The Free French Establishment
General (général de brigade) Charles de Gaulle—The French Army’s leading tank expert during the 1930s who founded ‘Free France’ after the 1940 armistice, enabling Frenchmen to continue the war beside the Allies. President of France, 1944–1946 and 1958–1970.
General Alphonse Juin—Saint-Cyr classmate of de Gaulle who commanded a division in the Italian campaign and became de Gaulle’s chief of staff after the liberation of Rome in June 1944.
General Marie-Pierre Koenig—One of Free France’s earliest supporters who led the 1942 defence of Bir Hakeim against Rommel. De Gaulle made Koenig nominal head of the Forces Françaises de l’Interieure – ie, the Resistance.
Charles Luizet—Saint-Cyr classmate of Leclerc who was based in French North Africa when France fell in 1940. He immediately became one of de Gaulle’s agents. In August 1944 he was sent to Paris to replace Bussière as Prefect of Police.
Alexandre Parodi—A senior civil servant and experienced clandestin of the Resistance. He was head of de Gaulle’s ‘Delegation.’
Edgard Pisani—Law student and résistant, Pisani was sent to the Préfecture of Police to act as Luizet’s deputy.
Germans
Otto Abetz—The Nazi ambassador to Occupied France based in Paris’ Rue de Lille, from where he supervised the despoliation of France.
Lieutenant Dankwart Graf von Arnim—Arnim was Boineberg-Lengsfeld’s ADC and subsequently performed the same role for General von Choltitz, his distant cousin.
Emil ‘Bobby’ Bender—A senior Abwehr (military intelligence) official with anti-Nazi sympathies.
Lieutenant-General Wilhelm von Boineberg-Lengsfeld—The penultimate German military governor of Paris and an anti-Hitler conspirator. One of the luckiest survivors of the failed 20 July coup.
General Dietrich von Choltitz—The last German military governor of Paris, appointed on the basis of his record on the Eastern Front. Unbeknown to General Burgdorf, who drew up the short list, von Choltitz was loosely connected to the 20 July conspirators.
Ernst Junger—German writer and intellectual based in Paris as part of the Occupation forces.
Field Marshal Hans von Kluge—German Commander of the Western Front who was involved in the 20 July coup and subsequently committed suicide upon learning of a summons to Berlin.
Field Marshal Walter Model—Experienced German general from the Eastern Front, where he earned the reputation of ‘Hitler’s Fireman’, replaced von Kluge as German commander in the West.
SS Major Kurt Neifeind—Sadistic officer based in the Rue de Saussaies Gestapo HQ, involved in the Santé Prison incident, 20 July and the putative disarmament of the Paris Police.
SS General Karl Oberg—The SS chief in France. A porcine man, Oberg was believed to detest Nazi excesses and had a good working relationship with the penultimate German military governor of France, General Karl-Heinrich von Stulpnagel, based on old regimental ties.
Erich von Posch-Pastor—Anti-Nazi Austrian Catholic working for the German occupation authorities, recruited as an agent by the Resistance and as an associate of Raoul Nordling (see below).
General Hans Speidel—Chief of Staff of Army Group B and privy to the 20 July plot.
General Karl-Heinrich von Stulpnagel—The penultimate German military governor of France. Stulpnagel was a deeply conflicted man, capable of cooperating with anti-Jewish policies while plotting against Hitler.
General Otto von Stulpnagel—Cousin of the above and the first German military governor of France, appointed in the summer of 1940.
Sonderfuhrer Robert Wallraf—German officer and diarist based at the Hotel Crillon.
Collaborators
Jean Bassompierre—Milice (Vichy militia) officer. Undoubtedly brave, Bassompierre had fought in Russia. His performance at the Santé Prison uprising mitigated potential Nazi reprisals but contributed to his own indictment after the war.
General Brécard—A well known and popular cavalry general between the wars, Brécard was sucked into collaborationist politics by his loyalty to Pétain.
René Bouffet—Prefect of the Department of the Seine whose offices were situated at the Hotel de Ville.
Robert Brasilach—Collaborationist journalist arrested at the liberation.
Amédée Bussière—Last Vichy prefect of the Paris Police based at the Préfecture on the Ile de la Cité.
Joseph Darnand—Head of the Milice—the French pro-Nazi militia which fought both the Resistance and the Allies.
Pierre Drieu de la Rochelle—A talented writer and Vichy supporter.
Philippe Henriot—Vichy’s head of propaganda who encouraged young Frenchmen into the Milice.
Max Knipping—Head of the Milice in northern France.
Pierre Laval—Vichy’s Prime Minister based between Vichy and the traditional French premier’s residence at the Hotel Matignon.
Jean Mansuy—Milicien and murderer of Georges Mandel.
Marshal Philippe Pétain—One of France’s most successful generals in the First World War for defending Verdun and healing the French Army after the 1917 mutinies. However, in 1940, seeing France being overwhelmed, Pétain asked the Nazis for an armistice and created the collaborationist Vichy régime.
Pierre Taittinger—A member of the champagne family who previously had his own right-wing political party during the 1930s, the Jeunesses Patriotes. Also a member of the Paris Municipal Council for the Vendôme quartier and Head of the Municipal Council.
The Resistance (undercover names are in Italic)
Georges Bidault—Replaced Jean Moulin as chairman of the CNR (Conseil National de la Résistance) and became foreign minister in de Gaulle’s post-liberation provisional government.
General DP Bloch Dassault—French general and résistant, later Chancellor of the Légion d’Honneur.
Jacques Chaban-Delmas—The youngest ‘brigadier general’ in the French Army after a political appointment, Chaban-Delmas was General de Gaulle’s military delegate to the Paris Resistance.
Captain ‘Gallois’ (Roger Cocteau)—A cousin of Jean Cocteau, Gallois joined the Resistance via Ceux de la Résistance and became a staff officer under Rol-Tanguy in 1944.
Roger Ginsberger (Villon)—One of COMAC’s three ‘Vs.’ Son of a rabbi and a left-winger.
Leo Hamon—Lawyer and senior Resistance activist. On 20 August he was one of the architects of Nordling’s truce.
Maurice Kriegel Valrimont—One of COMAC’s three ‘Vs.’ A militant Communist and Resistance activist raised to COMAC in the spring of 1944.
Colonel Lizé (Jean Tessier de Marguerittes)—Formerly an artillery officer; though traditional, Lizé was prepared to march with men of the Left for the Liberation of France and headed the Resistance of the Department of the Seine in 1944.
André Malraux—French Resistance officer and well-known writer.
Raymond Massiet Dufresne—Résistant originating from Ceux de la Résistance, one of Colonel Lizé’s officers.
Jean Moulin—Formerly Prefect of the Eure et Loir, Moulin created MUR (Mouvements Unis de la Résistance) the forerunner of the CNR (Conseil National de la Résistance) but was arrested on 21 June 1943 at Caluire (Lyons) in circumstances that remain controversial.
Doctor Robert Monod—Surgeon and Resistance member who played a key role in helping Roger Cocteau-Gallois reach the Allied lines.
Alexandre de Saint-Phalle—Banker and résistant who was the first intermediary between Raoul Nordling and the Resistance. Saint-Phalle’s Rue Séguier home was used as a Resistance HQ during the insurrection.
Pierre Sonneville—Former naval officer and résistant, sent from London in early 1944 but who found himself sidelined by the Resistance’s strong FTP element.
Roger Stéphane—FFI Résistant originating with Combat, who led the assault on the Hotel de Ville. Later a gay activist in post-war France.
Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy—FTP résistant and former combatant in the Spanish Civil War, Rol-Tanguy graduated throug
h trade union politics and industrial sabotage to become one of the most disciplined Resistance leaders in ‘P1’ – the Paris area, and a hero of the Liberation.
Charles Tillon—Founding member of left-wing resistance group Francs Tireurs et Partisans, or FTP.
Dr. Victor Veau—A distinguished and elderly surgeon.
Count Jean de Vogüé (Vaillant)—One of COMAC’s three ‘Vs.’ a populist aristocrat and former naval officer, Vogüé joined the Resistance through Ceux de la Résistance and graduated to COMAC in spring 1944.
Other French, Parisian and non-aligned characters
Pastor Marc Boegner—Distinguished Protestant clergyman and diarist of the Nazi Occupation.
Colette—Famous writer of libidinous, semi-autobiographical novels and stories who also hid her Jewish husband throughout the Occupation.
Henri Culmann—French civil servant at the Ministry of Industrial Production.
Jean Galtier-Boissière—Journalist and former proprietor of the satirical journal Le Crapouillot, who gave up writing for the duration of the Occupation but nevertheless kept a detailed diary.
Françoise Gilot—Beautiful art student who became Picasso’s mistress early in 1944.
Sacha Guitry—Well known playwright, actor and impressario based at the Théatre Madeleine, and unfairly accused of collaboration.
Georges Mandel—Distinguished Jewish-French politician from the inter-war era who opposed appeasement and advocated continuing the war in 1940. Handed over to the Germans by Vichy, Mandel was returned to France in 1944 simply so the Milice could murder him.
René Naville—Swiss consul involved in humanitarian missions in Nazi-occupied Paris.
Raoul Nordling—Swedish Consul General based at the Rue d’Anjou. Basically a Parisian despite the technicality of his Swedish nationality, Nordling’s father had been Swedish consul before him.
Félix Pacaut—Butler to the Rothschild family at their Avenue de Marigny mansion.
Pablo Picasso—Famous Spanish-born modernist artist residing on the Avenue des Grands Augustins, Picasso had Resistance connections but was too well known for the Nazis to dare touch him.
Rose Valland—Doughty curator at the Musée de Jeu de Paume who catalogued German art theft.
British and Americans
General Raymond ‘Tubby’ Barton—Commander of the US 4th Infantry Division.
General Omar Bradley—Commander of the US 12th Army Group.
Colonel David Bruce—OSS officer and diplomat.
Alfred Duff-Cooper—Churchill’s liaison to the Free French, first British ambassador to France after the liberation, diarist and commentator.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower—Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force.
General Leonard Gerow—Commander US Vth Corps. Leclerc’s corps commander for the liberation of Paris who advised caution regarding German forces north of the city.
Major General Sir Francis (Freddie) de Guingand—Montgomery’s chief of staff, who first welcomed Leclerc to Montgomery’s Tripoli HQ in January 1943.
General Wade Haislip—Commander US XVth Corps. Leclerc’s corps commander for the Argentan-Falaise campaign, and again through the winter of 1944.
Ernest Hemingway—US novelist and war correspondent.
General Courtenay Hodges—Commander of the US First Army.
General Sir Hastings Ismay—Secretary to Churchill’s War Cabinet.
Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery—Commander of the British 21st Army Group.
Malcolm Muggeridge—British Intelligence officer.
General George S. Patton—Commander of the US Third Army.
Maps
Chapter 1
De Gaulle, the French, and the Occupation, 1940–1944
June 1940
IN 1940 COLONEL CHARLES DE GAULLE was one of the French Army’s foremost thinkers and an authority on armoured warfare. After a brave, moderately distinguished record in the First World War,* his intellectual bent was noted by Marshal Philippe Pétain who, as Colonel Pétain, first welcomed newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant de Gaulle to the 33rd Infantry Regiment in 1913. During the 1920s de Gaulle ghostwrote a book for Pétain to publish as his own, but the Marshal’s high-handedness over this extra-hierarchical matter led to them falling out. De Gaulle subsequently declared, “Marshal Pétain was a great man who died in 1925.”
During the 1930s de Gaulle published several books on military theory, most notably Vers l’Armée du Métier (published in English as The Army of the Future), arguing that France should re-arm herself with tanks and aircraft. These were views he developed with the lively retired Colonel Émile Mayer over lunches at the Brasserie Dumesnil opposite the Gare Montparnasse. Book-writing turned de Gaulle into a high-flyer nicknamed “Colonel Motors” for lobbying French politicians for the introduction of armoured divisions. While Germany’s expanding Wehrmacht enthusiastically embraced these ideas, they met with little enthusiasm in France. Visionary officers like Colonel du Vigier, Commandant of Saumur’s Cavalry School, agreed with de Gaulle, but most cavalry officers hated the idea of tanks replacing cavalry as the “fast arm” capable of transforming battlefields at a stroke.
Money was another problem. Under Admiral Darlan and naval minister Georges Leygues, France gave herself a large modern navy during the interwar years, regarding it as an imperial necessity. While on land the fact that France held back the Germans with trenchlines and static defences for most of the “Great War” made senior army officers predict that future land wars would also be static, a view supported by War Minister André Maginot. Millions of francs were spent on the vast “Maginot Line” fortifications, leaving little for other things the army desperately needed. New armoured vehicles appeared as awkward designs, under-armed, lacking radios, assembled in incoherent formations that were neither infantry nor armoured divisions. The French Air Force made similar mistakes.
The Second World War’s first nine months passed uneventfully for France. The winter of 1939–1940 was a cold one, the enforced inactivity having a catastrophic effect on French Army morale. In the spring, the Germans began their campaign by seizing Denmark and Norway. On 10 May 1940 they launched their western offensive, crossing the Meuse at Sedan and sending a massive tank attack to punch through and corner the British Expeditionary Force and the French First Army against the sea around Dunkirk. A British armoured counterattack at Arras, intended to break the encirclement, was held back by German anti-tank artillery, while at Stonne another armoured counterattack led by Captain Pierre Billotte, son of French general Gaston Billotte, was repulsed.
Bouleversé by the ferocity of Germany’s attack, much of northern France’s population fled their homes, becoming road-clogging refugees. Having virtually broken down, French commander in chief General Gamelin was replaced by General Maxime Weygand, formerly Marshal Foch’s adjutant in 1918. No sooner had Weygand organised a new defensive line than the Germans broke through it. A local success at Moncornet by Colonel de Gaulle’s tank force finally persuaded French premier Paul Reynaud to listen to him, promoting him général de brigade (brigadier general). Dashing into Paris to meet Reynaud and collect his new uniform, de Gaulle entered tailors Petitdemange a colonel and emerged a general.1 He then led a larger counterattack at Abbeville, for which General Weygand kissed him on both cheeks.
Reynaud first offered de Gaulle a political appointment at the Abbeville briefing. De Gaulle accepted in principle, but was more interested in creating armoured formations capable of protecting Paris.2 But it was too late for that. The British were evacuating from Dunkirk. Furthermore, population deficiencies caused by the First World War combined with losses sustained since 10 May meant that France’s army was outnumbered by three to one.
When the Germans crossed the lower Seine, Reynaud summoned under-secretary of state de Gaulle from the Hôtel Lutetia in the small hours. “Who could defend Paris and how?” Reynaud wondered. De Gaulle suggested Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, whose division was performing wel
l. But Reynaud feared that more senior generals might resent a mere divisionnaire (divisional commander) directing the capital’s defence, even though Gamelin and Weygand were clearly overwhelmed. Ignoring de Gaulle’s advice to circumvent normal hierarchies, Reynaud appointed the dour General Henri Dentz instead.3
The French government evacuated to Bordeaux. Sickened, de Gaulle drafted a letter of resignation which he showed to Georges Mandel. The tough-minded Jew advised de Gaulle against this; there would be no one left in Reynaud’s government with any guts.4 With defeatism hanging heavily in the air, Weygand, Pétain and Admiral Darlan prepared to sue for peace and dismantle French democracy as soon as they could. To veteran British liaison officer Major-General Sir Edward Spears, only de Gaulle possessed the drive to continue fighting, while among the civilians, only Mandel impressed him.
Arriving at the Château de Muguet for the Briare conference, de Gaulle met Pétain for the first time in two years. Pétain congratulated de Gaulle on his promotion before remarking sourly, “But what use is rank in a defeat?”
“But Marshal,” replied de Gaulle, “it was during the retreat of 1914 that you yourself were given your first stars.”
“Aucun rapport! ”—“No comparison!” replied Pétain.5
Discussions with the British deteriorated when Pétain complained that, whereas he brought forty divisions to relieve General Gough during the “Kaiserschlacht” of 1918, the British now seemed unwilling to return the favour. Nor, thanks to Air Marshal Dowding’s insistence, was Churchill prepared to commit more fighter aircraft. When Churchill asked the French to hold out for a few months Weygand replied that France needed help immediately to avoid seeking terms. Particularly disappointing for Churchill was that Reynaud’s fighting spirit was consistently undermined by his self-centred mistress, Countess Hélène de Portes, who encouraged him to appoint defeatists in important positions. Reynaud saw no hope without massive American intervention. To compound the disaster, Italy joined the war on Germany’s side on 10 June and the British 51st Highland Division surrendered at Saint-Valéry. With a quarter of her population now refugees, France also faced a massive displacement crisis.
Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed Page 2