93,RUE LAURISTON

Pierre Bonny has no regrets and opens up a bit on his activity as # 2 at the French Gestapo located at 93 Rue Lauristion 75016 Paris.

(The Hotel Majestic, a Parisian Palace. During the occupation, it was used as headquarters by the OKW, The German High Command in France. It is now a luxury five stars hotel under a new name : "The Peninsula)

The French Gestapo was staffed by former gangsters and villains operating totally uncontrolled, with the blessing of the Nazis and especially that of the SIPO (the security police headed by the infamous Helmut Knochen)

Pierre Bonny became " famous" originally for his involvment in the Stavisky affair, a vast financial scandal taking place in 1934, involving a large amount of government official. The Stavisky affaire nearly brough up a fascist government in power. It is often said that as a reaction to this state of affairs the Front Populaire under Leon Blum took over in 1936.

Memories of Paris will always include exceptional periods such as the rough times leading to Front Populaire as well as the 4 years of occupation by Nazi Germany.

(All historical information are correct to my knowledge)

RUE LAURISTON

My name is Pierre BONNY. In a few hours, I will be executed by a firing squad at the Montrouge Fort, near Arcueil, two kilometres away from Porte d’Orléans, just a few meters away from Road N° 20 through which the French and American troops entered in Paris on August 24th 1944.

I am a traitor and a collaborationist and have absolutely no scruples nor regrets. Yesterday was Christmas and cold weather invaded the country. Such a cold weather had not been felt since November 1942. The temperature reached 10°c below in Nancy !

(Pierre Bonny : the French Gestapo)

In a few hours, my partner in crime, Henri Chamberlin, also known as Henri Lafont will also be shot by a firing squad on decision of a French court under the control of the French Provisional Government. I was a cop, a great cop, Henri was an executioner. Both of us chose to be on the wrong side, quite convinced of Nazi Germany's final victory.

Both of us lost.

(Henri Chamberlin aka Henri Lafont, a pettyt criminal who became a mass murder at the French Gestapo)

I was kicked out of the police after my involvement in the Stavisky affair. I was a blackmailer, Henri Lafont was a petty thief, a convict escaped from Cayenne Devil’Island, a good for nothing who made a career by dipping his hands in the blood of our "enemies", the communists, the Jews, all of those having money.

I always liked living in the lap of luxury but could not do so based on my civil servant salary. My apartment on Boulevard Pereire, my tailor-made suits, all of this required a lot of money. Was my only goal making money? Probably so. Is this why I became totally unhuman, anti-Semitic, contemptuous of justice, deaf to the political reality of a war that could not be won by Nazi Germany? It is now too late to find out. The historians will probably know better and will explain my choices better than I could do today for the sake of generations to come.

My office was at 93 Rue Lauriston, a posh neighbourhood in Paris. The Nazis loved luxury and nice buildings. At number 93 was the French Gestapo. We even had an annex not so far away on Square of the United States at number 4. It would take me 10 minutes for a leisurly stroll from one office to the other.

(The SS bunch at the Gestpo headquarters of Rue des Saussaies)

In 1940, when the German SIPO started to recruit 2000 auxiliary policemen to support Nazi administration, 6000 applications came through. My part- time journalistic work for the newspaper l’Oeuvre (*) was not enough to keep me afloat. I knew that I was cut for an exceptional destiny and for adventure. I simply loved power and authority so, without any qualms, I joined the Gestapo as the closest collaborator and right hand of Henri Lafont.

(Helmut Knochen, head of the SIPO (Sicherheit Polizei) in Paris. A close connection of Henri Lafont and Pierre Bonny)

Not so far from the Rue Lauriston, the German High-Command in France had selected the Hotel Majestic as its headquarter. Otto Von Stulpnagel was the supreme commander and managed occupied France for a while until replaced in 1942 by his cousin Karl-Heinrich.

I never met them. They were the Wehrmacht, we were working with the SS and the Gestapo.

My encounters with Helmut Knochen, chief of the Security Police (SIPO) and Sicherheitdienst (SD) were always very pleasant. He knew that we were also fighting Jews and communists alike and supported Petain. It would take me only 15 minutes to get from my office to Helmut’s Ministry of the Interior complex on Rue des Saussaies, through Avenue Kleber, Place de l’Etoile and Avenue Hoche using a car that I stole from a Jewish family living on Rue Copernic.

(93, Rue Lauriston, the French Gestapo, now an appartment building as it was before the war)

All of my German buddies from the Gestapo were in fact located in the same area. Gestapo headquarters at 72 avenue Foch with an annex at 180 rue de la Pompe, and the Jewish Affairs at 31 avenue Foch. All of us were in good company!

When we were in power, all of the villains would come and beg us for a job! All of them! All of them owed to me. This one for an “ausweiss” I provided, that one for an interesting information which could be exchanged for money. We were the kings with our gang of hoodlums, our North-African bunch of mercenaries enrolled in the popular or derelict parts of the city for a couple of hundred "francs". We were hunting resistant’s and Jews in hiding, Night clubs were all open to us and to our lawless girlfriends .

All of those around us wanted a part of the cake and of course Henri Lafont and I wanted the biggest part.

On Thursday, august 31st 1944, I was arrested along with Henri Lafont in Bazoches, not so far from Orleans. We were hiding in a farm that Henri bought with money stolen from some of our victims and funds resulting from criminal activities and blackmail conducted during four years. Money was available. Plenty of it.

They had so many proofs against us that I even wonder why they did not shoot us right away. The trial lasted twenty-five days and it is now all over. The judges tried to estimate the number of our victims but could not come up with a final figure.

At one time, I was a policeman of exception, but I became a son of a bitch. My name is Pierre Bonny. I could have been a good guy.