Jean Rochet
69
This incompetence was already scandalous enough and became even more so when, a few months after the Attorney General’s report was published, the Justice Minister agreed that this civil servant should be given a high-ranking position and receive the Legion d’Honneur. Since his return from Germany, it is true that he had tried to avoid the fate he deserved. He adhered to one of the major government policies of the time by claiming he had proof of another party member’s treason showing that they had collaborated with the Gestapo. As a result, our man finally received his accreditation as a resistance member.
Now reinstated into the police, Maurice Lorrain had a very successful career. He went from one country town to another, but in his role he could expect a more important position than just the head of the local police department: high-ranking positions in the central government's departments, for example.
In 1958, the year that General de Gaulle returned to power, the ambitious Lorrain decided to play the Gaullist card, and so went to see the minister. To help precipitate events, he took the relatively bold initiative of meeting with Chancellor Adenauer in Bonn. He introduced himself as one of General de Gaulle's aides and urged the chancellor to come to Paris as soon as possible to meet with the general and seal this dramatic rapprochement between the two countries. It was clear that Lorrain wanted to be seen as the architect of this new deal and therefore wanted to reap the full benefits.
During his interview with Adenauer, Lorrain was keen to offer his services to the chancellor. He might have suggested that he had contacts in the East and proposed to the chancellor and his intelligence chief (the famous General Gehlen), that he could even be a double agent! He was clearly ready to make use of any information that he might gather along the way.
It was an extravagant proposal that can be explained by his situation: Lorrain had been walking a tightrope for years as a result of his past actions. Not only could he be denounced at any time, he was trapped by those who knew the truth about him. It must have been tempting to try and get through it by making a pact with another western power.
Adenaeur did not come to Paris immediately, meaning Lorrain could not collect the fruits of his impudent ‘quest' and had to wait five years before receiving a prestigious German honour, at the personal request of Adenaeur.
Contrary to his expectations, he did not become a minister, but continued to apply for other positions. For a time, he was even led to understand that he was to be appointed as the new head of the DST! Those at the top of the French intelligence agency were often police prefects, and given Lorrain's career, it was reasonable for him to believe that he might get the role. The only obstacle was his past, but only his bosses in the service knew about it. It was a cruel twist of history that the same service he now wanted to lead was the same one that had ended his career as a spy.
At the end of the war, every allied intelligence agency had rushed to the Nazi archives. The Soviets were often the quickest and they had found the files showing that Lorrain had been registered as a Gestapo agent.This was perfect blackmail material: there was no possibility that Lorrain could refuse to work for them. It is likely that his new employers were behind the fact that Lorrain had managed to escape justice for so long. The KGB certainly was not without its own links to the Resistance, even among the Gaullists.
Lorrain was an impatient man and loved to meet important people, politicians in particular. This made him a valuable informant: the Soviets had always been fond of gathering information on politicians. As a prefect, their agent naturally had no access to state secrets, yet by the end of his career he held a key post in the ministry and was responsible for defence matters. It was here that the KGB would finally be rewarded for the long years of manipulation. Lorrain was eventually unmasked because of his German links, which, despite or because of his role as a Soviet spy, he still maintained.
General Gehlen had been a faithful servant of the Third Reich until being bailed out by the Americans, who had decided to exploit the talents of this anti-Communist specialist. There were many former Nazis in Gehlen's entourage, and there is no doubt that his intelligence network came to the aid of many people who found themselves in trouble with the law due to their past associations. Urged by his friends in Gehlen's organisation, Lorrain was never reluctant to help with such matters, and intervened several times in favour of former Nazis - a fact that was recognised much later during his trial.
As the prefect of a region that included a prison where many former Nazis and collaborators were incarcerated, Lorrain managed to obtain parole or transfer to a psychiatric hospital for many of them. This is how he later explained his actions, during his trial: ‘By releasing prisoners, and I also released convicted criminals, I put back into society men who would be nothing today, were it not for me.' Ironically, it is these actions that lost it for him!
Jean-Marc Theolleyre
70
However, included in the number of convicts who received preferential treatment by the accused, either directly
