208]. At the time France entered the war, or shortly before, he submitted his application for naturalisation [209].

Erich’s case thus reveals a divided national habitus. As Norbert Elias notes, most Germans, owing to the extremely restrictive belief system that weighed upon them, were convinced that ‘their fundamental duty was to prepare themselves, time and again, to take up arms against Germany’s enemies’ [210]. In the ‘us versus me’ balance, it was the ‘us’ that prevailed – that is to say, the image they had of themselves and of their Germanness. Erich, on the other hand, gradually broke away from the German national habitus, or rather incorporated dispositions that contradicted it – namely, those of a French national habitus (of which mastery of the French language was the primary component [211]). Ultimately, in the conflict between these different dispositions within Erich [212], it is his identification as French that emerges victorious. Under these circumstances, applying for a change of nationality represents far more than a mere change of passport: it involves a genuine ‘reorientation in terms of behaviour and worldview’ [213].

Erich signed up for a five-year term of service. Travelling via Lyon and then Marseille, he made his way to Algeria. After probably arriving in Algiers and then stopping off in Oran, he undertook a training course in Sidi-Bel-Abbès (joining the Corps on 1 November), where the Joint Depot for Foreign Regiments (DCRE) was based. In Sidi-Bel-Abbès, alongside other Germans, stateless persons of Austrian origin and Czechoslovaks [214], he spent Christmas [215]. He was then posted on 22 January 1940 to the Fourth Foreign Infantry Regiment (REI). From Algeria, Erich was then sent to Morocco, where the regiment’s headquarters and most of its battalions were stationed.

When the Battle of France began on 10 May 1940, the Fourth REI did not, therefore, take part in the fighting in mainland France. From mid-May onwards, it was a rout. Against this backdrop, Erich was convicted on 28 May by the military court in Casablanca for ‘desertion’. The sources do not reveal the seriousness of the charges against him. Was it a prolonged absence following leave? Or a genuine attempt to desert, in the midst of the rout, out of fear of being arrested by the Germans should they win the war? Be that as it may, the command deemed that Erich could be retained in service at a stage in the conflict when it could not afford to lose any more men. Erich was therefore given a suspended sentence and reassigned the following day to a new regiment, the Third REI. Like the Fourth Regiment, this unit was stationed in Morocco and took virtually no part in the Battle of France: the activities of these two regiments were mainly centred on Moroccan garrisons, particularly coastal defences. Everything therefore suggests that Erich was not directly involved in the fighting.

On 22 June, the armistice was signed between France and Germany. After being demobilised, Erich was forced to remain in Morocco. Although he had enlisted in the Foreign Legion, he was a German refugee like any other, and, like many refugees who had come to France to flee fascist states, he was interned in one of the foreign workers’ groups (Groupement de travailleurs étrangers, GTE) set up by the Vichy regime on 27 September. It was ironic: from being an anti-Nazi German fighting for France, Erich was thus reduced to forced labour by the new French regime. As a prisoner at the Colomb-Béchar camp, he was probably assigned to the ‘Trans-Saharan’ railway project, which aimed to link French North Africa with sub-Saharan Africa, alongside Spanish Republican refugees and foreign communists.

2) The ‘Traitor’ to Germany: Taking Refuge in Nice (1941-1943)

For reasons unknown (he was probably granted a work permit), the decision was taken to release Erich on 8 April [216]. Initially transferred to Marseille (the Sainte-Marthe camp), there was no question of him rejoining his family in Neuilly: entering the occupied zone would mean risking arrest by the German authorities. They would then regard him, as a German who had refused conscription, as a ‘traitor’ to his country, a ‘deserter’. At best, he would be shot.

Having been granted permission to live and work in the ‘free zone’, Erich asked to be sent to the Ain, where he spent three months in Montanay, near Lyon. He appears to have found a job, and, in order to take it up, had to provide proof that he was not Jewish by requesting copies of documents held in Germany attesting that his grandparents were Christian [217]. In Montanay, Erich made friends who offered to put him up at their home in Nice. He moved in on 1 July 1941 [218]. Then, as mentioned (see Part 2), following the Allied landings in North Africa, Nice was occupied by the Italian army from 11 November 1942. This did not seem to pose any particular problem for Erich, who continued to live there.

Finally, as we have seen, when Ilse feared for her life and that of her daughter, she wrote to him, and he invited her to join him, with the consent of the people who were putting her up. From July-August 1943, Ilse and Nina were therefore in hiding in Nice. Subsequently, as previously established, the family left Nice to take refuge in Ferrals-les-Corbières in December 1943-January 1944, at the ‘country house’ of the people who had already been sheltering them in Nice.

All the documents relating to Erich Radsack’s work in the dubbing industry were kept in the apartment he rented in Neuilly, Rue Frédéric Passy. In all likelihood, following the confiscation of the flat, the documents were destroyed. This has made it all the more difficult to examine his contribution to the film and dubbing industries, first in Berlin (1930-1931, Rhythmographie) and then in Paris (1932-1939, Rythmographie). Thus, although identified as ‘Aryan’ by the German authorities and the Paris Police Prefecture, Erich was indirectly a victim of the anti-Semitic campaign to dispossess Jews: as a husband and son-in-law (or even father) of women deemed to be of Jewish descent, his professional archives were destroyed and his property confiscated.

II – Joining the Resistance and the Secret Services (1944-1945)

From March 1944 onwards, Erich resolved to resume the fight against his country of origin. He joined the French Forces of the Interior (FFI), and then, after the Liberation, he worked for the secret service of the National General Staff (EMN/EMA). As with his enlistment in the Foreign Legion, there was nothing to compel Erich to serve in the Resistance and subsequently in the Second and Fifth Bureaux. He was always driven by two motivations: he wanted Germany to lose the war, and he hoped that his involvement would bolster the application for naturalisation he had submitted shortly before or at the time of Germany’s entry into the war. The secret services suggested that Erich assume a false identity: provided with forged Swiss papers, Erich adopted a false identity, which he managed to maintain whilst in Germany when he was sent there on a mission and subsequently deported to Dachau. In short, a German pretended to be a Swiss in order to become French.

1) The Interpreter: Resisting in Toulouse (March-September 1944)

As explained in the previous section, in March 1944, the Radsack family left Ferrals-les-Corbières and went their separate ways. Ilse and Nina found a new refuge in Bougès, whilst Erich moved to Toulouse to join the Resistance. The certificate issued by a certain ‘Lieutenant Émile’ forms the starting point for the analysis that follows. The author of this document is probably Émile Dubié. According to the Musée de la Résistance en ligne [219], Dubié was resident in Toulouse in 1940, served in the FFI (region R4 [220]), joined the FFI General Staff after the Liberation, and held the rank of lieutenant before rising to lieutenant-colonel: these details all correspond to those of the author of the certificate. It is also known that Dubié had links to the Army Resistance Organisation (ORA, which he represented within the FFI whilst he was a commander [221]), as well as to the Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action (BCRA) in London.

Figure 4 [222]. Certificate from ‘Lieutenant Émile’ (20 November 1944)
Typo: the entry into the Resistance is dated March 1944 (not 1942)

The BCRA originally grew out of the intelligence service established by de Gaulle in July 1940 under the traditional name of the ‘Second Bureau’, a term which had been used since the early 1870s to refer to the French army’s intelligence service. The Second Bureau was subsequently renamed the Intelligence Service (SR, April 1941) and then the Central Bureau of Intelligence and Military Action (BCRAM, January 1942), before becoming the BCRA (September 1942). This intelligence service subsequently merged with the French intelligence services in Algiers to become the General Directorate of Special Services (DGSS, October 1943). After the Liberation, the General Directorate of Studies and Research (DGER, October 1944) took over from the DGSS.

The certificate states that, in Toulouse, Erich served in the FFI as an ‘interpreter’: he translated into French and explained German-language texts and recordings to non-German-speaking members of the Resistance. This was intelligence work, carried out under the command of someone with connections to the Second Bureau. The report subsequently drawn up by the French intelligence services on Erich leaves little room for doubt: ‘He remained in Toulouse until the city’s liberation, where he was working for the Second Bureau.’ [223] In his statement, ‘Lieutenant Émile’ also presents himself as the person who enabled Erich to join the Second Bureau of the National General Staff in Paris after the Liberation (we shall return to this). It therefore appears that after the Liberation, it was indeed Émile Dubié, who had connections at the Second Bureau [224], who acted as the intermediary in securing Erich’s entry into the army’s secret service.

As an interpreter, Erich therefore contributed to the Resistance as an intellectual: his dual mastery of French and German, honed through his work in dubbing (translations and synchronisation), was the skill that enabled him to be of service to the FFI. ‘Each according to their strengths and abilities’: Erich resisted in a way other than by taking up arms or devising strategies. He put his language skills, acquired in Germany where he grew up and lived, at the service of the French Resistance, in which around a thousand Germans were involved [225].

2) The Spy: On an Undercover Mission, Deported to Dachau (October 1944-May 1945)

Following the Allied landings in Provence from 15 August 1944, the liberation of Toulouse on the 20th and that of Paris five days later, Erich continued to work for ‘Lieutenant Émile’. He remained in Toulouse for a while, before finally returning to Neuilly on 10 October. It was to bolster his application for naturalisation – a sign of his desire to break definitively with Germany by forging ties with France through the acquisition of citizenship – that Lieutenant Émile signed the certificate on 20 November acknowledging his contribution to the Resistance, and stated the following regarding this application for naturalisation:

‘I hereby certify that you were a member of my Resistance group […] as a German interpreter, acting on a voluntary basis. I took you on as a draft-resister, having done everything in my power to secure French nationality for you in view of the services you rendered to my group against the Germans.’ (certificate from ‘Lieutenant Émile’)

The author therefore emphasises the nature of the work carried out (interpreter), its quality (‘in view of the services you have rendered’) and the absence of any financial motivation (‘on a voluntary basis’), with a view to legitimising the naturalisation applied for by Erich. Still driven by the goal of becoming French, Erich asks his former lieutenant to help him continue the fight against Germany (even though France had been liberated). This is why Erich is offered the chance to return to the Paris region to join the ‘Army’s secret service’ [226]:

‘The “Second Bureau”: that’s what France’s espionage centre was called. Well, as my father was absolutely determined to become French, from the Liberation onwards, he wanted to do something.’ (Nina)

‘Having accompanied you to Paris on 10 October 1944 to enable you to join our National General Staff services, with a view to your abilities being put to better use.’ (certificate from ‘Lieutenant Émile’)

It was therefore on this occasion that Erich returned to Neuilly, where he rented a hotel room (1 Rue Charcot) which his wife and daughter would soon join him in [227]. A second document reveals the assignments Erich undertook after joining the Armed Forces General Staff:

Figure 5. Certificate from ‘Colonel Vauban’ (14 May 1945) 228

This document originates from the DGER, which, as a reminder, was established in October 1944, and is dated to the time of Erich’s repatriation from Dachau in May 1945. The document is signed by a certain ‘Colonel Vauban’, who could not be identified; this is no doubt a pseudonym (a common practice in the secret services [229]). Like Émile’s certificate, Vauban’s is produced to support Erich’s application for naturalisation (‘application for naturalisation pending’) by highlighting the quality of his work within the services (‘demonstrated sound initiative and performed his mission to full satisfaction’).

By cross-referencing this certificate with the archives of the Prefecture of Police, it is possible to establish a fairly precise chronology. Initially, Erich was posted to the Second Bureau to continue his work as an interpreter: ‘Since his arrival in the capital, he is said to have been assigned to the Second Bureau of the National Army General Staff, where he served as an interpreter with the rank of lieutenant.’ [230] Subsequently, he took part in covert operations in Germany on behalf of another bureau of the General Staff, specialising in counter-espionage, the Fifth Bureau: ‘He is currently believed to be on a mission on behalf of the 5th Bureau of the Army General Staff. He receives a salary amounting to 6,000 francs.’ [231]

To enable Erich to carry out his missions successfully, a protocol was drawn up. As a first step, the secret services created a French administrative alter ego for him, a veritable double: ‘Étienne François Risle’, supposedly born in France, in Bray-Dunes. Ironically, therefore, whilst Erich Radsack was never granted French nationality, his administrative alter ego was indeed French: Erich was French only through his double. It is worth noting that the latter’s surname is a play on words, in fact an anagram (‘Risle’ for ‘Ilse R’, that is to say, his wife).

Subsequently, this French alter ego was issued with Swiss identity documents. Erich now officially had a triple identity. Erich’s file, held in the archives of the Dachau Memorial Site [232], confirms that, on his Swiss identity papers, his name was ‘Charles Gloor’. Born on 19 January 1903 (rather than the 17th) in Basel, a merchant (kaufmann), this administrative alter ego resided at 33 Rue de Berne (Paris) – a choice not without a touch of humour:

Figure 6. Erich's prisoner card at the Dachau camp (Arolsen Archives)

We shall see later that these two aliases – the French and the Swiss – continued to exist as separate administrative entities after the war, at least until 1946-1948. In any case, once these false identities had been established, Erich could be sent on a mission by the Fifth Bureau. His objective, according to Nina, was to gather information on Hitler’s whereabouts:

‘He had false papers that the French had made for him, which were Swiss documents bearing a false Swiss name. [To] provide information on Hitler’s whereabouts, in principle in Berchtesgaden.’ (Nina)

The protocol drawn up for this purpose by the army’s secret service is as follows: from France, Erich travels to Switzerland, from where he crosses into Germany to carry out intelligence and reconnaissance work. At the end of the mission, he returns first to Switzerland, before heading back to France. According to Nina, the first mission went smoothly, which allowed the secret service to plan a new mission:

‘He went on his first mission. He travelled via Switzerland to Germany. He returned via Switzerland, then came back to France. Then he set off again a second time, a little later.’ (Nina)

But the outcome of Erich’s second mission was tragic. Having left Paris on 11 March 1945 for Switzerland and then Germany, once his clandestine operation was complete, he was preparing to leave Germany to enter Swiss territory. So, whilst on his way back on 6 April, he was arrested by the German army. It was not his identity documents that ‘gave Erich away’, as these conformed exactly to the standards of official Swiss documents. In reality, what gave him away was the German language – more specifically, his accent. Although he was Swiss according to the documents he was carrying, Erich was unable to deceive the Germans, who were not taken in when they checked him:

‘The Germans assumed he was German himself, because of the way he spoke. They realised he must actually be German after all, and not Swiss, after getting him to talk.’ (Nina)

From dubbing films to working as an interpreter for the Resistance and the secret services, right up to his arrest, the languages he spoke thus played a crucial role in Erich’s life story, the shifting nature of his identities and the ways in which he was identified. Identified as German – and even as a Berliner – given his command of the German language and his accent, the false papers produced by the French secret services were not enough to deceive the German authorities.

Thus, languages both reflect and accentuate the dialectic between the assets and stigmas associated with national and religious origins. Erich and his family’s command of the French language represented, more than a mere practice, accumulated linguistic capital, which enabled them to emigrate to France and establish themselves in the booming dubbing industry, and thus ‘gain access to material resources and life trajectories that would have been inaccessible with only an oral command of [their] mother tongue’ [233]. However, Erich’s accent revealed that German national habitus from which he had nevertheless begun to break away: whilst, for Erich, proficiency in German was valued in the dubbing industry and, subsequently, in the Resistance and the secret services, it was also this very proficiency that led to his being identified as a potential liar and traitor. A sign that, like any form of capital, the value of linguistic capital varies according to the social contexts in which it is employed [234]: here, what saved one person yesterday may kill them the next day.

The Fifth Bureau’s protocol had been drawn up to anticipate this scenario: ‘He was supposed, if he were captured, to say that the reason he knew German was because he’d had a German governess who’d taught him the language.’ (Nina) However, the German soldiers who arrested Erich that day did not find this account of a childhood spent in Switzerland and of having learnt German from a governess from Berlin credible. But they still had no evidence to prove that Erich was in fact impersonating someone else. Erich was then taken to Singen prison [235] for questioning.

In Singen, regardless of how these interrogations went, Erich managed to maintain his false identity and his story. But this was not enough for his captors. Still convinced that Erich was German, they decided to deport him to the Dachau concentration camp as a political prisoner:

‘After being interrogated so many times in Singen prison, people had come to believe he was a genuine German, and for that reason he was regarded as a “deserter” and a “traitor”. Because, normally speaking, if he had been a “genuine German”, he should have turned up in Germany in 1939 to fight for his country of birth. He was sent to Dachau precisely so that he could be dealt with in the concentration camp.’ (Nina)

Erich arrived in Dachau on 20 April 1945 (or 21 April); he entered the camp on the 23rd and was liberated on the 25th (or 26th [236]). He continued to be interrogated there, but managed to maintain his cover:

‘So, in reality, he stayed in Dachau for five days. During the time he was in Dachau, he was constantly thinking that they were going to shoot him. If they’d found conclusive proof that he was indeed German, he would have been shot as a traitor.’ (Nina)

During the week he spent in Dachau (registration number 159497), Erich therefore carried out a remarkable act of face-work [237]. From his arrest on 6 April, through his interrogations in Singen, right up to his arrival in Dachau, he hid behind the persona of the Swiss man Charles Gloor, which enabled him to survive. A single week spent in Dachau may certainly seem like a short time compared with the accounts of prisoners who spent several months or even years there. But one must bear in mind the fears Erich must have felt. Like any new prisoner arriving at the camp, he was subjected to physical humiliations, which were effectively techniques designed to destroy his civilian self [238]: he was stripped naked and his head was shaved. He expected to be killed or tortured at any moment, whether following the discovery of his true identity, or even for no particular reason. Death was, moreover, ever-present; it could be seen, heard, touched and felt, particularly in April 1945 when corpses were piling up in the camp. The crematoria were no longer sufficient to burn all the bodies:

‘Once you’re in a concentration camp, you see dead bodies lying on the ground, you see people who’ve stopped eating, people who look like corpses. They were dying, and the bodies were left lying there.’ (Nina)

Without specifying exactly how, ‘Colonel Vauban’ confirms that Erich was released following the intervention of the French secret services:

‘Mr Erich RADSACK, acting on the orders of Colonel VAUBAN, then at the 5th Bureau of the E.M.A., carried out a mission in Germany from 11 March to 11 May 1945. Mr Erich Radsack was arrested by the Gestapo in Germany upon his return from the mission on 6 April and transferred to Singen prison. Following interrogation, he was deported as a political prisoner to the Dachau camp on 21 April 1945 and released on 25 April following the intervention of our services.’ (certificate from ‘Colonel Vauban’)

In the absence of other records, we can only speculate at this point. Perhaps, whilst the staff at Dachau camp were preparing to evacuate the camp, Erich was evacuated along with other prisoners – either those who were not considered suspects (in which case the Dachau authorities would have received information ‘exonerating’ Erich), or as part of a prisoner exchange with the Swiss or French authorities. A forced extraction seems unlikely. Be that as it may, having been released on 25-26 April, Erich escaped the ‘death marches’ that began on the 26th, which claimed at least a thousand lives amongst the 7,000 prisoners forced to march south. On 28 April, the SS abandoned the camp; on the 29th, American soldiers liberated it.

In early May, Erich was repatriated to mainland France, having lost a great deal of weight. We will never know any more about what he saw and experienced at Dachau. The week he spent there seems to have left a trauma that was all the more profound and lasting for being unspeakable. When asked whether her father had ever confided in her about his experience at the camp, Nina replied in the negative:

‘No, I was too young; he didn’t mention it to me back then. He certainly didn’t mention it to me, anyway. As for my mum, I don’t know. I think these are the sort of things that, generally speaking, people can’t talk about. Because it’s so different from the ordinary. It’s, let’s say, in a way, perhaps even unbelievable. And then, they themselves are overwhelmed by emotion. The only thing I know is that one day, during a meal, my father started crying. For no reason. A few months after he came back. That was the only time we ever saw him cry. He was remembering the horrors he’d witnessed.’ (Nina)

‘Overwhelmed by emotion’ is a recurring image in the accounts of concentration camp survivors, as in Robert Antelme’s L’Espèce humaine:

‘How could we bring ourselves not to try to explain how we had ended up there? There we were again. And yet, it was impossible. No sooner had we begun to tell our story than we found ourselves choking on our words. Even to ourselves, what we had to say began to seem unimaginable.’ [239]

One might also suspect that a German who had been uprooted, who had joined the Foreign Legion against his country of origin, who had gone underground and then joined the secret services, was well-practised in concealment. No doubt, having learnt to conceal his inner life, he did the same with his own family. Except for that one moment, witnessed by Nina, when the mask, having become too heavy to bear, slipped.

Notes

The notes and bibliography are available in the full version of this research, which can be accessed below: