Editing Marc Bloch (section)

==Second World War==
{{main|Marc Bloch in World War II}}
{{Quote box
| quote = Torn from normal behaviour and from normal expectations, suspended from history and from commonsense responses, members of a huge French army became separated for an indefinite period from their work and their loved ones. Sixty-seven divisions, lacking strong leadership, public support, and solid allies, waited almost three-quarters of a year to be attacked by a ruthless, stronger force.{{sfn|Fink|1998|p=40}}
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}}On 24 August 1939, at the age of 53,{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=40}} Bloch was mobilised for a third time.{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=40}} He was responsible for the mobilisation of the French Army's massive [[List of French divisions in World War II#Motorized and infantry divisions|motorised units]]{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=45}} which involved him undertaking such a detailed assessment of the French fuel supply that he later wrote he was able to "count petrol tins and ration every drop" of fuel he obtained.{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=45}} During the first few months of the war, called the [[Phoney War]],{{Sfn|Stirling|2007|p=533}}{{Refn|Known as the ''drôle de guerre'' in French.{{sfn|Fink|1998|p=40}}|group=note}} he was stationed in Alsace,{{Sfn|Lyon|1985|p=188}} this time lacking the eager patriotism he had shown in the war.{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=41}} He also evacuated civilians to behind the [[Maginot Line]]{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=43}} and for a while he worked with [[British Expeditionary Force (World War I)|British Intelligence]].{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=44}}{{Refn|Notwithstanding his respect for British historians, says Lyon, Bloch, like many of his compatriots, was [[anglophobic]]; he described the British soldier as naturally "a looter and a lecher: that is to say, the two vices which the French peasant finds it hard to forgive when both are satisfied to the detriment of his farmyard and his daughters",{{sfn|Lyon|1985|p=188}} and English officers as being imbued with an "old crusted Tory tradition".{{sfn|Lyon|1985|p=188}}|group=note}}

Bloch began but did not  complete writing a history of France.{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=48}}{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=49}} At one point he expected to be invited to neutral [[Belgium]] to deliver a series of lectures in [[Liège]], on Belgian [[Neutral country|neutrality]].{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=49}} Some academics had escaped France for [[The New School]] in New York City, and the School also invited Bloch. He refused,{{Sfn|Dosse|1994|p=44}} possibly because of difficulties in obtaining [[Travel visa|visas]]:{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=208}} the US government would not grant visas to every member of his family.{{Sfn|Burguière|2009|p=48}}

===Fall of France===
{{See also|Fall of France}}[[File:Strasbourg-Plaque Marc Bloch.jpg|alt=street sign in Strasbourg|thumb|upright=1|Plaque commemorating Bloch in the [[Marc Bloch University]], Strasbourg, now part of the refounded [[University of Strasbourg]]]]In May 1940, the German army forced the French to withdraw.{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=207}}{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=42}}{{Sfn|Bloch|1949|p=23}} Bloch fought at the [[Battle of Dunkirk]] in May–June 1940, being [[Dunkirk evacuation|evacuated to England]].{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=256}} Although he could have remained in Britain,{{Sfn|Kaye|2001|p=97}} he chose to return to France{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=207}} because his family was still there.{{Sfn|Kaye|2001|p=97}}

{{Sfn|Lyon|1985|p=189}} To Bloch, France collapsed because her generals failed to capitalise on the best qualities humanity possessed—character and intelligence{{Sfn|Davies|1967|p=281}}—because of their own "sluggish and intractable" progress since the First World War.{{Sfn|Stirling|2007|p=533}} 

[[German military administration in occupied France during World War II|Two-thirds of France]] were occupied by Germany.{{Sfn|Hughes-Warrington|2015|p=15}} Bloch was demobilised soon after [[Philippe Pétain]]'s government signed the [[Armistice of 22 June 1940]] forming [[Vichy France]].{{Sfn|Fink|1998|p=39}} Bloch received{{Sfn|Birnbaum|2007|p=251 n.92}} a permit to work despite being Jewish.{{Sfn|Epstein|1993|p=276}} This was probably due to Bloch's pre-eminence in the field of history.{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=208}} He worked again at the University of Strasbourg, now relocated to [[Clermont-Ferrand]], for one academic year before moving to Montpellier.{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=5}}{{Sfn|Davies|1967|p=268}} In Clermont-Ferrand, his two older sons were involved with the [[Christian democracy|Christian]]-[[Conservatism|conservative]] [[Gaullism|Gaullist]]{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=6}} Resistance organisation ''[[Combat (French Resistance)|Combat]]''.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=279–280}} In November 1940 he received an offer of employment from [[The New School]] in [[New York City|New York]], but he delayed his decision due to his reluctance to leave family members behind; it expired in July 1941 before he could obtain visas for his adult children.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=249–250, 265–267}}{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=5}} Montpellier, further south, was beneficial to his wife's declining health.{{Sfn|Hughes|2002|p=127}} The [[Dean (education)|dean of faculty]] at Montpellier was an antisemite,{{Sfn|Weber|1991|pp=253–254}} who also disliked Bloch for having once given him a poor [[Peer review|review]].{{Sfn|Weber|1991|pp=253–254}} Bloch rejected the Vichy propaganda notion of returning to traditional French values,{{Sfn|Levine|2010|p=15}} arguing that "the idyllic, docile peasant life of the French right had never existed".{{Sfn|Chirot|1984|p=43}} In Montpellier, he had to be escorted to class for protection from militant right-wing students.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=279}} His university contacts included the local leaders of ''Combat'' and organisers of the ''Comité Général d'Etudes'' (an underground [[Conseil d'État]]{{sfn|Rioux|1987|p=44}}), [[René Courtin]] and [[Pierre-Henri Teitgen]].{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=279}} He also knew the sociologist and Communist Resistance member [[Georges Friedmann]] and the [[Philosophy of mathematics|philosopher of mathematics]] [[Jean Cavaillès]],{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=279}} a key Resistance figure who co-founded the left-wing [[Libération-sud]] in Clermont-Ferrand in December 1940, was arrested in [[Narbonne]] in September 1942 and escaped from Montpellier prison in December 1942.

=== Declining relationship with Febvre ===
{{Quote box
| quote = It was during these bitter years of defeat, of personal recrimination, of insecurity that he wrote both the uncompromisingly condemnatory pages of ''Strange Defeat'' and the beautifully serene passages of ''The Historian's Craft''.
| source = [[Rees Davies|R. R. Davies]]{{sfn|Davies|1967|p=268}}
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}}Bloch's professional relationship with Febvre was also under strain. The Nazis wanted French [[editorial board]]s to be stripped of Jews in accordance with German [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|racial policies]]. Facing the potential seizure or liquidation of ''Annales'', Febvre insisted on continuing to publish it in Paris to ensure an international distribution and demanded that Bloch step down for the sake of preserving their project. Bloch initially refused what he called "an abdication" and proposed to move the journal to the unoccupied zone.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=261–262}}{{Sfn|Dosse|1994|p=43}}{{Sfn|Burguière|2009|p=43}} In his desire to keep the journal afloat at all costs, Febvre went so far as to point out that Bloch had himself tried to rescue his Paris library.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=262}} Bloch, forced to accede, turned the ''Annales'' over to the sole editorship of Febvre, who then changed the journal's name to [[Mélanges d'histoire sociale|''Mélanges d'Histoire Sociale'']]. Bloch was forced to write for it under the pseudonym Marc Fougères.{{Sfn|Dosse|1994|p=43}}

The Annalist historian [[André Burguière]] suggests Febvre did not really understand the position Bloch, or any French Jew, was in.{{Sfn|Burguière|2009|p=45}} Already damaged by this disagreement, Bloch's and Febvre's relationship declined further when the former had been forced to leave his library and papers{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=208}} in his Paris apartment following his move to Vichy. On account of limited space in Montpellier, he had attempted to have them transported to his country home in [[Fougères]].{{Sfn|Burguière|2009|p=45}}{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=268–269}} Eventually the Nazis looted his apartment and removed the library in January 1942.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=276}}{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=249}} Bloch held Febvre responsible, believing he could have done more to prevent it.{{Sfn|Epstein|1993|p=276}} Bloch had refused to donate the library to the University of Montpellier at the advice of the Vichy education minister, his friend [[Jérôme Carcopino]], and later protested the loss to the newly appointed minister [[Abel Bonnard]].{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=276–277}}

Bloch's mother had recently died, and his wife was ill; he faced daily harassment.{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=208}} On 18 March 1941, Bloch made his [[Will and testament|will]] in Clermont-Ferrand.{{Sfn|Loyn|1999|p=163}} The Polish social historian [[Bronisław Geremek]] suggests that this document hints at Bloch in some way foreseeing his death,{{Sfn|Geremek|1986|p=1103}} as he emphasised that nobody had the right to avoid fighting for their country.{{Sfn|Geremek|1986|p=1105}} 

===French resistance===
[[File:Cour_de_la_prison_Montluc.jpg|alt=Colour photograph of the outside of Montluc Prison|thumb|Exterior of Montluc Prison, where Bloch and his comrades were held before their deaths; the mural is modern.]]
In November 1942 Germany [[Case Anton|occupied]] the territory previously under direct Vichy rule.{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=208}} This was the catalyst for Bloch's decision to join the moderate republican [[Franc-Tireur (movement)|Franc-Tireur movement]] (FT) in the [[French Resistance]], led by {{ill|lt=Jean-Pierre Lévy|Jean-Pierre Lévy (Resistance leader)|fr|Jean-Pierre Lévy (résistant)}}, which was being integrated by [[Jean Moulin]] into ''[[Mouvements unis de la Résistance]]'' (MUR), by March 1943.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=297-298}}{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=6}}{{Sfn|Davies|1967|p=268}}{{Sfn|Stirling|2007|p=531}} Bloch had previously expressed the view that "there can be no salvation where there is not some sacrifice".{{Sfn|Davies|1967|p=268}} He sent his family away to Fougères (except for his daughter who worked in [[Limoges]] and for his two elder sons whom he helped cross the border to [[Francoist Spain]]{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=297}}) and moved to Lyon to join the underground,{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=208}} although he found this difficult because of his age.{{Sfn|Burguière|2009|p=47}} Bloch used his professional and military skills for the movement, writing propaganda and organising supplies and [[materiel]] in the region.{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=208}} He wrote for the underground FT magazines ''Franc-Tireur'', ''La Revue libre'' and ''{{ill|lt=Le Père Duchesne|Le Père Duchesne (disambiguation page)|fr|Le Père Duchesne}}'', and by 1944 oversaw the distribution of the first title.{{sfn|Bloch|1997}} He was a member of FT's steering committee and since July 1943 represented it in the regional directory of the MUR.{{sfn|Bloch|1997}} Often on the move, Bloch used [[archival research]] as his excuse for travelling.{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=256}} The journalist-turned-resistance fighter [[Georges Altman]] later told how he knew Bloch as, although originally "a man, made for the creative silence of gentle study, with a cabinet full of books" was now "running from street to street, deciphering secret letters in some Lyonaisse Resistance garret".{{Sfn|Geremek|1986|p=1104}} For the first time, suggests Lyon, Bloch was forced to consider the role of the individual in history, rather than the collective; perhaps by then even realising he should have done so earlier.{{Sfn|Lyon|1985|p=186}}{{Refn|Bloch questioned the lack of a collective French spirit between the wars in ''Strange Defeat'': "we were all of us either specialists in the social sciences or workers in scientific laboratories, and maybe the very disciplines of those employments kept us, by a sort of fatalism, from embarking on individual action".{{sfn|Bloch|1980|pp=172–173}}{{sfn|Lyon|1985|p=186}}|group=note}}

====Arrest, interrogation and death====
Bloch was arrested by the [[Gestapo]] on the Pont de la Boucle in Lyon, shortly after leaving his nearby address on the morning of 8 March 1944,{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=5}}{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=315}}{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=244}}{{Sfn|Freire|2015|p=170 n. 60}} as part of a wave of arrests launched by the new chief of [[Milice|French police]], [[Joseph Darnand]].{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=311}} At the time, he was the acting head of the regional directory of the MUR for [[Rhône-Alpes]],{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=312}} tasked with preparing the uprising and seizure of power to coincide with the Allied landing (''[[Jour-J]]''),{{sfn|Bloch|1997}} and used the aliases "Maurice Blanchard" and "Narbonne".{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=8, 14}}{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=244}}{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=312, 314–315}} The regional directory was scheduled to meet on the afternoon of that day, but on 7 March a number of key people had been arrested, including the local ''Combat'' leader Robert Blanc ('Drac') and Bloch's nephew and [[adjutant]] Jean Bloch-Michel ('Lombard'), of which Bloch learned from meeting with 'Chardon', a ''Combat'' member who recently arrived from [[Haute-Savoie]] and an associate of his other nephew Henri.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=312, 314}} His nephew Jean, who was released in late May, admitted having given Bloch's address away;{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=318}} he never mentioned Bloch in his memoirs and was later held responsible for his arrest.{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=9, 12}} 'Chardon' was cleared of suspicion by Alban Vistel, the regional head of MUR whom Bloch was replacing due to sickness, in an investigation which found that two other members of the network ('Chatoux' of ''Combat'' and Madame Jacotot) were seen in a Gestapo car after their arrests.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=317–318}} On the morning of Bloch's arrest his route was betrayed to the Gestapo, who already had his description but failed to seize him at home, by a local bakery owner.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=315}} A radio transmitter and some Resistance papers were found in his apartment on 9 March, after a key part of the archives had been entrusted for safekeeping by 'Chardon' to Jacotot, who was herself arrested on that day.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=315}}{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=244}} Bloch's arrest was touted in the Nazi and [[Vichy France#Collaboration with Nazi Germany|collaborationist]] press (such as ''[[Aujourd'hui]]'', ''[[Le Matin (France)|Le Matin]]'' and ''[[Le Petit Parisien]]'') as a major success in the breaking up of a "Communist-terrorist" group financed from London and Moscow, led by a "Jew who had taken the pseudonym of a French southern city".{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=316}}{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=8}} The minister of information and propaganda [[Philippe Henriot]] boasted afterwards of destroying "the capital of the Resistance" in Lyon,{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=316}} and the German ambassador [[Otto Abetz]] telegraphed about Bloch's arrest to Berlin.{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=8}}

Bloch was detained in [[Montluc prison]].{{Sfn|Dosse|1994|p=44}}{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=10}} As a key Resistance figure, he was interrogated and tortured daily in the Lyon Gestapo headquarters at the School of Military Health in avenue Berthelot by [[Klaus Barbie]]'s men, suffering beatings, pneumonia from ice-baths, broken ribs and wrists.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=318–319}}{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=10–11}}{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=244}} It was later claimed that he gave away no information to his interrogators, and while incarcerated taught French history to other inmates.{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=209}} His interrogation protocol, which he signed three days before his death, contained the names of Resistance leaders already captured or in [[Algiers]] with [[Charles de Gaulle|General de Gaulle]].{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=13, 15}}

[[File:Monument_des_Roussilles_-_2.JPG|alt=Monument commemorating Bloch|left|thumb|Monument des Roussilles; Bloch is commemorated on the far-left panel.]]

In the meantime, the Allies had [[Invasion of Normandy|invaded Normandy]] on 6 June 1944{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=209}} and Nazis wanted to evacuate Vichy and "liquidate their holdings".{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=244}} This meant disposing of as many prisoners as they could.{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=209}} Between May and June 1944 the Nazi occupying forces murdered around 700 prisoners.{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=209}} Bloch was among the twenty-eight men shot in the back with [[submachine gun]]s in groups of four by [[Sicherheitsdienst]]{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=16}} in a meadow at Les Roussilles near [[Saint-Didier-de-Formans]] on the night of 16 June 1944.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=320–321}}{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=16–17}}{{Sfn|Dosse|1994|p=44}}{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=209}}{{Sfn|Stirling|2007|p=531}}{{Sfn|Weber|1991|p=244}}{{Sfn|Fink|1995|p=209}} The bodies were discovered on the next day and examined by French forensic authorities from Lyon.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=322}} For some time Bloch's death was merely a "dark rumour".{{Sfn|Burguière|2009|p=39}} His wife Simonne, who suffered from undiagnosed stomach cancer, died on 2 July 1944.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=322}}{{sfn|Schöttler|2022|p=7}} Eventually his personal effects were identified in September 1944 by his daughter Alice and sister-in-law Hélène Weill, who notified Febvre, and his death was officially announced on 1 November.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=323–324}} Weill also reported that Bloch's country residence in Fougères, deserted by his family in May 1944, had since been occupied and looted, allegedly by Communist partisans.{{sfn|Fink|1989|p=323}}

The autobiographical speech read at Bloch's burial acknowledged his Jewish ancestry while affirming a French identity.{{Sfn|Davies|1967|p=282}}{{Refn|Davies suggests that the speech he self-described with at his funeral may be unpleasant hearing to some historians in the words' stridency and emotion. However, he also notes the necessity of remembering the context, that "they are the words of a Jew by birth writing in the darkest hour of France's history and that Bloch never confused patriotism with a narrow, exclusive nationalism".{{sfn|Davies|1967|p=282}} In ''Strange Defeat'', Bloch had written that the only time he had ever emphasised his ethnicity was "in the face of an antisemite".{{sfn|Bloch|1949|p=23}}|group=note}} According to his instructions, on his grave was to be carved his epitaph {{lang|la|dilexi veritatem}} ("I have loved the truth").{{Sfn|Loyn|1999|p=174}}