CASSAGNE Marius, known as Jean (EN)

Marius Cassagne acted as secretary for his companion, Margot Jansson, broker in objets d’art, involved in the negotiation of contracts with Parisian interior decoration enterprises for furnishing the main office of the Reichsbank in Berlin.

Marius Cassagne, dit Jean Cassagne, was born 4 May 1896 in the 15^th arrondissement, the son of Théodore Cassagne, mechanic, and Marie Antoinette Bors.¹ He met Margot Jansson in 1937. They lived together as domestic partners beginning in 1939,² and were married on 5 December 1945 in Rueil-Malmaison. Marius Cassagne died in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 6 July 1978.³ Before the Second World War, Cassagne was head of advertising services of the Idéal-Classic enterprise in Paris, but did not return to work in 1940 after being drafted. He was a reserve artillery lieutenant in the cinematographic section of the army since 1930.⁴ As of 1939, he lived at 48, avenue Charles-Floquet in the 7^th arrondissement.⁵

During the Occupation, Cassagne was secretary to his companion, Margot Jansson.⁶ According to his statements, when Jansson was in Berlin, he replaced her at the last minute to pay sellers.⁷ Cassagne’s commissions before taxes amounted to 2,080,736 F, but according to him, that money emanated solely from French enterprises and not from the Reichsbank.⁸ For their lawyer, Jansson and Cassagne worked as brokers and as a letterbox, and as a result the majority of commissions should not be considered illicit.⁹ In the dossier conserved in the National Archives, there are nonetheless copies of Reichsbank receipts. One document specifies that Cassagne paid at least once for objects bought for the architect of the Reichsbank, Heinrich Wolff (1880-1944).¹⁰ Cassagne explained that this was the only case in which he replaced Jansson, because she was then in Berlin with Wolff.¹¹ Jansson and Cassagne’s motives, as they defined them after the Liberation, were to protect the workers in those establishments and to favor French taste and savoir-faire.¹²

The role of Jansson and Cassagne in the de Sèze tapestries affair was not mentioned in the dossiers concerning proceedings against Jansson. Cassagne seems to have played a more important role in that affair than he claims, since in 1942 he obviously accompanied Reichsbank agents and the Gestapo to obtain the release of Albert Bourdariat and Eugène Pouget.¹³ Cassagne and Jansson admitted to having received the visit of German officers – however, they claim the latter were Wolff’s secretaries, assigned to the army after the Normandy landing.¹⁴

In September 1944, Cassagne was arrested by the police of the Gros-Caillou precinct and interned in Drancy with Jansson. They were accused of intelligence with the enemy by the Court of Justice of the Seine and imprisoned in Fresnes.¹⁵ In January 1945, Cassagne was transferred to the hospital for medical treatment.¹⁶ He was also summoned before the Comité de confiscation des profits illicites on 14 March 1945.¹⁷ A first decision of 30 November 1945 set the amount of confiscated profits at 806,900 F and the fine at 2,418,000 F. Jansson was declared jointly liable for the payment of 3,224,900 F.¹⁸ A decision of 9 January 1947 decreased the amounts of the fine and confiscated profits that had been set in 1945, and by decision of 16 April 1947, Cassagne’s withdrawal was accepted.¹⁹