Pierre Maudru, an FFI section leader, described in graphic detail the impact of one Molotov cocktail attack against a German armored vehicle. The driver, he said, “had been so badly burned that his skin was swollen and wrinkled like that of a chicken or a grilled lamb. His hands and face had doubled in volume. He had no hair left and his eyes were bulging. In place of his hair he had nothing on his head except a kind of black lump that continued to crackle.”16
Few Frenchmen took much pity on the Germans, however they died. FFI members kept fighting with as much ardor as they could. They quickly scored two major successes, disabling one tank on the Place St. Michel directly across the bridge from the prefecture and disabling another right in front of Notre Dame. In all, the FFI destroyed or captured twenty German vehicles and took six hundred German prisoners that day. One policeman noted, from his station in the nearby commissariat of the sixth arrondissement, that “the Place St. Michel became a cemetery for all German vehicles that tried to enter it.” He may have exaggerated a bit for effect, but the losses they inflicted made it clear that the FFI was able to restrict German movements enough to relieve some of the pressure at the prefecture.17
Nevertheless, the police inside the prefecture knew that they could not hope to stop the German attacks for much longer without significant help. German tanks would eventually find their way through. The police also knew, as did the leaders of the Resistance, that the Germans would not recognize them as soldiers; they would instead see them as terrorists and treat them brutally if they surrendered. Parodi and Chaban designed a scheme to evacuate the prefecture using sewer and Métro tunnels. Both men had determined that the seizure of the building had been “premature and vain, [the police’s] sacrifices useless and the enemy’s reprisals violent.” But evacuation was impossible given the symbolism the prefecture had already assumed. The situation became more serious by the hour. Several policemen inside the prefecture used the building’s telephone exchange to call loved ones and tell them goodbye. One of them called his wife and told her, “This is all going badly. We will probably never see each other again.” In all, 193 Paris policemen died during the liberation, most of them on August 19 and 20.18
Seeking to extend the uprising beyond the prefecture, some FFI commanders argued for a strategy of holding and occupying strongpoints like mairies, the administrative centers of the arrondissements; city utilities; and key communication nodes. But Rol advocated a strategy of guerrilla warfare, striking German positions with quick, well-organized attacks to keep the Germans off balance. The guerrilla approach also had the advantage of not concentrating FFI forces in locations where the Germans could bring their superior firepower to bear. The FFI’s seizure of the mairie of the Parisian suburb of Neuilly was a case in point. It had only taken the Germans a few minutes to move a Panther tank into the area, fire a shell into the roof, and retake the building, sending the FFI fighters scrambling into a sewer tunnel for safety.
FFI operations were too far flung for any one man to control, although Rol tried to implement some semblance of command. Following Rol’s vision, members of the FFI were active all across the city and suburbs, forcing the Germans to pay attention to areas other than the prefecture. His goals for the day were to mobilize Resistance fighters, seize weapons from the Germans, and capture the eighty lightly defended targets of opportunity on his list. Many of these targets had been defended by the police before the strike but were now ripe for the taking. Among the FFI’s most successful operations were raids on the prisons of Drancy and Fresnes, leading to the freedom from Nazi clutches of more than three thousand Jews and political prisoners. Their lives were now saved from deportation and incineration in a Nazi death camp.19
Still, the prefecture remained endangered. The Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling feared the possibility of a massacre of the men inside the building, just as he had earlier feared what would happen to the political prisoners at Fresnes and elsewhere. As he had done in that case, he decided to try his hand, as a somewhat neutral arbiter, to defuse the tensions and find a peaceful solution. Despite the active combat in and around the Île de la Cité, Nordling went to the prefecture and asked to speak with the prefect. “The new one or the old one?” was the response of the policeman to whom he spoke. Eventually Nordling spoke with Luizet and saw firsthand how dire the situation at the prefecture had become. He and Luizet had a dedicated telephone line established so that the prefecture could communicate directly with the Swedish consulate. Then Nordling agreed to find Choltitz and serve as an intermediary, although he had no idea what he might be able to negotiate.20
By the time Nordling and Choltitz met late that afternoon, approximately fifty Germans had been killed and more than one hundred wounded during the day’s fighting. Choltitz was not in a forgiving mood. He raged at Nordling, telling the Swede that he intended to destroy the prefecture with a dawn air raid followed by an attack by the best soldiers he had at his disposal. Nordling warned Choltitz that there would be no way to protect the treasures of Paris that sat nearby, most notably Notre Dame and La Sainte-Chapelle. Destroying Paris, Nordling said, would be an unforgivable crime. “I am a soldier,” Choltitz replied. “I get orders. I execute them.”21
There were, however, three elements of Choltitz’s thinking that provided an opening for Nordling as they continued their discussions. The first was Choltitz’s belief that the uprising was the work of a small number of extremists whom he labeled terrorists. He believed that the FFI were making life difficult not only for the Germans in the city but also for Parisians, the vast majority of whom he believed did not support the FFI. Choltitz therefore saw himself and his army not as oppressing Paris but as protecting it from the gang of violent thugs he believed the Resistance to be. As he was talking to Nordling, Choltitz looked out the window of his office and noticed a pretty young Parisienne riding down the Rue de Rivoli on her bicycle. The sight seemed to make him think of the charms of Paris. Nordling recalled him turning from the window and saying, “Paris seems to me a magnificent city, its population seems calm and pleasant.” Then his voice rose as he turned his attention to what he saw as Paris’s less charming side. “Now I have just heard that some of my soldiers have been attacked and I must take energetic action! It makes me think that these measures must be severe, according to the orders I have received [to maintain calm].”22
One should not take the first part of Choltitz’s statement too seriously as a testimony of his love for Paris, a city he had only known for a short time and was willing to reduce to rubble under the right circumstances. More representative of his thinking was the second element of his reasoning, that the violence in the city was mostly a result of internal French political struggles. Choltitz neither understood the nuances of French politics nor cared about them. He had already grown frustrated with all French politicians except the mayor, Pierre Taittinger, with whom he had developed a relationship based on mutual fear and hatred of the FFI. Nordling tried to exploit Choltitz’s incomprehension by telling him that the combats across the city were between FFI and Vichy French followers and that his men were merely finding themselves trapped in the middle. Choltitz agreed with Nordling’s assessment, because it absolved the Germans of responsibility for the outbreak of the violence. But he screamed at the Swede, “It is against my men that they shoot!”23
The third and final opening that Nordling detected was perhaps the most critical: Choltitz did not want to see events devolve to the point where he would have to fight a battle inside the city. He told Nordling that he had no interest in seeing Paris turn into another Stalingrad, the murderous urban battle that Choltitz had personally experienced. This sentiment had less to do with his admiration for Paris and its pretty girls than with his awareness that his forces were ill-equipped to fight an urban battle against guerrillas. Nor would destroying Paris serve any larger strategic or operational goals for the German Army. Choltitz said that he had no qualms about fighting for or in Paris, but he was reluctant to do so without a
larger purpose that would justify the effort and, perhaps more importantly, without the necessary resources to ensure his men a chance to succeed in battle. He did not mention to Nordling one other reason for his hesitation. Choltitz had already concluded that any further combat in and around the city was futile because the German Army’s days in France were clearly numbered.
Nordling began to suspect that what Choltitz really wanted was a French or Allied command structure with which to negotiate. Choltitz could not negotiate with the FFI or any other Resistance group because in his eyes they were neither soldiers nor legitimate representatives of the French government, which, as far as the Germans were concerned, was still legally based in Vichy. To negotiate with men he characterized as terrorists would not only bring dishonor to himself as a soldier but also expose his men to violent retribution in the event of a German surrender. His men were not required to recognize the FFI fighters as soldiers—a factor that accounted for the summary executions of hundreds of résistants across Paris during the liberation—and he feared that the FFI would not respect the laws of warfare if a surrender became necessary. If Choltitz could talk with someone he viewed as a legitimate negotiator, perhaps he would feel he could surrender the city with honor, particularly if he could receive a guarantee that his men would go to prisoner of war camps instead of being left to face the vengeful mobs for which Paris’s history was justifiably famous. Nordling’s instincts were correct. The situation would be different, Choltitz told him, if he knew that he was dealing with gentlemen, not terrorists. What he really wanted was to negotiate with a new authority who could speak for Paris. That statement was an implicit recognition that the days of Pétain and Laval were truly over.24
Nordling left Choltitz optimistic that room existed for discussions that might lead to the end of the bloodshed in and around the prefecture. He knew that Choltitz would fight for the city if he had to, but that he might also accept another outcome if it met his needs. Most of the discussions that followed that day occurred by telephone as Nordling tried to stay in touch with both Choltitz and the prefecture. By early evening, moreover, it had become too dangerous to move around the city’s streets.
Nordling soon developed the idea of a truce or ceasefire that would buy time and cool the passions that the uprising was unleashing. The time bought might allow for the police to give up the prefecture peacefully as part of a more permanent arrangement. More importantly, it might buy time for the Allies to get large regular formations into Paris. Choltitz could then surrender the city without violating his honor as a soldier. The truce would also stop the violence, which Choltitz continued to believe was not representative of the people of Paris. A few days of calm could help Choltitz achieve the mission of ensuring that the remaining German units could use Paris to retreat in good order to the east. Maybe by then the reinforcements that Berlin was constantly promising him might actually arrive, but even if they didn’t, he would have a decent way out of the trap Paris was rapidly becoming.
Like the seasoned diplomat that he was, Nordling worked the telephones, talking both to the courageous but endangered policemen inside the prefecture and the calm, professional officers in the Hôtel Meurice. By 8:40 p.m. on August 19, he had worked out the general outline of the terms of a truce. The critical concession came from Choltitz, who agreed to recognize the FFI as regular combatants, thus protecting them from summary German reprisals. Nordling saw this concession as his great victory. It not only offered a way to end the violence, but also opened up the possibility that Choltitz might recognize the FFI leaders as legal representatives of the French government. If he did, then a long-lasting solution to the political and military problems of Paris might be reached without the Allies, whose intentions and plans regarding the city were still unclear to those inside. The Germans agreed not to fire on any buildings then occupied by the French Resistance or the police, thus saving the prefecture from another attack by German tanks or airplanes. In return, the French agreed not to fire on any German strongpoints or to disturb the movement of German troops in the city, thus giving Choltitz the calm and order he sought.25
The truce was a tremendous diplomatic achievement for Nordling, especially given the difficult circumstances under which he was working. It probably saved the lives of hundreds of policemen in the prefecture who would have been killed by the aerial and ground assault that Choltitz’s staff had been designing for execution on the following morning. It also spared the buildings and irreplaceable architectural treasures of the city center. Perhaps most impressively, Nordling had gotten a German general to recognize part of the Resistance movement as a legitimate negotiating partner, even if Choltitz was not yet willing to recognize FFI agents as representatives of the French government.
But negotiating a truce is a far different enterprise from enforcing one. Choltitz refused to allow the terms of the truce to be broadcast over loudspeakers or on the radio, meaning that some parts of the city did not hear about it for hours, and even then, many people lacked any firm evidence that all the parties had agreed to it. Nordling suspected, correctly, that Choltitz wanted to keep the truce as quiet as possible for as long as possible. Once Model and Hitler learned about it, he would have some uncomfortable questions to answer. He might be replaced or arrested for negotiating without approval from the proper higher authority. Given the tense atmosphere inside the German high command after the assassination attempt, Choltitz’s family might even suffer because of his actions. Better, Choltitz concluded, if Berlin did not find out about the truce for a few hours or even a few days. As a result, the news of the truce passed by word of mouth and through notices scrawled onto Paris’s ubiquitous restaurant chalkboards.26
Although the shooting stopped around the prefecture, in other parts of Paris neither the FFI nor the Germans respected the truce. SS troops, in particular, ignored the ceasefire. They continued to fire into buildings and crowds of people, and they continued to execute any Frenchmen found to be carrying weapons. Each side accused the other of not respecting the truce and dealing in bad faith to improve its military position. The French accused the Germans of using the truce to move men and weapons into the Métro tunnels under the prefecture. Choltitz coldly rejected this charge, saying that if he wanted to annihilate the building and the men in it, he had tanks and planes that could do the job in minutes. He did not need to bother with tunnels.
The divisions and fractures opening up between the various Paris Resistance groups posed almost as much of a threat to their efforts as the ongoing aggression of German forces did. Disagreement about the truce nearly split the Resistance in two. The FFI, and Rol in particular, saw the truce as the product of negotiating with the enemy and akin to treason. “As long as Germans are in Paris,” he thundered, “our duty is to fight them.” The more the Germans kept up the shooting during the truce, the angrier Rol became; he later counted ninety-four members of his FFI killed during the ostensible hours of the truce. German soldiers and vehicles had also continued to fire randomly into buildings, especially in high combat areas like St. Michel.27
With every report of German violations of the truce terms, Rol grew more impatient. One of Rol’s deputies, Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont, later recalled that the FFI leadership believed that the truce would strongly favor the Germans because it allowed them free movement of their men, tanks, and supplies around Paris. If the FFI honored the truce, the Germans could redeploy and be in a much stronger position once the fighting inevitably restarted. There was also nothing in the terms of the truce, for instance, to prevent the Germans from preparing demolitions of Parisian bridges, buildings, and monuments. As a result, Kriegel-Valrimont ordered his men to disregard the truce and keep fighting.28
These FFI leaders were not alone in their outrage at the truce. The communist leader André Tollet also opposed any truce unless its terms led directly to the departure of German forces from Paris. “The enemy is on the run,” he said. He then asked, “Why accept a truce? We have nothing to gain.” L
éo Hamon, the socialist editor of the clandestine newspaper Combat, agreed, although he also understood that the truce gave the Resistance fighters much-needed breathing space. More critically, he realized, it gave them a chance to care for their wounded. He also saw a chance to use any time the truce bought to get a message to the Allies about the rapidly developing situation inside the city. Still, Hamon only agreed to the truce at the personal urging of Nordling, and only to the extent that he believed the Germans were honoring it as well.29
At the other end of the political spectrum, Chaban and most other Gaullist representatives supported the truce. Although Chaban saw clearly that the passionate disagreements over the truce could well split the fragile structure of the Paris Resistance, he believed that it was the only way to save the prefecture from the wrath of German tanks and airplanes. Consistent with his views throughout July and August, he saw the truce as a way to buy a few precious days for French and U.S. military units, allowing them to get to Paris so they could provide direct support for an uprising. At the moment, the Germans still had enough power to crush it.
Although American generals still had a far from complete understanding of what was happening inside Paris, the events of August 19 finally began to awaken their interest in the city. Vague reports began to filter into Allied headquarters saying that FFI members were roving the streets of Paris with weapons and engaging in combat with Germans. Reports of active fighting in the city deeply concerned the Americans, because they assumed that the much more heavily armed Germans would have little trouble massacring the now dangerously exposed FFI. Fighting inside Paris also carried the risk of drawing the Americans into the city at a time when they wanted to remain focused on crossing the Seine to the north in order to cut off avenues of retreat for large German formations. Nor had American concerns about feeding and supplying the city become any less acute.
The Blood of Free Men Page 19