La Main Rouge
La Main Rouge, English: The Red Hand, was a terrorist organisation operated by the foreign Department of the French intelligence service External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service (French: Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage, SDECE) in the 1950s, which pursued the goal to eliminate the supporters of Algerian independence and the leading members of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) during the Algerian War.
Several explosives attacks took place in the Federal Republic of Germany, like the assassination attempts of the arms dealer Otto Schlüter on 26 September 1956 and 3 June 1957, and the killing of Georg Puchert (alias Captain Morris) on 3 March 1959. These would ultimately never be solved.[1]
On 27 November 1959, the then 30 years old Christian Durieux gave an interview in which he claimed the attempts against the lives of Schlüter and Puchert and the bomb attack in the port of Hamburg against the cargo ship Atlas on 1 October 1958, all on behalf of La Main Rouge. He also claim responsibility for the assassination of Algerian exiled Amédiane Ait Alcene.[1]
The freighters Emma en route from Tangier to Gibraltar on 30 July 1957, and Alkaira in Ostend on 13 April 1959 were destroyed by explosive charges planted by La Main Rouge.[1]
In particular the apparent inaction of the French authorities was seen abroad as a note of the French Government that they have caused the aggressive crackdown on supporters of the FLN.
See also
References
- 1 2 3 "Révélation sur l’histoire de La Main Rouge : En Tunisie & Ailleurs.". Retrieved 15 July 2014.
Bibliography
- Helmut Roewer, Stefan Schäfer, Matthias Uhl: Lexikon of the intelligence services in the 20th century. Herbig, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7766-2317-9.
- Subchapters: Against West Germany, in: Matthias Ritzi/Erich Schmidt-Eenboom: In the shadow of the Third Reich. The BND and his agent Richard Christmann, Berlin (Christoph links Verlag) 2011, S. 186-200 ISBN 978-3-86153-643-7
- Pierre Genève: La main rouge, Paris (Éd. Nord-Sud) in 1960.
- Antoine Méléro: La main rouge. L ' Armée secrète de la République, Paris (ed. du Rocher) 1997 ISBN 226802699X
- Claus Leggewie: Porter. The Algeria project of the left in the Adenauer Germany, Berlin (red book publisher) 1984 ISBN 3-88022-286X
- Wolfgang Kraushaar: The protest Chronicle 1949-1959 - an illustrated history of movement, resistance and Utopia. Vol. I-IV. Rogner & Bernhard at Zweitausendeins, Hamburg of 1996 ISBN 3-8077-0350-0.