BISSON Etienne (EN)

Étienne Bisson was the business associate of Hugo Engel. During the Occupation, he took over the official direction of their enterprise in common because of Engel’s Jewish origins, while the latter pursued his activities of expertise and prospection for Karl Haberstock.

Étienne Bisson worked for the Hugo Engel enterprise, founded 25 July 1938 by Hugo Engel (who held 48 shares) and Étienne Bisson (2 shares), as a dealer in paintings. During the Occupation, Bisson was domiciled in the flat rented by the enterprise, at 72, boulevard de Courcelles in Paris. In turn, he was the associate of the enterprise, then manager as of 20 September 1940,¹ date on which Engel, as an “Israelite” of Austrian nationality, was obliged to sell his shares.² The Hugo Engel enterprise became the galerie É. Bisson on 10 May 1944.³ On 25 June 1946, Bisson was replaced by the former manager, who reclaimed the majority of his shares (37 out of 40).⁴ During the period in question, Engel was nonetheless authorized by the German services to provide expertise and prospection services for Karl Haberstock,⁵ services that allowed him to save his life. Engel was in fact considered “aryan” by the Commissariat général des questions juives.⁶ Moreover, throughout the Occupation he continued to participate in the business of the Hugo Engel enterprise.⁷

After the Occupation, Bisson was not summoned directly before the Comité de confiscation des profits illicites, but was declared jointly responsible for the profits of the Hugo Engel Enterprise, (S.A.R.L Hugo Engel), accused of sales to the enemy. In an investigation report of 16 July 1948, the investigator suggested Bisson’s joint responsibility concerning the confiscation and fine charged to the enterprise, given that he benefitted from part of the profits realized by the enterprise.⁸ This decision was motivated in particular by the fact that his accounting was unreliable, which Bisson vigorously denied, indicating, in the Engel enterprise defense report that “M. Bisson, manager, insisted on the names of buyers, French and German, and noted them in his register. As it was a matter of buyers passing through Paris, paying in cash and transporting paintings themselves, it would have been easy for M. Bisson to register any name of his choice, so long as it was French.”⁹ In that way arguing in favor of the sincerity of his accounting.¹⁰

That decision however was reviewed in 1954 by the Conseil supérieur de confiscations des profits illicites, which considered that the affairs Bisson had conducted with the Germans had been subjected to threats of deportation. It decreased the value of the profits from confiscation and the associated fine,¹¹ a revision from which Bisson did not benefit, having died 11 August 1950.