Bezen Perrot: The Bretons of the Waffen-SS

Many movements that had been attempting to take a hold prior to the second world war, attempted to make do with the new situations surrounding them. One of which, was Breton Nationalism, and the creation of an independent Breton state. In today's video, we will be looking at the allied Breton unit of the SS. The Bezen Perrot.

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A Breton Nationalist party would form in 1931, they would hold their first congress in Landerneau on December 27, 1931. The following year, a group of activists, led by Célestin Lainé bombed a sculpture in Rennes, which represented Breton unity with France. This group had asserted itself politically towards the foundation of an independent Breton nation and while it would claim to be apolitical, they had strict anti-communist and anti-socialist overtones. However, within the French political sphere, the party had few allies. The French left-wing was massively hostile, and the French far-right was strictly against any autonomous movements in the nation.

Laine would create a paramilitary group dubbed Kadervenn in 1936, modeled off of the IRA. The immediate goal of this group, was to act as the core of a future Brenton army, that would fight against the French, for independence of the nation. Recruitment was kept largely secretive however, and within a year, only 12 members would join the organization. Two of these men, Guy Vissault de Coëtlogon and Ange Péresse, would go to Germany in 1938. These men would go as a way to establish a connection with the German Abwehr, their military intelligence arm, and they would establish small scale collaborationist efforts from that time. The first time that we have knowledge of, is in August of 1939, when a container of Breton propaganda would wash up at St.-Aubin Bay in Jersey, who alerted the French counterparts on the mainland. While arrests were made from this, the overall operation between the Brenton and Germans was a success, as 50 tons of weaponry, supplies, and propaganda material, managed to be transferred, with the French government, none the wiser.

On September 3, 1939 France declared war on Germany, and on October 20 the Breton Nationalist Party was banned due to its connections with Nazi Germany. Laine would be mobilized back into the French army, while nationalist party leaders Olier Mordrel and Fañch Debauvais, had managed to escape to Germany before the outbreak of hostilities and had managed to have connections with the Germany military, for their plans in regards to Breton independence.

Originally, Germans plan for war against the French and British, had intended to establish a Breton fifth column, one that would be used to help in disrupting French supply lines, to aid the Germans as they advanced. However, the invasion was so successful that the use of such a vanguard was not needed. Still, the plans for a collaborationist Breton movement was of great interest to the Germans, especially when Laine got released from a French prison and re-took command of his forces, re-establishing them as a standing Breton army. However, by the tail end of 1940, plans had changed. Hitler installed Philippe Pétain as the head of state of Vichy France in the Montoire Agreement, a puppet French state that was nominally independent, but subservient to Germany. In this agreement, Hitler abandoned the idea of an independent Breton state in exchange for greater French cooperation.