Albert Ouzoulias

Albert Ouzoulias
Albert Ouzoulias (right)
Born	(1915-01-20)20 January 1915 Contrevoz, Ain, France
Died	27 November 1995(1995-11-27) (aged 80)
Nationality	French
Other names	Colonel André
Occupation	Postal worker
Known for	French Resistance leader

Albert Ouzoulias (20 January 1915 – 27 November 1995) was a Communist leader of the French Resistance during World War II (1939–45) using the name of "Colonel André". He played a major role in the 1944 liberation of Paris.

Ouzoulias was active in the youth organization of the French Communist Party before the war. He was enlisted in the army when the war broke out, was captured in 1940 and interned by the Germans, but escaped and made his way back to France in July 1941. There he took charge of fighting units organized from the Communist youth. He was assigned to various senior positions in the Communist resistance organization. He was in charge of all resistance forces in the Paris region at the time of the liberation of Paris by the Allied forces in August 1944. After this he was given responsibility for integrating the resistance fighters into the regular army. Despite his role in the Resistance, Ouzoulias did not play an important role in politics after the war, but was involved in municipal politics and veterans' organizations.

Albert Georges Ouzoulias was born in Contrevoz, Ain on 20 January 1915. His father was killed during World War I (1914–18). He failed the entrance examination for the Normal School at Bourg-en-Bresse, and got a job at a postal sorting station. He was committed to pacifism and a follower of Henri Barbusse and Romain Rolland. Ouzoulias went to Paris to attend the European Anti-Fascist Workers' Congress at the Salle Pleyel in June 1933. From then on he was committed to this organization, which became the World Committee Against War and Fascism. In 1933 he joined the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français, PCF).

In 1934 Ouzoulias became in turn secretary of the World Committee in his commune of Virieu-le-Grand, Ain, departmental secretary of the Jeunes contre le fascisme (Youth Against Fascism), then member of the national committee of the movement. He joined the Jeunesse communiste (JC, Communist Youth) where he showed great energy. In 1935 he was called to Paris as a permanent member of the PCF and appointed to the JC national committee in charge of propaganda. He met Robert Deloche and the two men became friends. He accompanied a delegation led by Danielle Casanova to the International Communist Youth Congress in Moscow in 1935. Back in France he organized the founding congress of the French Union of Agricultural Youth and the Popular Front in the Ain. After his military service in 1936–38 he was elected JC secretary-general in the Rhône-Ain-Isère region.