Alex Villaplane

Alex Villaplane: French Hero, National Traitor

A journey through the life of a man that is so contrasting, it is almost impossible to imagine. A life made by talent and ended by greed.

Alex Villaplane was a national hero. He captained the French football team at the first ever World Cup in 1930. He described leading his nation out against Mexico in their first match as “the happiest day of my life”. Villaplane was rich, successful and had everything that most people could dream of. By 1944 he had murdered, blackmailed and tortured his way across France, and on 26^th December of that year he was executed for being a traitor and Nazi collaborator.

It is a story that takes Villaplane from the football pitch to Rue de Lauriston, the most notorious address in Paris. It was the headquarters of the French Gestapo, where hundreds of resistance fighters were tortured and murdered during the war.

Born in 1905 in Algeria, Villaplane came to France at the age of 16 to live with his uncles on the south coast. He was a talented footballer, and his ability was noticed from an early age. He signed for his local club, FC Sete, before moving to their city rivals Nimes in 1927.

In the days before professional contracts, clubs would put players on contracts to do menial jobs for which they were extremely well paid. This enabled Villaplane to be paid handsomely. On the pitch he excelled, but was always something of a mercenary, playing for whoever would pay him the most. To him loyalty was something completely irrelevant.

He captained France at the World Cup, and in all won 25 caps for his country. However this isn’t a football story, and his life will not be defined as the man who captained Les Bleus at their first ever World Cup. It was after professionalism became legal that things began to change, and his head had started to turn.

His club at the time won the French championship in a final playoff. It soon emerged that the match had been fixed and his club, Antibes were stripped of their title. The manager was sacked and banned however it was long believed that it was in fact Villaplane and two other teammates who had been the plotters.

Increasingly he cut a disinterested figure and on more than one occasion, his club at the time, Bordeaux fined him for missing training and being totally unfit. By 1933 he had been sacked and his career appeared to be over. He became involved in illegal gambling and was imprisoned for horse race fixing two years later.

It was the war that began to change things for Villaplane. By now he had a reputation for being a smuggler, a gambler and a crook. The invasion of France and the fall of Paris in 1940 helped to push him up the social order and he had one aim in mind – to get rich in any way possible. Villaplane would be on the payroll of Hitler and the Nazis.

Villaplane was operating alongside a group of men headed by Henri Lafont, a local criminal who had made a name for himself by capturing and torturing the leader of the Belgian resistance against Germany.

Lafont suggested that the Nazis make use of the swell of support for them in Arabic communities in France (which was achieved through an Arabic language newspaper that depicted Hitler as a great liberator). They created the Brigade Nord Africain and at its helm was Villaplane, given the title of SS Sub-Lieutenant. Their mission was to “cleanse” the Perigord region of France by any means necessary.

It was a perfect way to exploit the many hundreds of thousands of Jews and other minorities in France who were in a huge amount of danger. The unit fast gained a reputation for its cruelty, in one instance marching 11 resistance fighters to a roadside ditch and shot. Villaplane was said to have pulled the trigger.

In winter 1944 it became clear that the Nazis were losing the war, and Villaplane’s priorities started to change – to that of self-preservation. He would travel to towns and villages around France wearing his German uniform proclaiming that he could save anyone in danger, at great personal risk to himself. The price was 400,000 francs. Many would pay, if they could, before Villaplane would leave them at the mercy of his gang.

The war came to an end and the action against the collaborators commenced. Most were captured and immediately shot. However this was not the case for the heads such as Villaplane and Lafont. They were arrested and put on trial along with six others. They were found guilty and on Boxing Day 1944 they were taken to Fort de Montrouge just outside Paris, and executed by firing squad.

~ Ian Bendelow