French Defense Minister Sacks Historian Who Cast Doubt on Dreyfus

A century after the world-famous case rocked French society, the Dreyfus Affair still has the power to re-open old wounds here.

This week, the French defense minister abruptly fired the head of the army’s history section for publishing an article that cast doubt on the innocence of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus.

The army historian, Col. Paul Gaujac, published a report in the army magazine Actualite leaving room to doubt whether Dreyfus — a Jewish officer who was falsely convicted of spying for Germany — was truly innocent.

Rather than speak of the Jewish officer’s innocence, Gaujac wrote, “Dreyfus’ innocence is the thesis now generally accepted by historians.”

French Defense Minister Francois Leotard was reportedly furious after reading the report and immediately fired Gaujac.

Dreyfus was arrested in 1894 after a French spy in the German Embassy found a document purportedly in Dreyfus’ handwriting that provided sensitive information to the Germans.

Dreyfus was subsequently arrested, convicted on charges of espionage, publicly stripped of his military medals and sent to Devil’s Island, a French penal colony off the coast of French Guiana, in South America. Dreyfus had never even seen the evidence against him.

The case, which sparked a wave of anti-Semitism in France, was re-opened in 1898 when a French intelligence official concluded that a different officer, Maj. Walsin Esterhazy, wrote the document. But that case was dropped, and Dreyfus was sentenced to 10 more years.

In ensuing years, there were growing calls for Dreyfus’ release, most notably by author Emile Zola, whose article, “J’Accuse,” charged that top army officials fabricated the case against Dreyfus.

In July 1906, the verdict against Dreyfus was annulled by a civilian court, and he was reinstated into the army, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and fought in World War I. But the French army never reversed its 1899 verdict.

In his report, Gaujac did not write of the wrongful conviction.

Instead, he wrote how the case led to “the dismantling of the French army intelligence service and to the cutting of the budget of the army” while Germany was rearming.

Gaujac’s report, published in late January, went unnoticed until the French leftist daily Liberation published short extracts this week.

The reaction of the French defense minister was swift. Leotard, who is an open friend of the Jewish community and of Israel, told Gaujac to leave his office immediately.

There was no immediate reaction from local Jewish community leaders, many of whom are in Washington for a World Jewish Congress conference.