Founder of the Sillon at Liège, Paul Marie Joseph Raymond Tschoffen was a lawyer, and politician, who was born in Dinant on 8 May, 1878 and died in Liège on 11 July, 1961.
The Tschoffen family originated in the Montafon Valley in Vorarlberg in the Austrian Tyrol region, who migrated to Luxembourg in 1733 and then eventually to what became Belgium.
His father Edmond Tschoffen was a judge at the Liège Court of Appeal, who married Charlotte de Vaulx de Champion. They had three children: Charles, Paul, and Marie. After studying at the Collège Saint-Servais in Liège, Paul earned his doctorate in law from the University of Liège. Alongside his legal studies, he earned a degree in history under Professor Godefroid Kurth, who, along with a Liège priest, Fr Antoine Pottier, encouraged Paul to enter politics, particularly within the nascent Christian Democratic movement.
As a student at the University of Liège, he became involved in the Société des Etudiants Catholiques, a group dominated by young conservatives. Inspired by the Sillon of Marc Sangnier, he launched a “Cercle des Etudiants Démocrats Chrétiens” subtitled “Le Sillon.”
Despite opposition from other students and also from Bishop Rutten, who preferred to have a single student group, the Sillon group continued with the support of the Christian Democrat, Karl Hanquet, and of Godefroid Kurth.
Although he did not fight in World War I, Tschoffen did assist in undercover operations, including risking his life to travel to The Hague in the Netherlands on an expired passport in order to inform the French intelligence service that the Germans had broken their code.
In 1919, Paul Tschoffen was elected deputy for Liège for the Catholic Party. However, since the Catholic Party was dominated by conservatives, disagreements soon emerged leading to his resignation.
After the 1924 elections, he was co-opted into the Senate, where he served until 1936. A few months earlier, in Georges Theunis’s government, he had been appointed Minister of Industry and Labor. In 1925, he became Minister of Justice and Minister of Railways, Posts, and Telegraphs. In 1929 and from 1932 to 1934, he served as Minister of Colonies. In 1945, he was appointed Minister of State.
As a member of parliament, he contributed in 1921 to the passage of the law repealing Article 310 of the Penal Code, which prohibited strikes and coalitions, by securing the passage of the law on “freedom of association,” which guaranteed union pluralism for Christian trade unions.
In 1932, Paul Tschoffen founded, with Pierre Goemaere, the Revue belge, a bimonthly publication in which he wrote a political column, each time highly noted.
Shortly before the start of the major financial crisis of 1935 that would affect Belgium, Paul Tschoffen was implicated in the bankruptcy of a private institution, the Chaudoir Bank, of which he was a director and shareholder. Paul Tschoffen, the Catholic senator Paul Berryer, and another bank director reimbursed the depositors who had entrusted their savings to the bank.
In 1935, Paul Tschoffen clashed with Léon Degrelle, who, during a meeting in Liège, had attacked the lawyer’s public and private life. A vigorous exchange of letters between the two men ultimately culminated in a verbal duel, and each returned home, seemingly appeased.
He also resigned his Senate seat in 1937. He resumed his legal career and became president of the Liège Bar Association from 1938 to 1939. He would go on to establish himself as a leading figure at the bar, inspiring admiration in a generation of young lawyers, several of whom had been his trainees, such as Antoine Delfosse, Pierre Clerdent, and Michel Franchimont. His successes in the Assize Courts, particularly against the renowned Parisian lawyer Maurice Garçon, remain a cherished memory for the Liège Bar. Even the common people admired him. “Tschoffen, il-åreût fé tchoûler ‘ne pîre” (“Tschoffen, he would have made a stone cry”), they used to say in Liège.
Following the German invasion in May 1940, Paul Tschoffen, in his capacity as a councilor for the Ougré-Marihaye society, was a member of the Galopin Committee. After the capitulation, he spoke out against a policy of neutrality: “This policy,” he said, “imagines it can curry favor with a bandit by promising not to help those who would try to put him in prison.”
In the same vein, he opposed the expansion of the general secretaries’ power under the Occupation. In 1943, Paul Tschoffen pleaded in Louveigné on behalf of 121 farmers who refused to pay their dues to the National Corporation for Agriculture and Food (CNAA), created by the German occupiers to seize control of agriculture. The judge, Paul Hanson, accepted the lawyer’s argument and ruled in favor of the farmers. On March 30, the Court of Cassation upheld the judgment. Paul Tschoffen was imprisoned for several weeks. Judge Paul Hanson was arrested and died in captivity in 1944.
Warned that the Germans were searching for him, Paul Tschoffen left the country for Monaco, where he found refuge with the Belgian consul. The Belgian government in exile in London decided to help Paul Tschoffen cross the Pyrenees to reach England. On February 15, 1943, a convoy left the city of Perpignan.
Led by Captain Charles de Hepcée, the group consisted of Paul Tschoffen, the Minister of Agriculture, Charles-Albert d’Aspremont Lynden, Baron Cartier de Marchienne, and the commander of the Mons gendarmerie, Marcel Engels and Albert Stolz, one of the leaders of the Luxembourg resistance. Thanks to Albert Stolz’s account, we know all the details of this expedition. It was a true adventure that severely tested Paul Tschoffen. At sixty-five, he was the oldest member of the group.
“I heard his breathing, like a rattle,” wrote Albert Stolz, “but I never heard the slightest complaint, nor a word of discouragement.” Upon arriving in London, Paul Tschoffen joined the Council of Ministers with the newly created title of State Councillor. He was entrusted with the mission of going to the Congo, particularly to Elisabethville, to explain the policies of the Belgian government in exile.
After the Allied landings in 1944, Paul Tschoffen was chosen by the government to re-establish the country’s administrative and judicial organization while awaiting the government’s return. But at that time, in the liberated territories, only the military authorities were recognized.
Paul Tschoffen therefore needed to be given a military rank. He became a lieutenant general, despite his military career having been limited to serving in the civic guard in 1904. Paul Tschoffen cut a very distinguished figure in a uniform with some rather fanciful details. The officers in London were astonished to see this lieutenant general wearing splendid suede shoes!
In Belgium, his career as a general lasted only four days, until the return of the Pierlot government. After hearing Paul Tschoffen’s report, the government decided to ask Prince Charles, the king’s brother, to assume the regency. Paul Tschoffen advocated for Leopold II’s abdication, which drew fierce attacks against him. On the advice of Hubert Pierlot, the Prince Regent entrusted him with the task of forming a government. On the verge of succeeding, a cabal formed against him thwarted the attempt. From then on, Paul Tschoffen left politics.
One of the major causes championed by Paul Tschoffen, which earned him a range of opinions, was his defense of the German General von Falkenhausen, a case to which he had been appointed by the court. The German general, Governor-General of occupied Belgium, received a relatively light sentence.
Until his death, Paul Tschoffen chaired the international committee of experts appointed by the International Labour Office, a committee of which he had been a member since 1927.
He married Louise Dubois and together they had two children: André and Madeleine.
J. Gérard-Libois and J. Gotovitch, L’an 40, Brussels, 1971.- H. Moreau de Melen, Au terme de la route, Liège, 1988.-P. Salmon, Biographical note, in Biographie belge d’Outremer, t. vm, 1998, col. 427-428. A. Neve, Paul Tschoffen 1878-1961, Lasne, 2009. – P. Van den Dungen, Hubert Pierlot 1883-1963, Brussels, 2010.
SOURCE
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