Léonce Vieljeux [SEP] place of birth
Léonce Vieljeux
Léonce Vieljeux (12 April 1865, Les Vans, Ardèche, France – 12 September 1944, Struthof) was a colonel in the French reserve army, industrialist and mayor of La Rochelle.
Life.
Gaining a diploma from the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr in 1888, he was attached to the 123e régiment d’infanterie at La Rochelle, where he married Hélène Delmas, daughter of the famous arms manufacturer from that town. He left the army to enter his father-in-law's family
business "Delmas Frères", becoming its president, changing its name to "Compagnie Delmas-Vieljeux", and making it one of France's most important shipping companies. Sitting on La Rochelle's municipal council from 1912 to 1925, he became its mayor in 1930.
With the onset of the Second World War, Léonce Vieljeux began working to resist the town's Nazi occupiers. Thus, when on Sunday 23 June 1940 a German lieutenant presented himself to mayor Vieljeux with a request to hang a German swastika flag from