Cold Open

It's April 17th, 1942, at Königstein Fortress in Nazi Germany.

Hanging from a rope made of twine and torn bedsheets, 63-year-old Henri Giraud lowers himself slowly down the cliff-like walls of the fortress.

A fall from this height would surely be deadly, but Giraud forces himself to take it slowly and lowers himself, inch by inch, hand over hand, toward the ground below.

Henri Giraud is a General in the French Army—or at least he was, before he was captured by the Germans in May 1940 and sent here. Königstein Fortress is meant to be escape-proof. But General Giraud has spent the last two years preparing his prison break: he’s been learning German, smuggling in material to make rope, memorizing maps of the surrounding area, and mailing ciphered letters to friends outside. Now, the day has finally come.

Sweat fills Giraud’s eyes, blurring his vision. He can’t tell how much farther he has to go. And now the rope is cutting into his hands. Slick with blood, they start to lose their grip.

All at once, Giraud falls…

And lands on the ground only a few feet below. General Giraud allows himself a moment to laugh. Then, catching his breath, he gets to his feet. Climbing down the cliff is the just first part of his escape. Far more danger lies ahead.

General Henri Giraud will have to use every bit of cunning he can muster to avoid detection and complete his escape. The odds are against him. Giraud is well known by the enemy, who will soon discover he’s missing and sound the alarm. But Giraud is not afraid as he sets off into the countryside around Königstein. He’s outsmarted the Germans and escaped their clutches before, and he will do it again, on this day, April 17th, 1942.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is April 17th, 1942: Henri Giraud’s Second Prison Break.

Act One: The First Escape

It’s August 30th, 1914, in northern France, 28 years before Henri Giraud’s escape from Königstein Fortress.

The young Giraud is just a Captain in the French Fifth Army. He stands at the head of his regiment of light infantry and surveys the battlefield ahead. The earth trembles as shells land all around. Fires dot the horizon, sending pillars of smoke into the summer sky.

It’s the early days of World War I. German armies are advancing across the countryside of northern France and now threaten to encircle the French forces.

A runner approaches and hands Captain Giraud his orders, salutes, then leaves. Giraud’s face grows grim as he reads the note. The Fifth Army is struggling to hold its ground, and Giraud’s regiment has been tasked with launching a counterattack.

Giraud shouts out instructions and joins his men as they prepare for battle. With their guns ready and bayonets fixed, they emerge from their defensive positions and march steadily toward the German line.

It’s not long before they’re spotted. Machine guns open fire, ripping into Giraud’s men. But they press on. Captain Giraud leads from the front, and with a hoarse voice, he urges the infantry forward. But then he, too, is hit.

He collapses onto the bloodied earth. All around him, Giraud’s men fight on, unaware their captain has fallen. But it’s a hopeless assault. The French infantry are ultimately forced to retreat, and Giraud is among the dead and wounded left behind. He fades in and out of consciousness before finally waking to see a German officer leaning over him, prodding him with a butt of a rifle.

Captain Giraud is transferred to a prisoner of war camp in German-occupied Belgium. There, he slowly recovers from his wounds. But now, he walks with a limp. But that doesn’t dent his determination to escape and rejoin the fight against the Germans.

Giraud’s opportunity comes by chance in late October 1914. One day, a traveling circus passes by the camp. For a moment, prisoners and guards alike stop to watch the brightly colored wagons roll past the fence. But realizing he can take advantage of this distraction, Captain Giraud manages to get through a gate and conceals himself among the crowd of circus workers.

Once he’s clear of the camp, Giraud asks for directions to a Red Cross clinic that he’s heard helps wounded Allied soldiers find their way home. He’s told it is in the German-occupied city of Brussels.

With his limp, it takes Captain Giraud a week to walk there. He doesn’t stop for very long, barely even daring to sleep, convinced that the Germans are pursuing him. But finally, he makes it to Brussels.

And when he knocks on the door of the Red Cross clinic, he’s at the point of collapse.

He’s brought inside by the English nurse Edith Cavell. As part of the Red Cross, Edith treats wounded soldiers from both sides of the war. But secretly, she’s part of an underground network that smuggles French and British troops away from the Germans.

So while Giraud recovers from his ordeal, Edith’s first job is to verify that he is who he claims to be. Edith knows that the Germans have suspicions about her. She has had to turn away several of them, posing as escapees, trying to uncover her network. If they find out what she is doing, she faces arrest and possibly even death. But despite these risks, Edith has continued her work, and she soon receives confirmation that her latest patient, Henri Giraud, is a genuine captain in the French Army.

So, once Giraud is strong enough, he is armed with forged papers and new clothes. Then, he is guided by Edith’s contacts through Belgium via back alleys and safe houses, until he finally crosses the border into the Netherlands. Now he is in neutral territory, Giraud is free to make his way home to France.

In recognition of his battlefield bravery and daring escape, Captain Giraud is made a knight of the Legion of Honor, one of the most prestigious awards bestowed by the French government. Then, he resumes his fight against the Germans.

But the woman who helped his escape is not so fortunate. In August 1915, Edith Cavell’s network is exposed, and she is arrested and then executed by the Germans. Her death sparks international outrage, and when Henri Giraud hears about her fate, it only deepens his hatred of his enemy and his commitment to the French army.

Even when World War ends and peace comes, Giraud will remain with the army. He’ll be steadily promoted through the ranks, and, by the time war with Germany comes again in 1939, Giraud will be a General. But once again, he will taste defeat on the battlefield and become a prisoner of war. This time, though, it will take far more than a passing circus for Henri Giraud to find freedom.

Act Two: Back to Königstein

It’s April 17th, 1942, at Königstein fortress in Nazi Germany, 24 years after the end of World War I.

General Henri Giraud picks himself up from the cliff base beneath the prison. He checks the nearby bushes, where a British agent has left him new clothes, cash, and a fake passport.

Giraud then shaves his moustache and dons an Alpine hat, fake spectacles, a trench coat, and a briefcase. He straightens his coat and heads for the nearest road. Giraud then walks like he belongs here—just another German businessman going about his day.

Eventually, he comes to a train station. It’s packed with travelers: families, tourists, and soldiers. General Giraud looks at his false passport. The picture inside doesn’t look much like him, but hopefully he won’t need to use it.

A whistle blows and a train starts moving. Giraud blunders towards it, waving his hands, pretending to be frazzled. He elbows past a station employee and leaps aboard the train as it lumbers out of the station.

He then settles into a window seat and greets his fellow passengers in a passable German accent. As the train picks up speed, Giraud rests his head against the window and is soon fast asleep.

But an hour or so later, General Giraud is woken by a light but persistent tap on his shoulder. It’s the train conductor asking to see his ticket. Giraud confesses that he forgot to buy one at the station but would be happy to pay now. The conductor says that’s fine but then asks to see Giraud’s papers. Giraud’s heart hammers in his chest as he hands over the false passport. But the conductor only takes a brief glance at it, before taking Giraud’s money, handing him a ticket, and moving on.

Giraud is relieved—but he still switches trains at the next station. He doesn't know or care what direction it's headed, he just wants to confuse anyone trying to pursue him. He will change trains several times in this way before he finally reaches the border with Switzerland.

But that is where his luck seems to run out. The border guards have been alerted to his escape, and trains heading out of Nazi Germany and into Switzerland are being searched. But with all eyes on the trains, Giraud sees that other ways across the border have been left poorly guarded. So, he sets off on foot up a mountain track and into the Alps.

But General Giraud did not plan for this—he has no food and no equipment suitable for a hike through the mountains. The track is arduous, and he is soon exhausted and starving. Eventually, he decides he has no choice but to give himself up. He approaches a campsite, where a group of soldiers huddles over a fire, passing around bowls of stew. At the sound of Giraud’s boots crunching in the snow, they swivel, leveling their guns at him and ordering him to surrender. But Giraud just smiles. Their dialect is Swiss, not German. He’s crossed the border and he’s safe. The men offer him some of their stew and let him rest in their camp. Then, they take General Giraud down the mountain to the city of Basel.

From there, Giraud makes his way home. But France has changed in the years General Giraud was in captivity. Half the country is now occupied by the Nazis. The other half is still independent, but a Vichy France, as it’s known, is ruled by collaborators. So, General Giraud returns home hoping to convince his countrymen to stop cooperating with their oppressors, and join Britain, America and the Soviet Union in the fight against Nazi Germany.

As a celebrated general, it’s not hard for Giraud to secure a meeting with the French government. Giraud makes an impassioned argument that Germany is on course to lose the war, and that France should be on the right side of history.

But the Vichy government rejects his pleas. Desperate to placate the Nazis, they instead urge him to give himself up and return to Germany.

Frustrated, Giraud decides to leave France and join other French exiles who oppose the Vichy regime and are fighting the Germans alongside the Allies. Following secret negotiations with the American General Dwight Eisenhower, Giraud heads for the French territories in North Africa. The Allies hope he can convince French troops stationed there to abandon their Vichy commanders and join the fight against the Nazis.

As a decorated general, who has now twice escaped German captivity, Henri Giraud expects to be hailed as the new leader of all anti-Vichy French forces. But his ambitions will soon clash with those of another French General—a brilliant but egotistical man who’s convinced it is his destiny to save France: Charles de Gaulle.

Act Three: Political Decline

It’s January, 1941, at a hotel in Casablanca, Morocco, nine months after General Henri Giraud’s escaped from German captivity.

General Giraud paces through the hotel gardens. Across the lawn, he can see the towering figure of Charles de Gaulle deep in conversation with his aides. Spotting Giraud, the men turn away. Giraud and de Gaulle are both French generals. But they are also rivals.

Inside the hotel, some of the most powerful politicians on the planet are meeting to discuss the course of World War II. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is here, as is the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. While they hold private talks, Giraud and de Gaulle wait outside. This conference is not just about Allied military strategy. It’s also going to decide who will be recognized as the leader of the ‘Free French’, the anti-Vichy politicians and troops who claim to be the legitimate government of France.

Churchill thinks de Gaulle is the only man the French Resistance forces will accept. He’s been leading them ever since the fall of France in 1940. But Roosevelt is suspicious of de Gaulle. So, he has thrown his backing behind General Giraud.

Eventually, the two French generals are summoned inside and, following tense negotiations, a compromise is agreed: co-leadership.

Neither Giraud nor de Gaulle are happy with the outcome. Roosevelt himself describes it as a “shotgun wedding.” But he encourages Giraud and de Gaulle to put on a united front for the cameras. But their reluctant handshake is so fast that the photographer doesn’t have a chance to take his picture. So, the two generals are told to repeat the gesture more slowly. Giraud and de Gaulle begrudgingly comply, and this time, the photographer gets his shot.

It’s a shaky start for their co-presidency, and, for General Giraud, it only gets worse. His experience on the battlefield doesn’t make him an effective politician. De Gaulle runs rings around him in the world of deal-making and diplomacy.

Soon, it’s clear to all the Allies that the partnership between the two French generals can’t continue. In November 1943, de Gaulle forces Giraud out as co-president. Giraud is still officially commander-in-chief of Free French forces, and he tries to maintain his influence. But when de Gaulle discovers that Giraud has been running his own personal intelligence network, outside the chain of command, de Gaulle dismisses him.

Giraud is offered a face-saving position as Inspector General of the Army, but he refuses and chooses retirement instead.

After decades of serving his country, Giraud will play no role in the liberation of France or the final Allied victory over Nazi Germany. And while his old rival, de Gaulle, will go on to reshape France after the war, Giraud will die of cancer in 1949, still consumed by bitterness over the way he was sidelined.

But despite the disappointment of his final years, Henri Giraud will be remembered for his dedication to his country and his personal bravery that compelled him to risk his life for France on countless occasions—never more famously than when he escaped from Königstein Fortress in the heart of Nazi Germany on April 17th, 1942.

Outro

Next on History Daily. April 18th, 1906 - The city of San Francisco is almost wiped out by a devastating earthquake.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Supervising Sound Designer Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Joe Godley.

Edited by William Simpson.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.