Olier Mordrel - Bretonische Regierung

Bretonische Regierung

Just before the World War II erupted in 1939, Mordrel, Debeauvais, and their families (including Debeauvais's wife, Anna Youenou, who has since published an account of the travel) left for Berlin, via Belgium and the Netherlands. While in Amsterdam, the two leaders issued a Manifesto calling for the Bretons not to back the French forces. A Lizer Brezel ("Letter of War") they wrote to PNB members in January 1940 stated that "a real Breton does not have the right to die for France" and "our enemies are first and foremost the French, it is them who have not ceased causing misfortune to Brittany".

A military tribunal in Rennes tried Debeauvais and Mordrel in absentia and sentenced them to death for separatist activities, treason, maintaining active a banned group, and instigation to desertion or treason. In early May, the Germans awarded Mordrel the leadership of a self-designated government in exile, the Bretonische Regierung; nonetheless, the two Bretons were not given the status of "leaders of Brittany", and the German passports they carried read stateless (Statenlos). They were allowed to travel only because of their connections with influential German army officers. With the start of the German occupation of France, the activists returned to Brittany on July 1, re-founded the PNB, and Mordrel started printing L'Heure Bretonne (edited by Morvan Lebesque).