France inducts Resistance fighter, soldier, historian Marc Bloch into its Panthéon of greats

World War II continued to rage after France signed an armistice with Nazi Germany on June 22, 1940, and Marc Bloch already sensed the outcome could be fatal for him.  

In a prophetic letter dated March 18, 1941, he summed up his life with a lingering sense that something remained unfinished.

“Throughout two wars, I was not given the chance to die for France. At least, I can in all sincerity bear witness to this: I die as I have lived, as a good Frenchman."

He would fulfill this tragic destiny three years later, when he was executed by the Germans on June 16, 1944 at Saint-Didier-de-Formans alongside 29 other Resistance fighters.

Throughout his life, Bloch remained deeply committed to France.

"Attached to my homeland by a long family tradition, nourished by its spiritual heritage and history, I am truly unable to imagine another where I could breathe easily – I have loved it dearly and served it with all my strength," he wrote.

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A deep dive into the Great War

Bloch wrote his first will as early as 1915. “I have no regrets. I have always cherished life (…). But I am ready for sacrifice, and I accept it; I dare say this without a shudder, but not without pride.”

Then a 28-year-old high-school teacher, he had been called up at the start of World War I and served as a sergeant in the 272nd infantry regiment. “It was a formative experience for him, as it was for everyone of his generation,” said Nicolas Offenstadt, a specialist on the Great War and a professor at Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne University, at a symposium on Bloch last month held by the historical service of France’s ministry of defence.

After the first Battle of the Marne (September 6-12, 1914) he went on to fight in the Argonne. Having been promoted to adjutant, he endured “extremely precarious conditions under constant bombardment”, as Offenstadt describes it. Bloch received his first military citation in 1915 for having “led his section with great vigour and showing the utmost disregard for danger”.  

He fought in the monumental Battle of the Somme a year later, followed by policing missions in Algeria and then the Second Battle of the Aisne (Battle of the Chemin des Dames) in 1917. He was eventually appointed an intelligence officer in the Aisne.  

“One might think he was safe at that point, but that would be to misunderstand the First World War,” Offenstadt said, remarking that Bloch continued to be on the front lines in extremely dangerous situations and was often wounded.

A Jewish family from Alsace

Bloch had “a profound sense of duty”, Offenstadt observes. “He truly believed he had a role to play as an intellectual, with the conviction that he must set an example in the face of adversity.”

Such patriotism may have been instilled in him from childhood. Born into a family of Alsatian Jews who chose to live in France after the German Empire annexed Alsace-Lorraine in 1870, Bloch was born in Lyon in 1886 and grew up in a familial environment that was committed to French values.

“For his family, France was the country that granted them citizenship, the France of the French Revolution. Alsatian Jews, therefore, had a great sense of duty, gratitude and commitment to the country,” Offenstadt explained.

Decorated with the Croix de Guerre medal and cited four times for “acts of bravery”, Bloch was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1920.

Upon returning to civilian life, he resumed his duties as a history teacher, married Simonne Vidal and started a family.

The Great War, however, never left his thoughts.

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Offenstadt believes many of Bloch's ideas crystallised during this period, saying he “drew a connection between what he saw in the trenches and his work as a medieval historian”. 

His masterwork, “Les Rois thaumaturges” (known as "The Royal Touch" in English), published in 1924, deals with issues including the spread of false narratives that Bloch witnessed during the war. 

Bloch made a name for himself as an academic in the interwar period. In 1929 he and colleague Lucien Febvre founded an influential historical review, “Annales d’histoire économique et sociale”, which still exists today and whose English version is now edited by the Cambridge University Press. 

Seven years later, Bloch was made a lecturer in economic and social history at the Sorbonne University in Paris before being appointed a full professor. 

‘The Strange Defeat’: a first act of resistance

When World War II broke out in 1939, Bloch, now a father of six, chose to enlist again. He jokingly called himself “the oldest captain in France” and served as an officer in charge of fuel supply for the 1st Army, for which he eventually received his fifth and final commendation.    

In the final days of the German invasion and the Fall of France (May 10-June 25, 1940), Bloch fled Dunkirk for the United Kingdom but returned immediately to French soil.

He stopped wearing his uniform to avoid being taken prisoner and reunited with his family in the Creuse department west of Lyon. He resumed his role as a historian and wrote an essay on the reasons behind France's loss on the battlefield while the events were still fresh in his mind. It was published posthumously in 1946 under the title, “L’Étrange défaite” (The Strange Defeat).

His observations could prove useful even today. “Marc Bloch articulates with admirable insight certain root causes of the defeat. At times he issues harsh indictments of the army general staff, the elites, and the ingrained habits of a country that failed to see the war for what it had become,” noted French Army Chief of Staff Pierre Schill, speaking at the Bloch symposium.

“Above all, he poses a question that remains as relevant today as ever: How can an army, a state or a nation fail to adapt to the times ahead?” Schill said. For him, Bloch’s essay remains “a source of inspiration for French officers – not as a lesson in defeat, but as a lesson in clarity”.

For historian Stéphane Nivet, a specialist in World War II, “L’Étrange défaite” could be seen as an early act of resistance. “It is a work of truth,” said Nivet, author of “The Assassination of Marc Bloch: A Historian in the Resistance”.

“It was a form of resistance to have had, as early as the summer of 1940, the clarity of mind to make the assessment he did, while everyone else was despondent and blind regarding Vichy,” he said, referring to the Vichy regime under Marshal Philippe Pétain that governed Nazi-occupied France. 

In his writings, Bloch indicated that he was ready to continue the fight: “I hope, in any case, that we still have blood to shed.”

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Going underground

But Bloch soon fell victim to the anti-Semitic policies of Pétain’s government.

Under the Jewish Statute of October 3, 1940 – under which Vichy France instituted a broader definition of who was Jewish than the Nazis – he was expelled from his position. His Paris apartment was requisitioned by Nazi forces and stripped of its library, which contained nearly 7,000 volumes. 

Reinstated to a teaching position in 1941 in recognition of his exemplary service in the past, Bloch was assigned to the University of Montpellier. He joined the "Liberté" resistance movement and the General Studies Committee – created at the behest of Jean Moulin, known as "the face of the French Resistance" – which was tasked with implementing reforms once France was liberated.

“The invasion of the southern zone would push him to take the plunge into active resistance in early 1943,” Nivet recounted. “The threat from anti-Semitic policies and the Nazi presence left him highly vulnerable. He thus made a conscious decision to go underground.”   

Bloch joined the Franc-Tireur resistance movement and left for Lyon, his hometown. But his age was seen as a drawback, Nivet said. “The resistance fighters were all between 20 and 30 years old. When they saw this prominent figure arrive in a three-piece suit with medals in his buttonhole – a 55-year-old professor at the Sorbonne – they questioned what kind of role they could give him.”

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After carrying out minor missions, the former World War I hero – nicknamed “Narbonne” within the Resistance – eventually made his mark. The movement’s leaders quickly realised that he had organisational talents in propaganda, outreach and, of course, intelligence. His comrade-in-arms, Georges Altman, was impressed by what he called his “second youth” and described him in a 1945 tribute: “He embraced this life of risk and illegality with an almost athletic enthusiasm,” Altman said.

But everything changed on March 8, 1944. Bloch was arrested by the Gestapo in Lyon while living under the alias “Professor Blanchard”. “There was a wave of arrests that began in the city. Among those arrested, one person apparently broke down, and they managed to track down the others. More than sixty people were arrested in just a few days,” Nivet recounted.   

Bloch was taken to Montluc Prison, where he was tortured and imprisoned for just over three months. After the war, Marcel Fonfrède, who was imprisoned alongside him, would recall seeing him “covered in bruises, breathing with difficulty (…) left for dead, soaking wet on the icy floor of a cell at the military health centre”.

Despite the beatings, Bloch revealed only information that was already known or unusable. Committed to his academic mission until the very end, he even gave history lessons to his fellow prisoners between interrogations.

Execution

On Friday, June 16, 1944, Bloch left his cell around 8pm along with 29 other prisoners for what was called a “roll call without belongings”. Ranging in age from 19 to 58, with Bloch the oldest, they all boarded a covered van.

Nivet described what came next. “These men were the victims of German retaliation for an ambush that had taken place in Saint-Didier-de-Formans. Thirty prisoners were taken from the Montluc prison and shot there to make it clear that if the German army is attacked, French people will be killed in response,” he said. 

Just 10 days after the D-Day landings in Normandy and just a few weeks before the liberation of France, German soldiers executed Bloch and the others in a field. Their bodies were left overnight to terrorise the local population. Bloch's remains were not identified until November 8. 

Eighty-two years later, Bloch is finally receiving the honours he deserves. “If he had been merely a great scholar, I don’t think he would have been inducted into the Panthéon,” Nivet surmised. “But the figure who is being honoured embodied a heroic unity between reason and action. He left an influential academic legacy that helped shape the modern social sciences as we know them, and he defended his country – twice.” 

At a time of geopolitical strife and domestic political tensions, Nivet welcomes the ceremony to honour Bloch at the Panthéon, saying his legacy can help “heal our contemporary wounds”.

“Remembering Marc Bloch can revive his message, hopefully to prevent any future ‘Strange Defeat’,” he said. 

This article has been translated from the original in French.