Jean Moulin was the youngest prefect in France when the Germans invaded in 1940. When the Nazis ordered him to sign a document blaming Senegalese French soldiers for civilian massacres that the Germans themselves had committed, Moulin refused. He was beaten and tortured. Rather than sign, he cut his own throat with a piece of broken glass. He survived, but wore a scarf for the rest of his life to cover the scar.

The Mission

Moulin escaped to London and met with Charles de Gaulle, who gave him an extraordinary mission: return to France and unite the numerous, quarrelsome resistance movements under a single command structure. The various groups — ranging from communists to Gaullists to socialists — distrusted each other almost as much as they hated the Germans.

Moulin parachuted into Provence on New Year's Day 1942 under the cover name "Rex." Over the next 18 months, through patience, diplomacy, and sheer force of personality, he persuaded the major resistance organizations to join the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR). The first meeting of the unified council took place in Paris on May 27, 1943.

Betrayal and Death

On June 21, 1943, Moulin was arrested at a meeting in Caluire, near Lyon. He was taken to Klaus Barbie, the head of the Gestapo in Lyon. What followed was weeks of systematic torture. Barbie wanted the names of every resistance leader in France. Moulin gave him nothing.

Moulin died on or around July 8, 1943, likely on a train transporting him to Germany. He was 44 years old. He never broke under torture. He never revealed a single name.

In 1964, his ashes were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris. André Malraux's eulogy is considered one of the greatest speeches in French history: "Enter here, Jean Moulin, with your terrible cortège..."