Alfred Corbin

Alfred Valentin Corbin (26 February 1916 at Clichy, France; 28 July 1943 in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin) was a French communist sympathiser, editor and reviewer, commercial director,[1] and resistance fighter.

After serving in the French Foreign Legion in the lead up to the war, Corbin was recruited by Soviet intelligence to run a black market trading company.

In 1941, Corbin worked as a director of the Paris-based, Simex black market trading company, that was in reality a cover for a Soviet espionage organisation, later known as the Red Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle").

His brother Robert Corbin who lost his job at Creeds tailor's on the Rue Royale Paris, decided to join him,[6] as the decision made good financial success.

[6] In the autumn of 1940, Léon Grossvogel, a Polish-French Jewish businessman and a Comintern official used monies supplied by Jules Jaspar, a former Belgian consul to establish the Simex cover firm in Paris.

[1] In February 1942, the Simex company moved to 3rd floor offices at 89 Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, opposite the Saint Augustine church, at the insistence of Corbin, who believed their current location was rife with thieves.

[17] On 19 November 1942, Corbin along with Suzanne Cointe, a secretary and Vladimir Keller, the Simex translator were arrested by Gestapo officer Karl Giering of the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle.