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The most hated Frenchman in Brittany.

Jacques Stosskopf

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A naval engineer from the Alsace region of France, which borders Germany, Jacques Stosskopf served as the deputy chief of naval construction at the shipyard in Lorient in German-occupied Brittany. Though his countrymen regarded Stosskopf as a collaborator and derided him with shouts such as “Death to Stosskopf,” the engineer was one of the boldest spies of WW II.

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Stosskopf had fought in WW I, earning the Croix de Guerre. After the war, he studied maritime engineering at the École Polytechnique near Paris. In 1938, he arrived in Lorient to help monitor the building of ships and was soon promoted to chief engineer. Part of his job included working closely with French naval intelligence officials in Paris. 

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Lorient, on the Bay of Biscay, housed the world’s largest submarine base, presided over by German Admiral Karl Dönitz. From 1941-42, the Nazis had transformed Lorient from a quaint fishing village to a massive naval base featuring fortress-like concrete bunkers concealing the U-boats. From an elegant seaside chateau, whose grand salon became a command post, Dönitz monitored his “gray wolves.” The bunkers protected the U-boats from aerial assault but not from spies on the ground. 

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Although the naval base was carefully guarded, Dönitz relied on French businessmen, technicians, and dock and construction workers to run the facility. In addition, off-duty submariners partied in Lorient, frequenting bars, brothels, cafes, and gambling houses. Employees of such places kept an eye out for submarine arrivals and departures as well as other information. Moreover, the Bretons’ ancestors descended from Celtic areas, so the locals regarded themselves as not wholly French. Superficially submissive, the Bretons hated the Nazis, manifesting in resistance work. 

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Fluent in German, Stosskopf had the run of the shipyard and U-boat base and access to top-secret information, including operational orders, U-boat movements, and debriefing reports of submariner crews. Stosskopf’s cold and perfectionistic approach to inspecting the work of French laborers ensured that it lived up to German standards. As if using his expertise to help the Nazis wasn’t bad enough, Stosskopf also socialized with the admiral’s staff and invited them to his home. In fact, starting in Fall 1940, he had provided intelligence about the U-boat operations to high-ranking anti-German naval officers in Vichy and to the largest spy network in France. 

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When the Nazis arrived in Lorient, Stosskopf initially tried to avoid any contact with them. But his friends in naval intelligence, now in Vichy even though totally opposed to German occupation, persuaded him to give them information and he agreed. He began to try to win the Germans’ trust. It worked and he became one of a few Frenchmen with entrée to the naval base. Under the pretext of supervising French workers, he came and went as he wished. He handed over to a resistance contact and then to Vichy details about the submarine bunkers, the number and identification of the U-boats there, names of the captains, and the dates and results of their missions. He also noted the technical innovations in submarine warfare made by the Germans. Meanwhile, his friends at naval intelligence passed all this information onto the British.

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Eventually, a captured resistance member gave up Stosskopf. In a last-ditch effort to regain some control over a war they were losing, the Nazis rounded up suspected resistors. Stosskopf ended up at Natzweiler-Struthof, a small concentration camp in the Vosges Mountains in the Alsace region. The only camp built in French territory, it was the main holding place for members of the French Resistance. Unfortunately for Stosskopf, an order to disburse prisoners to other detention sites—which meant the Allies were closing in—did not take effect until mid-September 1944. The Nazis had executed Jacques Stosskopf on September 1 of that year, just two months shy of the Allies’ arrival at the cam on November 23, 1944. The camp, known as Struthof, was the first liberated by the Allies.

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To the amazement of Lorient’s citizens, Stosskopf’s activities came to light when he posthumously received the French Legion of Honour in 1945.The next year, the submarine base was renamed in his honor. Today, visitors can tour the base at Lorient.

Lorient Submarine base.jpg
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