Word: douaumont
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Since the bizarre theft occurred only two weeks before France's parliamentary elections, the caper had distinct political overtones. If Pétain's body were to be found before the elections, there would be considerable public clamor to bury it in the national military cemetery at Douaumont near Verdun; in 1971 a public-opinion poll, taken for the Bordeaux newspaper Sud-Ouest, showed that 72% of the French people favored such a move. The "nou-velle affaire Pétain," as the French were calling the caper, revived old political quarrels over the sensitive issue of national...
...highway leading from the Atlantic coast toward Verdun, where the culprits-who were presumed to be ultra-rightists-might be planning to bury the corpse. All trucks capable of hauling the 450-lb., zinc-lined oak coffin were stopped and systematically searched. Police also circled the sprawling cemetery at Douaumont, where workers dug up graves in which they thought the corpse might have been concealed...
...Assembly and a veteran of the Algerian war, held a press conference in Paris at which he boasted that he alone knew where the body was. "I will keep my secret," he said, "until the President of the Republic rehabilitates Pétain, and his remains are transferred to Douaumont...
Over Verdun's ravaged fields one moonlit night last week, a bell tolled mournfully from the vast hilltop monument of Douaumont, where 100,000 nameless skeletons are entombed. French army drums and bugles sounded the solemn Sonnerie aux Morts, France's ancient salute to the fallen. A chorus of clear young voices intoned the German army's somber hymn, Ich hatt' einen Kameraden. Then a torchlit procession of 1,400 young Germans and 700 French youths wound down the damp hillside. The ceremony was part of a movement started by Father Theobald Rieth, a German Jesuit...
...Communism. There is only one point where I do not agree: when Christ says one has to turn the other cheek. For me, if a man strikes me on the cheek, I knock his head off." Nikita's preference for knocking heads became clear after a visit to Douaumont, where thousands of the French and German soldiers who fell at Verdun in World War I are buried. As French Minister of State Louis Jacquinot launched into a polite speech recalling the sacrifices France has made in repelling "invaders," Nikita cut in: "Name them, name them! Who invaded you?" Seizing...