Jean-Pierre Mourer (August 19, 1897, Wittring, Moselle - June 10, 1947, Ile Napoléon) was an Alsatian politician. He was elected to the French National Assembly in 1928, 1932 and 1936.[1]
A railway employee, Mourer joined the French Communist Party. He was elected to parliament in April from the 2nd constituency of Strasbourg. In a second round of voting, he defeated Georges Weill by 7,140 votes against 6,013.[1] In parliament, he was a member of the committees on Algeria, colonies and protectorates, liberated regions, hygiene and economy.[1]
Mourer was expelled from the French Communist Party in July 1929. In October 1929, he became one of the leaders of the Opposition Communist Party of Alsace-Lorraine.[2]
In the 1932 election, he defeated the socialist Marcel-Edmond Naegelen with 6,575 votes against 6,192 in the second round.[1]
In the 1936, he was re-elected in the second round with 5,844 votes.[1]
In the fall of 1939 he was arrested, alongside with other prominent Alsatian autonomists. In 1940 he was freed by German forces.[1] He was appointed as the Kreisleiter (Chief Administrator) of the Mulhouse district by the German authorities.[2][3] His appointment as Kreisleiter materialized in spite of reservations from the Gestapo, who were reluctant to see a former communist occupy such a strategic office. During this period, he Germanized his name to 'Hans Peter Murer'.[4]
Murer was arrested by American forces in Munich in August 1945. He was detained at Bad Mergentheim, but later handed over to French authorities and imprisoned at Mulhouse jail.[4]
After the war, the Court of Justice of Haut-Rhin sentenced him to death on February 26, 1947 for collaboration with the Germans. He was executed by a firing squad on June 10, 1947 on Ile Napoléon.[5][6][4]
Notably, evidence in Mourer's case focused primarily not on collaboration during the occupation itself but rather contacts he was accused of having had with Germany prior to the war.[7]