Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont

Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont (14 May 1914 – 2 August 2006) was a militant communist who took part in the French Resistance during the Second World War, and a French politician. Along with General Leclerc and Henri Rol-Tanguy, he accepted the surrender of Dietrich von Choltitz at the Liberation of Paris.

He was born Maurice Kriegel in Strasbourg to a Jewish family with central European origins. He studied law at the University of Strasbourg, and then became legal adviser to an insurance company after a move to Paris in 1936.

During the period of the Popular Front, Kriegel became a trade union activist. He headed the organisation in the insurance sector of the Confédération générale du travail (CGT), and he was also active in the Mouvement Jeunes Communistes de France (MJCF).

Not having been called up in 1939 due to ill health, he moved to Toulouse in the unoccupied zone.

In early 1942, he was approached by leaders of a left-wing resistance organisation, and he went on to play a leading role in setting up an embryonic paramilitary section. During the resistance he adopted the pseudonym Valrimont, among others. When arrested in Lyon on March 15, 1942, his knowledge of German as a native of Alsace allowed him to conceal his true identity from his interrogators, and he thus faced only minor charges. On May 24 he escaped from prison with several colleagues and resumed his activities, organising sabotage in factories and opposing the drafting of French labour for the German war effort. By 1944 the resistance had complex coordination structures including a military action committee (Comac) which directed the French Forces of the Interior (FFI). As a member of Comac, Kriegel was at the very top of the resistance.

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