by Matthew Cobb
In the 17th arrondissement it was not just the FFI who were doing the fighting – the population eventually got involved, too. First, there was a day of gunfire in which a number of FFI fighters were killed, including Simone Jaffray, a 29-year-old woman who acted as a liaison agent, and was mortally wounded on the rue Jacquemot.80 Then, in the early afternoon, two German lorries were seized and used to protect the Mairie by blockading the broad boulevard des Batignolles.81 This was followed by one of the most spectacular events of the whole insurrection, when an unarmed crowd surrounded a small German R35 tank destroyer. An initial photograph shows about twenty Parisians around the vehicle, but soon the crowd was about 500 strong, and people began to swarm all over the tank. There were a dozen or so German soldiers involved, and a later photograph shows them clinging onto the vehicle as they were overwhelmed by the unarmed Parisians – the vast bulk of the hundreds of people in and around the tank were local residents, not FFI fighters (see Plate 20). In the centre of the photograph, standing atop the vehicle, is Georges Dukson, a 22-year-old from French West Africa (now Gabon). Sergeant Dukson of the French Army had been taken prisoner in 1940; he managed to escape from a German prison camp, and returned to Paris where he was living in secret.82 Faced with the overwhelming size of the crowd swarming on and around the vehicle, the Germans eventually simply gave up, without firing a shot. The crowd roared its delight.83 One of the FFIers climbed onto a car, made a brief speech to the throng, and then the captured tank was driven off to the Mairie, covered in people and flying a massive tricolour, led by Dukson and followed by the joyous crowd.84
Around the Mairie of the 17th arrondissement, the excitement began to get out of control, and a woman was accused of collaboration and had her hair shaved off and a swastika daubed on her forehead. A man cried out: ‘My concierge is a collaborator, come and arrest her!’Jean-Claude Touche noted: ‘This atmosphere disgusts me – it is the lowest form of vengeance.’85 A couple of hours later, the shaven-headed woman was taken to her home on the rue Tholozé in Montmartre; Berthe Auroy was told that the Resistance had brought back a woman collaborator, whose head had been shaved by a black man. Incredulous, Madame Auroy went onto the street, where she found tufts of hair.86 Later, the mood darkened further because people in the neighbourhood were advised by the FFI to take down their flags because the Germans were shooting at them.87 Similar instructions were given elsewhere in the city.88
In the 19th arrondissement, German armoured vehicles attacked the FFI headquarters next to the Mairie. Shortly afterwards, FFI fighters Barth and Caplot hurried down to the bottom of the avenue Secretan to pick up a wounded comrade; in turn they were both shot and severely wounded by the Germans. In the early evening, a group of FFI fighters crept out of the hilly Buttes Chaumont park and shot dead the German sentries standing guard over the railway lines. In response, the German garrison at the nearby Villette station launched a ferocious attack, firing on all the surrounding buildings, wounding and killing civilians.89 There were many other incidents all over the city that day. According to Colonel Rol, 106 Parisians were killed and 357 wounded during the cease-fire.90
Some of those deaths happened in the most senseless and haphazard of ways. Daniel Boisdon went to visit the Préfecture, where the revolutionary atmosphere impressed him. He was about to leave for home when suddenly a German vehicle came careering up the rue de la Cité, spraying machine-gun fire. Three women were shot, and Boisdon hurried across the cobbles in front of the Préfecture to help them. One woman was already dead; he cradled another who was riddled with bullets. Blood bloomed on her blouse as he held her.91
For young Micheline Bood, this catalogue of danger was strangely thrilling. Her friend Nicole explained how she was nearly injured when the Germans shot at the flags that had been hung out. Micheline wrote in her diary: ‘She was sure that I was jealous, and she wasn’t wrong, but perhaps I’ll have my moment of excitement, too.’92 Despite the ferocity of the fighting, Micheline still enjoyed her encounters with the German soldiers – as she walked back from Mass that morning there were scores of German troops on the boulevard Malesherbes, pointing their guns. ‘Despite this, they smiled at me and looked at me nicely,’ she wrote in her diary.93 She even imagined drawing pictures of the Germans who were billeted in the building opposite: ‘One of them eats all the time; another, a redhead, airs his clothes on the window-sill; another plucks his eyebrows and washes his hands all day; a pretentious little blond man writes by candlelight every night and gets dressed up to come to the window.’94 They were the enemy, but they were also human.
*
In the late afternoon, von Choltitz sat in his office wearing a white uniform. On his desk was a sprawl of papers that had been found in the possession of the three men who were standing in front of him: Alexandre Parodi, Roland Pré and Parodi’s close colleague, Emile Laffon.95 The papers included all the documents that were to be discused by the CNR, as well as a series of draft declarations, one of which called for insurrection. Two hours earlier, a zealous German sentry had stopped their car. The men had no papers to justify their use of a vehicle, so they were taken in for questioning and were soon in a Gestapo building. To the Germans’ amazement, the three men proudly announced that they were leaders of the Resistance, and coolly explained that they had been checking whether the cease-fire was being obeyed, and therefore they could not be arrested. The Gestapo man was not impressed: ‘You are terrorists, spies,’ he said. ‘You should be shot.’ In reply, Parodi gave the German his code name – ‘Cérat’ – and insisted that the officer contact Nordling, who would vouch for them. This must have worked, as not long after the three men were taken to von Choltitz’s headquarters at the Hôtel Meurice.96
No sooner had they entered von Choltitz’s office than Nordling arrived and confirmed that the three Frenchmen were indeed Resistance leaders. Accompanying Nordling were his perpetual companions, Bender and Posch-Pastor; the latter acted as an interpreter.97 For two tense hours, von Choltitz questioned his captives. The German security officers were jubilant – ‘one of the most important arrests we have made recently’ said one – but things looked rather different to the German commander, who found himself in an unexpectedly difficult position.98 Von Choltitz was worried that the communists might gain the upper hand in the struggle for Paris; if Parodi and the others were removed, this might upset the delicate equilibrium that had allowed the cease-fire to be agreed. Although the discussion dragged on, it got nowhere, as Parodi refused any compromise beyond the cease-fire, retreating behind his formal status as a minister in de Gaulle’s Cabinet. When von Choltitz offered to provide the population with some of the German food stocks, Parodi rejected the offer, saying: ‘The Parisians have been hungry for the last four years; they can put up with starving for another four days.’99
Eventually, von Choltitz took an amazing decision: he told the three Frenchmen they could go. He even returned their documents, handing them over to Nordling for safe-keeping. As the men were about to leave, von Choltitz got up, walked to the door and made a final gesture of appeasement. He asked if Parodi was a military man; Parodi said he was. Von Choltitz stuck out his hand: ‘Such a gesture is possible between soldiers.’ Parodi looked at the outstretched hand and said, ‘Under the present circumstances, a French minister cannot shake the hand of a German officer.’ And with that he left the room.100
*
For the Germans, the day was marked by mounting tension and uncertainty. Private Walter Dreizner and his group of electrical engineers were evacuated from their billet on the rue Cambon and were moved closer to the German command headquarters on the rue de Rivoli. But even that was not safe: Colonel Jay, the newly appointed Battle Commander of Paris, felt uneasy standing near the window of his new office in the Hôtel Meurice in case he was shot by a sniper.101 During a sortie to carry out essential repairs on a telephone installation, one man in Dreizner’s unit was killed, four were wounded and three went missing. A tank was sent to support the group, b
ut it had orders not to fire, so as not to provoke any further incidents with the Resistance. In the evening, Dreizner’s unit received instructions not to venture into the east of the city, increasing Dreizner’s impression of encirclement, imminent danger and impotence.102
Some soldiers simply gave up the fight. At around 15:30, at the bottom of the boulevard Saint-Michel, a German lorry, full of soldiers, was stopped by the FFI. Much to the amazement of passers-by, the unarmed leader of the résistants talked with the Germans. Jean Galtier-Boissière recorded the scene in his diary:
Suddenly, a fat German jumps out of the vehicle and surrenders unexpectedly, handing his submachine gun to one résistant, his revolver to another, then his ammunition, and everything else he has. One, two, three, four other soldiers follow his example. But the helmeted soldier with a submachine gun on the roof of the lorry doesn’t want to join in and refuses to surrender. A second unarmed résistant, very young, decides to convince him, pointing out all the guns that were aimed at him. Eventually, the German climbs down, and hands over his weapons, grumbling.103
Had Berlin known the extent to which the Paris garrison lacked the stomach for a fight, it is possible they might have acted differently.104 But as it was, Hitler sent an order to Field Marshal Model asserting that the key task of Western Command was to hold the line west of Paris, and above all to prevent the Allies from breaking through and heading eastwards. The shattered remnants of the 5th Panzer Army, currently fleeing from Falaise, were to make for the Paris bridges, which were to be held ‘under all conditions’. The Seine was to form the new front, and Paris was expendable. Hitler’s order put it quite clearly: ‘If necessary the fighting in and around Paris will be conducted without regard to the destruction of the city.’105
10
Monday 21 August: Conflict
Micheline Bood writes in her diary: ‘They say the Allies are not going to enter Paris, because the Resistance is strong enough to take the city on its own. That is really magnificent. From now on, we can hold our heads high and be proud of being French men and women. Our country was betrayed by the likes of Marshal Pétain; we had neither weapons, nor aeroplanes nor tanks and yet we rose up against the enemy in an invincible movement. All that mean-spiritedness can be forgotten. France is still France! Oh, and the lads of the Resistance are so good-looking, fresh-faced and bright and bold. Every one of them is a symbol; today I saw them as though for the first time and they moved me.’1
Early in the morning, Resistance fighters gingerly entered the fort at Romainville, on the north-eastern outskirts of Paris, which had served as a German prison. There was an eerie silence. The day before, the fort’s last occupants, German Army volunteers from the German occupied area of the Soviet Union, known as ‘Georgians’, had left the region. As the résistants moved through the site, they made a macabre and disturbing discovery. At the foot of a long wall behind the main building lay eleven bodies – ten men and one woman – ripped apart by machine-gun fire. They were all local résistants who had been captured by the ‘Georgians’ and had then been callously murdered before the troops fled. Appalled at what they had found, the résistants called in the press, including film-makers, to capture the horror. The whole world had to know.2
Later the same day, the female prisoners from Romainville who six days earlier, on 15 August, had been loaded onto the Pantin train finally arrived at their destination: Ravensbrück concentration camp. Few would return. But for some prisoners who had been put on the Drancy train on 17 August, the moment had come to start the long journey home. It was still dark and they were somewhere in France – they had passed through Laon, 120 km north-east of Paris, the previous evening. The journey had been slow and repeatedly disrupted by diversions due to destroyed lines and a Spitfire attack on the train, which had left the locomotive wheezing like a punctured football. Because the prisoners’ first escape plan, which had involved breaking through the rear of their wagon, had been foiled a few hours earlier, they turned their attention to the tiny barred ventilation window. After they had cut their way through the first bar with a chisel that had been smuggled aboard, a slender young man pushed his body through the gap and tried to operate the outside lever that would unlock the wagon’s sliding door. But the lever was just out of reach, so they had to think again. The window was their only way out. A second bar was removed and now the way was open, for those bold and fit enough to drop from a moving train into utter blackness. The young men went first, disappearing into the driving rain as the train inexorably pulled them all closer to Germany. One of the first to jump was André Amar, Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar’s husband. Soon afterwards, brother and sister Philippe and Rose-Marie Kohn leapt into the darkness. As they lay on the stones at the side of the track, Philippe and Rose-Marie could see the red lamp on the last wagon as it disappeared into the darkness. It was carrying the rest of their family, including their 12-year-old brother, Georges-André, into oblivion.3
*
On a dull grey Parisian morning, the atmosphere had changed completely from the euphoria of the previous day. In the 18th arrondissement Berthe Auroy wrote in her diary: ‘All yesterday’s joy has evaporated. Everyone is depressed. No doubt a reaction to yesterday’s enthusiasm. The weather is overcast; the flags have been taken down.’4 In parts of Paris, there was a curious stand-off between the Germans and the Resistance as the cease-fire was partially respected, locally at least. By the Jardin du Luxembourg, a German soldier and a policeman with a Resistance armband both stood on sentry duty, 150 metres apart, paying no attention to each other.5 Yves Cazaux saw a German patrol passing by a barricade near the Monnaie de Paris; the soldiers stopped, the officer had a few words with the résistants, shrugged his shoulders, and the patrol moved off.6
Everyone felt exhausted, and those who had supported the cease-fire began to wonder whether they had made the right decision. Early in the morning, Léo Hamon warned Parodi that if they did not renew the fighting there would be a split in the Resistance – the FFI leadership had shown they would act alone if need be. Parodi recognised the danger, but insisted they had to wait another day. First, he saw Rol at the Préfecture, where everyone was preparing for an onslaught from the Germans, even if there was a cease-fire. As one of Parodi’s colleagues recalled:
Its windows were blocked almost to the top with sandbags. Resting on the sandbags were levelled rifles, and above them I saw the tense motionless faces of the Fifis. Inside many other Fifis were standing around in the large courtyard. Carelessly dressed, unshaven, their eyes shining, they were obviously both exhausted and exhilarated. They had hardly slept that night or indeed the previous nights. Perhaps they had also found a supply of wine in the cellars of the Préfecture. To right and left were stacks of rifles, neatly arranged. Fires burned under enormous quarters of meat and smoking pots.7
During their discussion, Parodi told Rol that several German armoured columns would soon be crossing Paris. Pointing at a map of the capital, Parodi suggested that the Resistance should allow the Germans safe passage along a number of prescribed routes. Strikingly, only one of these routes involved the Germans crossing the Seine, even though the warnings from Chaban about the supposedly imminent arrival of enemy troops were predicated on the Germans’ need to cross the Seine in Paris. This was no longer the case, apparently.8 Noting that the map showed a mere handful of German defensive positions, Rol dismissed the whole idea curtly: ‘There’s no going back,’ he said, and strode out.9
With Rol intransigent, Parodi tried to influence Colonel Lizé, Rol’s chief of staff. The previous day, Lizé, like the rest of the Paris FFI leadership, had been strongly opposed to the cease-fire, and even at 10:00 on the morning of 21 August, he sent a message to Rol explaining that the cease-fire was ‘being forgotten’.10 But shortly afterwards, under pressure from Parodi – who strictly speaking had no business interfering in the military line of command – Lizé buckled. As he later put it: ‘It took the authority of the [General Delegate], M. Parodi, speaking in
the name of General de Gaulle, for me to transmit the order to cease fire.’11 At 11:45, Lizé issued a cease-fire instruction to all Parisian FFI groupings, ‘by order of the Delegated Commissar of the Provisional Government of the French Republic’. The existing barricades would remain but no new barricades were to be constructed, and two routes through Paris would be reserved for German troops, protected by French gendarmes.12 Parodi had got his way, and so had von Choltitz.
Once again, Parodi appears to have given too much credence to Colonel Ollivier of the Intelligence Service. Two days before, Ollivier had pushed Parodi into accepting the cease-fire, at the same time as the spy ‘Bobby’ Bender shuttled between Nordling and von Choltitz, tying up the German side of the agreement. Now, at 10:00 on the morning of 21 August, shortly before Parodi met Rol, Ollivier turned up at Victor Veau’s apartment with urgent news for Parodi. The Intelligence Service agent stammered that the retreating German Army would cross the Seine in Paris, and that the city would be sacked if the FFI opposed their passage. He went on to say that German parachutists had been dropped at Senlis and were about to encircle the city. It is unclear why the Germans would use parachutists when they controlled Paris and its north-eastern approaches, nor why they would drop them fifty kilometres to the north into a town they already controlled, nor how even a massive parachute drop of men could ‘encircle’ a capital city.13 Nevertheless, Veau and his comrades swallowed Ollivier’s story and communicated it to Parodi. After being spooked by these tales, Veau and Pasteur Vallery-Radot gave the British spy a Red Cross armband, so he could move about Paris safely. He would put this to good use in the days that followed.14