“It was obviously produced under the harshest of conditions and in total secrecy by men who were daily giving their lives in the secret underground struggle against the Germans,” said auctioneer Richard Westwood-Brookes.
Published by the Front National (no relation to Le Pen’s mob), the poster reads “...France has not been defeated. soldiers of Ben-Hakeim, soldiers of Leclerc, soldiers of Giraud, sailors from Toulon, pilots from the Normandy, Lorraine and Alsace squadrons, Corsican patriots, plain-clothes units of Francs-Tireurs (snipers)...Franc groups of the secret army, You are the clearest proof of it.”
Pencil marks listing the names of British soldiers on the back of the poster suggests that it was picked up as a souvenir by a liberating soldier in 1944. Consigned by an English collector, the poster is expected to fetch up to £500 at auction.
Coming up in Swindon
Inherently rare – in occupied France you wouldn’t want to be caught with a copy – this flimsy sheet of propaganda issued by the maquis at the height of WWII comes up for sale at Dominic Winter Book Auctions in Swindon on August 28.
