Jean-Pierre Mourer

Jean-Pierre Mourer (19 August 1897 in Wittring, Moselle – 10 June 1947 in Île Napoléon, Mulhouse) was an Alsatian politician. He was elected to the French National Assembly in 1928, 1932 and 1936.[1]

Jean-Pierre Mourer

A railway employee, Mourer joined the French Communist Party and was elected to parliament in April from the second constituency of Strasbourg. In a second round of voting, he defeated Georges Weill by 7,140 votes against 6,013.[1] In parliament, he was a member of the committees on Algeria, colonies and protectorates, liberated regions, hygiene and economy.[1]

Mourer was expelled from the French Communist Party in July 1929. In October 1929, he became one of the leaders of the Opposition Communist Party of Alsace-Lorraine.[2]

In the 1932 election, he defeated the socialist Marcel-Edmond Naegelen with 6,575 votes against 6,192 in the second round.[1]

In the 1936, he was re-elected in the second round with 5,844 votes.[1]

In the autumn of 1939, he was arrested along with other prominent Alsatian autonomists. In 1940, he was freed by German forces,[1] and was appointed as the Kreisleiter (Chief Administrator) of the Mulhouse district by the German authorities.[2][3] His appointment as Kreisleiter materialized in spite of reservations from the Gestapo, who were reluctant to see a former communist occupy such a strategic office. During this period, he Germanized his name to 'Hans Peter Murer'.[4]

Murer was arrested by American forces in Munich in August 1945. He was detained at Bad Mergentheim, and was later handed over to French authorities and imprisoned at Mulhouse jail.[4]

After the war, the Court of Justice of Haut-Rhin sentenced him to death on 26 February 1947 for collaboration with the Germans. He was executed by a firing squad, headed by De Torres, on 10 June 1947, on Île Napoléon.[4][5][6]

Notably, evidence in Mourer's case focused primarily not on collaboration during the occupation itself but rather on the contacts he allegedly had with Germany prior to the war.[7]