Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

  Just down the road, on the edge of the place de la Concorde, Major Roskothen, a military lawyer who had served as a judge and had sentenced many Resistance fighters to death, was taking what he assumed would be his last meal at the Hôtel Crillon. Wearing his best uniform with its white jacket, he drank a bottle of champagne and recalled the good times he had experienced in Paris.41 Then, after leaving a large tip for the waitress, he went up to his room and packed his possessions into a small rucksack, ready for whatever the next day might bring. He left a box of cigars on the table, together with a note in English and French that read ‘Please help yourself.’ He undressed, lay naked on his bed because of the heat, and fell into a deep sleep.42

  Walter Dreizner had drawn the short straw. While the others were in bed, he was on lookout duty, sitting on top of his building in the ‘dark, humid summer evening’. Squinting into the gloom, he tried to make out signs of movement on the street below. Every now and again there were explosions in the darkness. Then everything changed:

  All the bells of Paris are ringing. They send their eerie call into the dark summer night. It goes chillingly down your spine. If only you could turn them off. Yet the sounds pitilessly press themselves against your ear . . . Heavily, eerily, the bells send their call out into the dark night like the verdict of a higher court . . . The voice of history, the voice of the nation, sounds from the heart of the city, from the Ile de la Cité . . . Seconds of silence hang over Paris. And then the spell is broken: thousands and thousands of voices cry out. The hurricane of voices does not stop. At one stroke, the sky above eastern Paris becomes lighter and lighter. The excited population is setting off fireworks. Paris is in joyous delirium. Paris is in its element.43

  *

  At exactly the same time, about two kilometres away, Victor Veau peered out of his window, but it was too dark to see anything in the street below. Then: ‘Bells. Shouting. Applause in the street . . . Dogs bark, frightened by the noise. Machine guns fire, no one pays them any attention . . . We all shout “Vive de Gaulle”.’44 Micheline Bood had been feeling poorly all day, but now showed her usual enthusiasm as she wrote in her diary: ‘Paris is literally in revolution, the Allies are arriving right now, the radio says they are at La Muette and at the Hôtel de Ville.’45 Marc Boegner wrote: ‘The bells are ringing and guns are firing all around us. I feel overcome with emotion and my heart is leaping with joy.’46 In Montmartre, Pierre Patin heard the announcement of the arrival of the Dronne column and went down into the street to celebrate: ‘The whole city was in darkness – even the air-raid safe street lights were off – but a car was parked in the rue Steinkerque, just below Sacré-Coeur, and its headlights were shining up onto the church, which was the first and only monument in the city to be lit up.’47 Simone de Beauvoir recalled: ‘I had dinner – two potatoes – that evening . . . Some cyclists going past shouted out that the Leclerc Division had just reached the place de l’Hôtel de Ville. We pushed down to the carrefour Montparnasse; people were gathering from all quarters. The guns fired, all the bells of Paris began to peal, and every house was lit up. Someone kindled a bonfire in the middle of the road; we all joined hands and danced around it, singing.’48 Jean-Claude Touche wrote in his diary: ‘We are crying for joy. The explosions continue. On the balcony, you can hear the bells from all over Paris ringing out. And it’s not the radio any more. It is real. It’s so moving. We hurriedly get back inside because someone is firing a machine gun in the street below. The explosions continue. The sky is still all aflame.’49 Deep in Rol’s bunker underneath Denfert-Rochereau, there was an outbreak of joy that did not amuse the stern Colonel Rol. His wife, Cécile, who acted as his secretary, later recalled: ‘When we heard that Dronne had arrived, all the women went a bit giddy and had a pillow fight to celebrate. It just happened, and we had a great time. It didn’t last long – maybe 10 minutes. But the next day, when Henri heard about it, when people said, “Ah! If only you’d seen Madame Rol!” he had a real go at me! “A colonel’s wife does not have pillow fights,” he said.’50

  Jean Guéhenno wrote the final words in the diary he had kept since 1940: ‘In the night, all the bells of all the churches rang out, drowning the sound of cannon fire. Liberty and France are beginning again.’51 Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar also heard the bells, and her heart rejoiced, too, but not for long. Her thoughts were never far from her husband, who as far as she knew was still on a train to hell: ‘I cry for my missing loved one. He is so far away, where is he going so late in the night? Has he eaten? Has he slept? What is he thinking? Does he know that tonight all the bells in the city are ringing, and do they know – he and his comrades – the marvellous news that Paris is free? Do they know that they must live, because the world will be free again?’52

  *

  Late that night, Model sent a message to Berlin, which he requested should be passed on to Hitler. ‘Given the evolution of the situation,’ he began – not knowing quite how bad the situation actually was – ‘I draw the following conclusions.’ He wanted the remaining troops west of Paris to be brought to safety, forming a new defensive line to the east of the city, which he had been preparing for days. Although he did accept that ‘the question of Paris is urgent’, Model’s only solution was to bring in additional forces over the next couple of days, but he warned that they could be overwhelmed by the Allies.53 Despite his loyalty to Hitler, Model was clearly not prepared to hold onto the French capital at all costs, focusing instead on more pressing military issues. None of the Germans – perhaps not even Hitler – really thought Paris was of such importance that it had to be destroyed.54

  To the west of Paris, fighting continued chaotically in the darkness. US Captain Dale Helm heard a shot and a scream on the edges of his unit’s position on the northern bank of the Seine. Running to find out what had happened, in the darkness he tripped over a dying soldier who had collapsed over one of the unit’s machine guns. Feeling for the helmet, Helm realised with relief it was not one of his men, but a German soldier. Nearby, one of Helm’s comrades, Robinson, was slumped against a wall, sobbing. He had been guarding the gun when he heard footsteps; he challenged a shadowy figure, who nevertheless continued to advance. Robinson fired his gun and the German dropped like a stone. ‘I killed him. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was too scared,’ said the distraught young man. In his diary that night, Helm recorded the event and concluded: ‘It did no good to point out to Robinson that killing an enemy was nothing to worry about. Try as we did to calm him, our efforts were in vain and he had to be evacuated to the medics.’55

  Meanwhile, somewhere in the southern suburbs, ambulance driver Suzanne Torrès turned nurse and spent the night tending two young soldiers, one a badly burnt Frenchman, the other a severely wounded German. To both she whispered words of comfort which she barely believed.56 Even in Paris, there was still fighting. A group of German parachutists found their passage eastwards blocked by Massu’s column at the pont de Sèvres. They launched an attack and most of them managed to get past the French troops, but dozens were killed or captured.57 De Langlade recalled that when dawn came ‘the last 500 metres of the Versailles road on the approach to the pont de Sèvres were covered in vehicles and dead bodies.’58

  All through the night, the Resistance radio continued broadcasting an improvised programme led by Pierre Schaeffer. Announcements were read out and orders were given, appeals were made for FFI fighters to go to the aid of the Mairie in the 11th arrondissement, which was being attacked by the Germans and where the ammunition was running out.59 At midnight, Schaeffer announced that the German artillery batteries at Longchamp were firing on the city and that shells had fallen in the 15th arrondissement.60 At one point the programme was broadcast in English, in the hope that British or American listeners – or military commanders – would hear. As Bertrand d’Astorg was announcing the arrival of the Leclerc Division in English, the studio door opened and he was handed an urgent message to read out – this time in German: ‘Achtung! This is the staff o
f Colonel Rol, commander of the FFI in the Ile-de-France. We have learnt that the German commander in Colombes is going to shoot 10 French hostages. If he carries out his plan, we will shoot 10 German Army soldiers, 10 members of the SS and 10 German women auxiliaries.’61

  The battle for Paris was not over yet.

  15

  Friday 25 August, Day: Endgame

  Bernard Pierquin writes in his diary: ‘August 25th was without doubt the most amazing and extraordinary day that I have ever experienced.’1

  It was cold in the early morning mist as the soldiers of the 2e DB left their bivouacs and climbed into their vehicles shortly before dawn.2 But within a couple of hours the sun had come up in the summer sky and the day turned into one of the hottest and most beautiful of the year. The German forces that had hampered the advance of the 2e DB and the 4th US Infantry the day before had either been destroyed or melted away, and by mid-morning each of the southern routes into the centre of Paris was a metal river of tanks, half-tracks, lorries and jeeps, while the sides of the roads were lined with thousands of cheering people.3

  Jean Galtier-Boissière rushed down to see the Leclerc Division passing in front of his door: ‘On the rue Saint-Jacques, there was an unforgettable sight: an excited crowd surrounded the French tanks, which were covered in flags and bouquets. On each tank, on each armoured car, next to each khaki-clad, red-capped soldier, there were girls, women, kids, and armband-wearing “Fifis”. The people on either side applauded, blew kisses, shook hands and shouted to the victors their joy in liberation!’4

  One of those in the crowd was Edith Thomas. Although she shared the joy, her feelings were mixed. As she wrote the next day in a newspaper article: ‘“Bravo! Bravo!” shouts the crowd. This time, I start to cry. I cry for all those who should be here, standing in the front row, but are not here. What do the people in the camps know of our joy? I think of all those who have died.’5 The Manchester Guardian correspondent also watched the vehicles roll by: ‘it was for most of the French soldiers their first sight of Paris since their mobilisation four or five years ago. As the tanks crashed by, many of them wrote notes, rolled them up, and threw them into the crowd. I picked one up. It was a message to anyone who found it to tell the parents of the writer who lived in such and such a street that André was safe.’6 One of those notes was written by Sergeant Jean Vandal, and it was taken to his mother’s house by a generous passer-by: ‘Dear Mum. I am here – see you soon. Kisses to everyone, Jean.’7

  Squadron-Leader John Pudney was driving in the Leclerc column:

  As the sun came through the mist and there was more confidence in the light, more people gathered with more flags. They threw flowers and flags: they threw themselves. They clung to the car: they tried to climb on top. The FFI youth leapt upon the mudguards. While they screamed the words ‘Royal Air Force’ and sang the ‘Marseillaise’ and ‘Tipperary’, we managed to keep moving, juggernaut fashion. The only time we stopped we had to be dug out by twenty gendarmes. Suddenly I recognised boulevard Montparnasse over the heads of the crowd. We were at Gare Montparnasse! Gunfire, cheers, whistles, shots, tears, kisses, champagne, poured in at the driving window, through the roof. ‘We have waited so long . . . Thank you for coming . . . RAF, RAF, RAF . . . I am English . . . My brother went to join the Royal Air Force . . . Kiss me, please . . . You must drink this: I kept it for the first Englishman I met . . .’ That pillow fight of goodwill begins my Paris memory.8

  *

  The arrival of the 2e DB meant that the final phase of the liberation of Paris would be determined by an army, not by the Resistance or by the population. As a result, the political forces that had created the conditions for freedom found themselves completely sidelined. Throughout the day, the members of the Conseil National de la Résistance and the Comité Parisien de la Libération sat in the Hôtel de Ville. They waited. Long stretches of boredom were interspersed with brief peaks of excitement as they heard that de Gaulle was about to arrive, and then he did not.9 In the morning, the CNR and the CPL issued a declaration in the name of ‘the French nation’ that praised ‘our uniformed and our non-uniformed soldiers, who have met up at the crossroads of a city where everyone has risen up’. Empty of anything except rhetoric, the declaration made no mention of de Gaulle even though it was also signed by Parodi in the name of the Provisional Government.10 This declaration turned out to be the swan song of both the CNR and the CPL. The embryonic state apparatus controlled by Parodi and Luizet was now fused with the armed might of the 2e DB – everything that the Free French needed to take control of the capital was now in place. The CNR and the CPL could have done nothing to oppose this even if they had possessed the political will, which they did not. Despite its long underground struggle, the Resistance had not created any alternative forms of civil power and its military forces were weak. Above all, it was not a united force that politically wished to stem the rising tide of the Free French. Although the Resistance had forced the Allies’ hand by launching the insurrection and obliging them to enter Paris, the Gaullists would come out triumphant, and the Resistance would soon disappear as a force, to become part of French mythology. But first, Paris had to be liberated.

  For many Parisians, it was still a normal Friday, or as normal as it could be in a city that had been in the throes of insurrection for a week. Many of the city’s schools were providing childcare and participated in the amazing events that were taking place.11 In the 11th arrondissement, primary school children made tricolour rosettes to celebrate; at 09:00, the headmaster of the boys’ school on the rue Keller climbed onto the first-storey roof above the entrance and put a tricolour flag into the empty grey metal flag-holder, which has the letters R and F (République Française) on either side. The pupils stood neatly in a row and sang the first verse of the ‘Marseillaise’ in piping voices, while a crowd of parents, teachers and onlookers joined in the rousing and bloodthirsty chorus, so appropriate for a day of liberation:

  Aux armes, citoyens!

  To arms, citizens!

  Formez vos bataillons!

  Form your battalions!

  Marchons, marchons!

  March, march!

  Qu’un sang impur

  Let impure blood

  abreuve nos sillons!12

  water our fields!

  *

  The enemy had not gone away. There were still thousands of German soldiers in the city, protected by dozens of armoured vehicles. But they were no longer patrolling the streets; they had retreated into their strong-points. The insidious web of control, domination and repression that the Nazis had spun over the city for four years had evaporated, its remnants congealing into a handful of minor fortresses at the Ecole Militaire and the Senate building in the southern part of the city; the Hôtel Majestic near the place de l’Etoile, the Hôtel Meurice on the rue de Rivoli, and the place de la République in the northern half; along with outposts at the Opéra, the rue des Archives and the Porte de Clignancourt. Inside the walls that both protected and imprisoned them, the Germans were waiting for the inevitable onslaught from an overwhelming enemy. The 2e DB and the 4th US Infantry had targeted the German strong-points with hundreds of armoured vehicles and tens of thousands of battle-hardened, well-armed men. Furthermore, the FFI and the Parisian population had now lost all fear, and were prepared to risk their lives to free their city. The looming battle could have only one outcome; the only question was the price that would be paid in blood and destruction.

  Leclerc’s plan was to attack in separate but coordinated movements. The focus would be on four areas: the Hôtel Majestic, the Ecole Militaire and the Senate building in the south, and above all the complex of buildings around the place de la Concorde that housed the German headquarters centred on the Hôtel Meurice, where von Choltitz and his staff had been putting their affairs in order, waiting for the inevitable. During the night, the German commander arranged for seventy female army auxiliaries in the building to be put under the protection of the Red Cross. At 0
6:00 the women were driven away from the Hôtel Meurice in two Red Cross lorries and taken to the Hôtel Bristol, to howls of protest from people in the neighbourhood, including young Micheline Bood, who watched the whole thing from her balcony in her nightdress.13 Then, in the early morning light, von Choltitz and Colonel Jay went out on an inspection tour. As Jay recalled:

  Anyone who has spent even a few summer days in Paris knows what it looks like on such a morning. Von Choltitz went with me through the Tuileries in order to inspect our so-called positions. There were groups of soldiers moving around, armed with machine guns, crouched behind sandbags or other defences, shooting at FFI fighters, who replied from the other side of the Seine. On the opposite bank of the river we could see tanks driving up and down – our snipers took shots at them, but without any effect.14

  The two men then returned to the Hôtel Meurice, where von Choltitz went up to his office and wrote some letters. Then it was time for lunch, and everyone went to the hotel dining room, overlooking the rue de Rivoli, and had their usual meal of rations, with red wine.15 In a nod to the situation outside, the tables were pushed into the middle of the room, away from the windows, as bullets whistled by and fragments of masonry flew into the room. ‘In all other respects,’ recalled von Arnim, ‘it was the same setting, the same waiter, the same food.’16 In the nearby Hôtel Mont Thabor, Walter Dreizner and his comrades were desperately hoping that the vehicles massed around the hotel would be used for their escape, but they were not. As he glumly wrote shortly afterwards, ‘We stayed in Paris.’17 Dreizner and his comrades also had lunch, which was unusually copious and varied; their quartermaster must have realised that this would probably be the final meal he would serve up in Paris.