Oh, Andre Maginot died in 1932 as Anu has stated.

But the French are a conservative lot, and they felt that, dead or alive, they couldn't do better in a Minister for War than good ol' Andre so they kept him at his post. Since he was obviously finding it difficult to move, they appointed a secretary to do the day-to-day work.

When war broke out, Maginot's energy, verve, flair and elan - oh, and his Line - were all that stood between the French and disaster. Certainly his Line wasn't all that strong and broke easily when the Germans took the bait and took a hook at it.

But the late Andre was clearly petrified at the outbreak of war. The rumour is that de Gaulle couldn't get anything useful out of him and that he found Maginot rather decomposed at the prospect of fighting. Also that he needed a wash. Eventually the President asked him if he wanted to be relieved of his post and took Maginot's silence as consent.

And so when the French government withdrew to Vichy they just propped Andre up in the corner of the Cabinet Room and closed the door.

For two years the Nazi occupiers thought he was a suit of armour until one unusually perspicacious officer noticed he was actually wearing a suit of Armani. So they took him out and shot him. It was rumoured that he didn't deign to reply when the officer in charge of the firing squad asked him if he wanted a blindfold. Three of the firing squad died of bullet wounds from the ricochets.

Hitler was rumoured to be furious when he heard what had happened, because he was looking for someone of Maginot's calibre to replace Rudoph Hess who'd taken French leave and a Messerschmidt 110 and gone on holiday in Britain.




The idiot also known as Capfka ...