Affiche Rouge The Affiche Rouge ( " Red Poster " ) is a famous propaganda poster , distributed by Vichy French and German authorities in the spring of 1944 in occupied Paris , to discredit 23 French Resistance fighters , members of the Manouchian Group . The term Affiche Rouge also refers more broadly to the circumstances surrounding the poster ' s creation and distribution , namely , the capture , trial and execution of these members of the Manouchian Group . Background . In mid - November 1943 , the French police arrested 23 members of the Communist Francs - Tireurs et Partisans de la Main d ' Oeuvre Immigrée ( FTP - MOI ) , who were part of the French Resistance . They were called the " Manouchian Group " after the commander , Missak Manouchian . The group was part of a network of about 100 fighters , who committed nearly all acts of armed resistance in the Paris metropolitan region between March and November 1943 . Its membership included 22 men : eight Poles , five Italians , three Hungarians , two Armenians , a Spaniard , and three French ; and one woman , who was Romanian . Eleven were also Jewish . After having been tortured and interrogated for three months , the 23 were tried by a German military court . In an effort to discredit the Resistance , the authorities invited French celebrities ( from the world of the cinema and other arts ) to attend the trial and encouraged the media to give it the widest coverage possible . All but one of the Manouchian Group ' s members were executed before a firing squad in Fort Mont - Valérien on February 21 , 1944 . Olga Bancic , who had served the group as a messenger , was taken to Stuttgart , where she was beheaded with an axe on May 10 , 1944 . In the spring of 1944 , the Vichy authorities launched a propaganda campaign , designed to discredit the Manouchian Group and defuse public anger over their execution . They created a poster , which became known as " Affiche Rouge " , due to its red background . It featured ten men of the group , with nationality , surnames , photos and descriptions of their crimes . The Germans distributed an estimated 15 , 000 copies of the poster . Along with these posters , the Germans handed out flyers that claimed the Resistance was headed by foreigners , Jews , unemployed people and criminals ; the campaign characterized the Resistance as a " foreigners ' conspiracy against French life and the sovereignty of France " : " " Si des Français pillent , volent , sabotent et tuent . . . Ce sont toujours des étrangers qui les commandent . Ce sont toujours des chômeurs et des criminels professionnels qui exécutent . Ce sont toujours des juifs qui les inspirent . C ’ est l ’ armée du crime contre la France . Le banditisme n ’ est pas l ’ expression du Patriotisme blessé , c ’ est le complot étranger contre la vie des Français et contre la souveraineté de la France . " " Although the poster attempted to depict the group as " terrorists " , the campaign seems to have had the effect of highlighting the feats of people whom the general public saw as freedom fighters . Legend has it that supporters scribbled the words " MORTS POUR LA FRANCE " ( They died for France - the phrase used on official monuments to soldiers of France who died in combat ) and put flowers beneath some of the posters . In 1975 , Philippe Ganier Raymond claimed that there was no historical record of such activity . More recent research has confirmed that such additions occurred . Legacy . In 1955 , Louis Aragon wrote a poem memorializing the Manouchian Group , " Strophes pour se souvenir " . The poem was published in 1956 in " Le roman inachevé " . In 1959 Léo Ferré set it to music and recorded it as " L ' Affiche rouge " . Rouben Melik and Paul Éluard also wrote poems in honour of the Manouchian Group . In 1997 , at the prompting of Robert Badinter , the French Parliament authorized the erection of a monument commemorating the execution at Mont - Valérien between 1940 and 1944 of 1 , 006 citizens and members of the French Resistance , including the Manouchian Group . The sculptor Pascal Convert created the monument , and Prime Minister Jean - Pierre Raffarin dedicated it on September 20 , 2003 . Controversy . In the 1980s , some French political factions suggested that , because of political infighting , some members of the Resistance had been complicit in the capture of many of the members of the Manouchian Group . A film documentary by Stéphane Courtois and Mosco Boucault , " Des terroristes à la retraite " , broadcast by Antenne 2 in 1983 , included interviews of surviving FTP - MOI members and families of the victims . Bouscault accused the French Communist Party ( PCF ) of having deliberately sacrificed the fighters in the power struggle with the Gaullists for control over the National Council of Resistance ( CNR ) . He suggested this was done because the fighters ' foreign origins undermined French depictions of the Resistance as a native patriotic movement . The film was rebroadcast in 2001 , minus 12 minutes deleted to reflect more recent historical research . " La traque de l ’ Affiche rouge " , a documentary produced by and Jorge Amat , broadcast by France 2 on 15 March 2007 , refuted Courtois and Boucault ' s allegations . Quoting the historian , who had access to new documents from the Russian , French and German archives , the new documentary alleged that the fall of the Manouchian Group had been due exclusively to the French police ' s work . The two newly created branches of the " Renseignements généraux " ( RG ) intelligence agency — the " Brigades spéciales " 1 and 2 — had trailed the Résistance fighters for months . On 28 September 1943 , Marcel Rayman , with several others , shot and killed the SS General . Ritter organized the forced labor of the " Service du travail obligatoire " ( STO ) . At that time , Rayman had already been under surveillance for two months . The French Milice arrested and dismantled the Manouchian Group after the attack , aided by information given up by some members under torture . In September 2009 , the dramatic film " L ' Armée du crime " opened in France , featuring the story of the Manouchian Group . Directed by Robert Guédiguian , a Marseille - based filmmaker of German and Armenian parentage , it was adapted from a story by Serge Le Péron . It reflects some of the divisions among the Résistance . In association with the film ' s release , reporters interviewed the last surviving member of the FTP - MOI group , Arsène Tchakarian . She decisively refuted the allegation that the PCF had betrayed the Manouchian Group . She said that 35 members of the 40 in the group were communists . The film opened in the United States in 2010 . Content . The poster reads : " Des libérateurs ? La libération par l ' armée du crime ! " < br > " Liberators ? Liberation by the army of crime ! " From left to right , and top to bottom , individual portraits are labeled : The bottom features photographs of :