Olier Mordrel - 1945, Exile, and Return

1945, Exile, and Return

After the Allied invasion during the battle of Normandy, Brittany was taken on August 13, 1944, and Mordrel was forced to flee to Germany. In February 1945 the PNB began talks with French fascist leader Jacques Doriot and his Parti Populaire Français, Mordrel acting as representative of the Bretons (with the backing of Roparz Hemon). The two sides agreed on a programme of Breton independence within a "Swiss-like" federation. After being briefly active in the umbrella group created by Doriot, he had to flee the defeated country, taking refuge in Brazil, then Argentina, and finally in Francoist Spain. He was again sentenced to death in absentia, in June 1946, but continued to contribute material to the magazine Ar Vro as Brython.

Mordrel returned to France incognito in 1972, and continued writing for La Bretagne Réelle as Otto Mohr (a name he had used in 1940), as well as editing several books - including a history of the Waffen-SS (Waffen SS d'Occident). In the 1980s, he was among the founders of Kelc'h Maksen Wledig ("Emperor Maxentius' Circle"), together with such figures of the far right as Yann Ber Tillenon and Georges Pinault; later, he was active in the GRECE, an organization associated with extremist politics, led by Alain de Benoist. Nonetheless, in the 1981 presidential race, Mordrel backed Socialist candidate François Mitterrand.

Mordrel's son Tristan Mordrelle (pen name André Chelain) is a far-right historical revisionist who runs the Association bretonne de recherche historique (ABRH) and edits its journal L'Autre Histoire.