Pierre Bonny

Pierre Bonny (25 January 1895 – 27 December 1944) was a French police officer. As an inspector, he was the investigating officer in the 1923 Seznec case, and was accused of falsifying the evidence. He was once praised as one of the most talented police officers in the country, and helped to solve the notorious Stavisky financial scandal in 1934. In 1935 he was jailed for three years on corruption charges. During World War II, France was occupied by Nazi Germany. Bonny became a collaborator and joined the French Gestapo, known as the Carlingue. After the Liberation of Paris he was put on trial and convicted of war crimes. He was executed by firing squad on 27 December 1944, alongside career criminal Henri Lafont and footballer-turned-crook Alexandre Villaplane. Besides the overwhelming memory of him as a traitor and unscrupulous collaborator, he is commonly seen as the incarnation of a corrupt man and a doer of dirty work for the Vichy regime. He is held to be the basis for the character of Monsieur Philibert in Patrick Modiano's wartime novel La Ronde de Nuit (The Night Watch).