Commemorative stamp series - Germany / German Democratic Republic 1974 - 35 Pfennig

International Remembrance and Memorial Centers The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the German Democratic Republic issues two special postage stamps showing excerpts from the memorials in the Ardeatine Caves near Rome and at Châteaubriant, France. Monument of Châteaubriant The construction of this monument was started in 1948. Its construction took place under the patronage of the "National Commemoration Committee for Heroes of Châteaubriant" on the site of their execution, the quarry of La Blisière, near the town of Châteaubriant Loire-Atlantique, officially designated since its inauguration on 22 October 1950 "National Monument of the Fusillés et Massacres de la Résistance Francaise" (National Monument to the Shoted and Massacred by the French Resistance Movement). The main part of the monument consists of a group carved in stone. It is a work of the sculptor Roal. Every October, a manifestation takes place in the memorial sites; It has become a tradition and brings together a considerable number of participants who have been coming from all over France for more than 30 years. Hundreds of execution sites exist on French territory, where thousands upon thousands of patriots and resistance fighters fell under the bullets of the Hitlerite murder gangs. In many places monuments have been erected. The remembrance and admonition day of Châteaubriant remains the most impressive of all with Mont Valérien. On October 20, 1941, a German fascist officer in the city of Nantes was killed by unknown persons. As reprisal the supreme command of the fascist Wehrmacht had 50 hostages shot dead. 27 out of 700 political prisoners, mostly communists or union officials from the Choisel camp, near Châteaubriant, were singled out and shot a few miles away in the La Blisière quarry on 22 October 1941. The crime of Châteaubriant provoked the indignation of all honest people, it intensified the hatred of the French against the Nazi couplets and their Vichy vassals. The expression: "Those of Chateaubriant" became a synonym of the fighters against the occupants with an appeal to the Resistance. The reminder and admonition to Châteaubriant contributed to the activation of many resistance fighters. The fighting continued until the liberation of France in 1944. The monument, erected later, commemorates the 27 heroes who were murdered on this site and is a symbol of all the murderers and massacres of the French Resistance.