by Matthew Cobb
In Marie-Thérèse Walter’s apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis, Pablo Picasso turned his dark eyes onto a reproduction of Poussin’s The Triumph of Pan. Painted in 1636, this joyous canvas shows a woodland scene in which a tangled set of naked satyrs riotously cavort with some scantily clad nymphs, accompanied by Pan and a couple of goats. Picasso took his pen and began to interpret Poussin’s classical creation in his own way, transforming and distorting the bodies into a fluid, writhing mass.47 This sketch, which he would pursue and develop into a painting over the next few days, marked a decisive change in his work, heralding a new focus on reinterpreting the great works of art history.48
All over the city, the Resistance media became increasingly visible. In a few days, Resistance newspapers had become a feature of life in the capital and a major source of information. The cameramen who had filmed the tumultuous events met in an office on the Champs-Elysées and viewed the first rushes as the film came back from processing.49 Within days they would produce a thirty-minute newsreel showing the whole world what had happened during the liberation of Paris. Meanwhile, the Resistance radio station began transmitting in earnest, interviewing CNR leader Georges Bidault and broadcasting directly from the streets. As the radio car drove to meet Bidault, complete with a gendarme in uniform for protection, they were stopped by a German patrol who wanted proof that they were indeed acting for the Gaullist Provisional Government. Nonplussed, the gendarme took out the Resistance armband that he had been hiding in his pocket and put it on. Satisfied, the Germans let the group go on their way. In the topsy-turvy situation that had engulfed the city, what would once have been a guarantee of arrest, or even execution, now secured free passage.
The radio team gathered in the back room of a small café near place de la République, where presenter Pierre Crénesse interviewed Bidault, who looked dapper with a spotted tie and a pocket handkerchief. It was more of a speech than an interview, with Bidault praising the unity and courage of the French people, emphasising the importance of General de Gaulle and underlining the pioneer role of the Resistance, which had fought long before D-Day, ‘instead of waiting’. But what made Bidault’s broadcast so memorable was that despite his opening proclamation that ‘Paris is liberated’, the sound of gunfire in the background made it clear that the battle was not yet over: ‘In the working-class neighbourhood where I am speaking from, you can hear the sound of enemy cannons and of French rifles, which alternate virtually without interruption, but confidence and determination are not on the side of the heavy weapons. Now is the time to fight.’50
Not everyone agreed. Some people were so suspicious of the events taking place in the city that they claimed the gunshots in the background of Bidault’s broadcast were a sound effect added in the studio.51 Polish exile Andrzej Bobkowski was scornful of a barricade he inspected – ‘If a butterfly sat on it the whole thing would collapse in an instant,’ he thought.52 Edith Thomas overheard a pharmacist saying to a customer: ‘What do you expect? They fire at the Germans, so the Germans defend themselves. And now they’re building barricades! What a mess.’ In her diary, Thomas concluded bitterly: ‘I have the strong impression that most of the population, while not hostile to the Resistance, would have preferred that the liberation of Paris had been carried out by the Americans. No problems, get on with life. Paris is like a whore who waits with its legs spread.’53
On the telephone, Jean Guéhenno had an argument with his friend ‘B’, which summed up two strikingly different attitudes to the insurrection. B said that the fighting was pointless, merely a way for Parisians to convince themselves that they were playing a role in their impending liberation, which was really the work of the Allies. The price of this game was being paid in lives, said B. In his diary, Guéhenno was less cynical, and less critical:
Perhaps a people needs such illusions . . . We know that the storming of the Bastille was not the Revolution, but the Bastille had to be stormed for the idea of the Revolution to live for centuries in the French popular imagination . . . ‘B’ points out that the current street fighting does not involve the masses, but only a fighting minority. That’s true; but there can be no doubt that this minority has in some way been delegated in this role by the majority, and that it represents the best elements of the population.54
That was certainly the view expressed in the editorial in the Resistance newspaper Combat, which had adopted the banner ‘From Resistance to Revolution’: ‘The Paris that is fighting this evening wants to command tomorrow. Not for the sake of power, but for justice; not for the sake of politics, but for morality; not for the sake of dominating the country, but for its greatness.’55
Nowhere was that turnaround in fortunes more clearly expressed than in the faces of captured German soldiers. Journalist Claude Roy visited a group of fifty German prisoners who were being held in a primary school. Overall, they were happy – ‘Pour nous, guerre finie!’ said one (‘For us, war over’) – but they had the vacant air typical of all captured soldiers, and were particularly surprised to have been captured by the ordinary people they had previously passed every day in the street. The soldiers had never imagined the fury behind the stony faces of the Parisians.56
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At 22:15, von Choltitz had a telephone conversation with Army Group B in which he explained that the situation in the capital was spiralling out of control. Von Choltitz’s superiors were well aware of this – General Blumentritt, Model’s chief of staff, had been unable to get into the city because of the barricades. Von Choltitz explained that it was no longer possible to get supplies to the various strong-points around the city – indeed, no supplies were arriving in the city at all – and there was shooting everywhere. It was ‘no longer feasible’ to carry out Hitler’s order for savage reprisals against the Resistance, he said, and it was equally impossible to destroy the bridges over the Seine as the German troops did not have access to them. Furthermore, he argued, any attempt to carry out this order would probably outrage the population and push them even further into the arms of the Resistance. Motivated by a mixture of loyalty and a determination to cover his back when faced with the inevitability of failure, von Choltitz insisted that this information be transmitted to Berlin.57
During the night, Model had a series of exchanges with his counterpart in Berlin, General Jodl.58 Model emphasised that the situation in Paris was evolving so quickly that Hitler’s orders could soon be outdated, to the extent that Berlin might have to brace itself for ‘things turning out differently from what was expected’. In reply, Jodl simply stonewalled and said that the priority was to hold Paris. Slightly exasperated, Model responded that he wanted clear orders about how to defend Paris since this was impossible with the forces available. There were not enough explosives to blow up the bridges. Model did not understand Hitler’s obsession with Paris and did not have the means to ensure that the Führer’s orders were carried out.
Hitler’s only gesture towards providing the Paris garrison with weapons had been made nine days earlier, when he ordered one of his new weapons – a mobile 38 cm assault mortar (effectively a large mortar on a tank chassis) – to be transported from Germany to ‘help in the defence of Paris’.59 The first three of these weapons had just trundled off the production line; the other two were sent to Warsaw, where they were used against the uprising. The Paris-bound weapon got lost somewhere along the way, and despite Hitler asking after its whereabouts ‘several times a day’, it never arrived.60
In such a confused military situation, the German commanders in the Paris region were increasingly at odds with each other. In the evening, the Luftwaffe chief of staff in France told von Choltitz that Paris was to be bombed. Given that bombing raids were notoriously imprecise, and that the Allies had complete daytime air supremacy, the only option would be an inaccurate night-time raid which would undoubtedly lead to the deaths of many German soldiers. Von Choltitz stated that unless it could be guaranteed that his men would not be victims of ‘friendly fire’, he would have t
o withdraw them from the city – exactly what Hitler had told him not to do. The Luftwaffe’s plans were shelved.61
A more violent verbal confrontation occurred when Field Marshal Model sent a blistering message to the commander of the 5th Panzer Regiment, complaining that the German counter-attack against the Allied bridgehead at Mantes had failed due to ‘insufficient forces and inadequate fighting spirit’, and blaming the ‘neglect’ shown by the commanders.62 Less than an hour later, he received a stinging reply from General Sepp Dietrich, commander of the 1st SS Panzer Korps. Dietrich demanded to be relieved of his command and for Hitler to be informed. ‘I am not a schoolboy who can be pushed around,’ he spat.63 But no matter how much his feathers were ruffled, Dietrich remained in command, and the Allies retained control of the bridgehead at Mantes, pouring men and machines eastwards towards Paris and the north of France while the Germans gradually retreated.
The Gestapo reconnaissance group that had been dispatched to the capital two days earlier to provide clandestine radio updates finally reached the Paris suburbs. But the leader of the eleven-man group, SS Captain Roland Nosek, considered that the situation was too dangerous and decided they would go no further. After a brief peek at the Porte de Vincennes and the Porte de Montreuil on the eastern edge of the city, the group scuttled off to the relative safety of Meaux to the east, before eventually running for cover on 28 August.64
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At lunchtime, incredulous Parisians heard the Free French announce on the BBC that Paris had been liberated the day before: ‘Yesterday, 22 August, after four days of fighting, the enemy was beaten everywhere. Patriots occupied all public buildings. The representatives of Vichy were arrested or were on the run. Thus the people of Paris took a determining role in the liberation of the capital.’65 This carefully worded statement did not in fact say that the city was liberated, but rather that the Germans were ‘beaten everywhere’. Nevertheless, the overall impression was clear and within minutes, the BBC Home Service announced in unambiguous terms ‘Paris is free!’ The ‘news’ flashed around the Western world and soon bells were ringing in celebration from Manchester to Quebec, and from London to New York. President Roosevelt issued a statement describing Paris as ‘a precious symbol of that civilization which it was the aim of Hitler and his armed hordes to destroy’, going on to ‘rejoice with the gallant French people at the liberation of their capital’.66 In London, the War Cabinet ordered a thanksgiving service to be celebrated in St Paul’s Cathedral, while the Foreign Secretary, Antony Eden, stated: ‘Every citizen of every free country has no doubt been moved by the news about Paris.’ The Lord Mayor of London sent a telegram to General Koenig congratulating him on this ‘supreme moment of victory’, proclaiming that ‘a world without Paris is inconceivable’, while de Gaulle received a similar telegram from King George.67 All around the world, people were delighted. The New York Times reported that ‘Leading designers of women’s clothing who have been independent of Paris leadership for the last four years were overjoyed . . . by the liberation of the great French city,’ while department stores set up special displays in their windows, on the theme ‘Paris is Free’.68 Even Berlin was taken in by the news, telephoning Paris to ask for further information, only to be reassured that the Germans were still in control.69
French people outside of the capital were equally enthusiastic. In Lyons, still occupied by the Nazis, 20-year-old Denise Domenach wrote in her diary: ‘Paris is free. As soon as anyone opens their mouth, they say these three words. We can’t get over hearing them. The FFI have taken Paris. My father went to the cellar to fetch a good bottle of wine to celebrate the event . . . Paris is liberated, and by a curious ricochet, it is as though we are, too.’70 In the tiny Belgian village of Wegnez, also still occupied by the Germans, Monsieur Baiverlin heard the news on the BBC and just sat there, tears running down his face and saying to himself: ‘Paris is a beautiful city, a great city.’ In Brussels, a housewife baked a special cake in celebration, with the words ‘Long Live the Allies’ on the top, while her 11-year-old son saw a neighbour weeping at the news and was struck by the realisation that ‘old people cry too’.71
The bizarre announcement was no accident; it was carefully planned in London by Georges Boris of the Free French, although it is still not clear what exactly he hoped to achieve. For Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac, who was one of the first people Boris consulted about the stunt, the intention was to underline the important role of the FFI in liberating the capital; Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, who sanctioned the whole thing, felt it was a way of intimidating the Germans.72 For General de Gaulle – who appears to have taken it in remarkably good spirits – the aim was to encourage the Americans to overcome their doubts about the need to liberate the capital.73 None of these explanations seem particularly convincing, and the affair remains mysterious. Strictly speaking, it was the BBC newsroom that had over-interpreted the Free French broadcast, and the next day SHAEF would issue a categorical denial that Paris had been liberated. Predictably, this did not get anything like the same coverage.74
In Paris, journalist Edmond Dubois imagined the excitement and agitation that must have been gripping newsrooms all round the world, and then wondered how the Parisians were reacting.75 We know, for all over the city, people were busy expressing their feelings in their diaries. They were not happy. With heavy understatement, Marc Boegner wrote: ‘As much as we feel free again, we find all this a trifle premature.’76 Berthe Auroy was bemused and assumed she had missed something: ‘I clearly don’t understand anything at all,’ she wrote.77 A friend of Micheline Bood’s was ‘furious’: ‘They are saying on the BBC that the bells are ringing to celebrate the liberation of Paris. But we know they aren’t!’78 Odette Lainville was simply scornful: ‘Does London not know that our sons are still fighting, with such difficulty and against such odds, against the loathsome Hun?’79 Victor Veau was curt, describing the announcement as ‘madness, or stupidity, or politics’.80 Paul Tuffrau underlined the uncertainty the report created: ‘Listening to the news and at the same time hearing the sound of gunfire and the rumbling of artillery, one is stupefied. Can we believe the other news items?’81 Jean Guéhenno, meanwhile, was incandescent: ‘What do these lies mean? Who do they serve? The truth is far more important. Paris has rejected German control, it has given itself new free institutions and the price of this self-affirmation is being paid, every minute, in blood.’82 Jean-Paul Sartre managed to combine irony and political insight:
We listened to the broadcast, a friend and I, lying flat on the floor because a burst of firing had broken out around the building. As a result, we couldn’t help thinking that for the Parisian population this announcement was somewhat surprising and even untimely. Paris was liberated, but it was impossible to leave the building; barricades blocked the rue de Seine where I live; a German tank squatted on the pont des Tuileries, pointing its gun barrel towards the Left Bank. However, shortly afterwards we thought about it and decided that if they announced that Paris was liberated, then it must mean that the Allied Command had decided to enter the city. Tomorrow they will be here.83
Sartre was right. They were on their way.
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Shortly before midnight the previous evening, tank driver Gaston Eve and his comrades of the Leclerc Division, camped near Argentan, heard they were to head towards Paris the next morning. Enthusiasm and excitement swept through the division’s camps. Eve’s crew slept for a few hours around their Sherman tank, named Montmirail (a battle won by Napoleon), and then moved off in the early morning as part of a massive column, the tanks so close to each other that the crews’ faces were blackened with diesel fumes. The crew of Montmirail soon noticed there was a smell of burning – the Sherman’s tracks were covered in rubber that heated up as they drove over tarmac. Whenever possible the crews either stopped to throw water over the tracks, or drove through streams and puddles.84
Putting the 2e DB on the road was no easy matter. With over 16,000 men and more than 4000 vehicl
es (including 200 tanks), the column would stretch over 100 km, even if the vehicles were tightly packed. To make matters easier, the division headed eastwards along two parallel routes. In one of the vehicles was Gallois, the FFI officer whose information had helped persuade the Americans to change their plans and head for Paris. Early in the afternoon he had been given an American uniform and US Army dog-tags, supplied with a jeep and a driver, and told to head for the route the Leclerc column was taking. As he recalled a few weeks later:
Pretty quickly we overtook the rearmost elements of the Leclerc Division and soon we were driving among the tanks and cars of the 2e DB. It was an extraordinary spectacle. Across fields, down roads, the Leclerc Division was charging towards Paris. The tanks were covered with flowers: the turrets were draped with daisy chains, the crews were cheering. We tore through a region that had been severely hit, where everything was marked by the fighting that had taken place a week earlier. Bodies and twisted metal littered the roads and the nearby fields; at some crossroads, destroyed German tanks were piled up to the treetops. Through these ruins, the 2e DB was rushing to the capital, singing enthusiastically, driving at 70 km per hour.85
The French soldiers may have revelled in their welcome, but Leclerc was criticised by the Americans for allegedly spending too long fraternising with the local populations. As General Bradley wrote later: ‘The French 2d Armoured stumbled reluctantly through a Gallic wall as townsfolk along the line of march slowed the French advance with wine and celebration. Although I could not censure them, neither could I wait for them to dance their way to Paris.’86