Marcel Pinte: The Six-Year-Old Resistance Fighter
TwitterKilled by accidental friendly fire at age six, Marcel Pinte is likely France’s youngest resistance fighter.
One of France’s youngest resistance fighters tragically never lived to see a world without Nazism. Six-year-old Marcel Pinte died just a month before France was liberated in September 1944.
Throughout his short life, Pinte played a crucial role in the French Resistance. The son of a Resistance leader, he helped ferry messages between farms in Aixe-sur-Vienne, often by tucking them into his shirt.
The six-year-old had an “astonishing” memory, a relative later explained. “He understood everything at once.”
Plus, he made for a very able messenger. The Nazis didn’t question Pinte, who, because of his young age, avoided serious scrutiny. “With his school satchel on his back he didn’t raise suspicions,” said his relative.
But Pinte’s youth could be a concern as well.
“There was a bit of carefree attitude because of his age,” the French newspaper Le Figaro quoted a relative as saying. “A resident told his father to be careful because Marcel sometimes sang songs learned from fighters.”
Near the end of the boy’s life, the war seemed to be going well for the French. On June 6, 1944, Allied forces had stormed the beaches at Normandy. And they would eventually help break Germany’s hold on France. But tragedy struck the Pinte family just a couple of months later.
On August 19, Pinte and other resistance fighters were waiting to meet other guerillas arriving by parachute ahead of a battle. But when they landed, a Sten submachine gun accidentally went off. To the horror of everyone there, the spray of bullets struck and killed six-year-old Marcel Pinte.
Days later, resistance fighters gathered for another parachute drop of supplies. This time, the parachutes were black in mourning of Pinte.
Although Pinte didn’t live to see a world without Nazism, he remains an important figure of the French Resistance. In 1950, Pinte was posthumously awarded the rank of sergeant of the resistance.
