André Devigny

Arrest and prison escape In April 1943, Robert Moog infiltrated the group and turned several of its members over to the German authorities. Among them was Edmée Delétraz, who was then observed by the Gestapo. She was later suspected of having betrayed Jean Moulin, one of the best-known members of the French Resistance, but Devigny always defended her vehemently against this charge. After Devigny met her, he was arrested and sent to the formidable Montluc prison, which was considered escape-proof. There he was tortured by Klaus Barbie and his men, but he gave them no valuable information. He did, however, make an unsuccessful series of attempts to escape, and was punished after each one. He was sentenced to death on 20 August 1943, the execution to be carried out on 28 August.

The Germans took revenge on Devigny by arresting two of his cousins and sending them to death camps. Leaving Switzerland, he went to Spain, where he was arrested again and escaped again. After re-joining the French Army, he participated in the Liberation of Alsace. After the war, President Charles de Gaulle honoured him with the prestigious Cross of the Liberation. Later he was appointed a senior official in France's foreign-intelligence organisation. While serving in Algeria, Devigny wrote a memoir of his escape from Montluc prison, published in 1956 as Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ("A Man Condemned to Death has Escaped"). Robert Bresson, who had himself been held by the Germans as a prisoner of war, used the memoir as the basis for a film of the same name (the English-language version was released as A Man Escaped); it won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1964, Devigny was recalled to France to assist with the secret re-organization of the French military. He retired in 1971 after President Georges Pompidou appointed Alexandre de Marenches as head of the intelligence services. He considered entering politics, but decided not to "when I realized the backstabbing was far worse than anything I'd ever encountered in secret warfare". Devigny died in 1999.