Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed

by Mortimer Moore, William

  The 20 July plot was not well planned and, even if Hitler had been killed, the outcome for Europe would have remained deeply uncertain. But it certainly influenced subsequent events in Paris, by causing Hitler to appoint a new military governor. Despite the arrests of SS and SD on 20 July, the deportation of Jews from Drancy to Nazi extermination camps continued unfalteringly. On 21 July SS Hauptsturmführer Alois Brunner, finding himself a few hundred souls short of his target quota, raided Jewish orphanages to find the last two hundred and fifty of a thirteen hundred person shipment to Auschwitz. Barely one sixth returned.131

  WHILE HIGH-MINDED GERMANS FAILED to wrest their country from its despoiler, the 2e DB prepared to leave Yorkshire. Compared to the damage suffered by other British country houses, the present Lord Hotham remembers the French as “user friendly”.132

  A letter arrived from Commandant Divry, whom Leclerc sent on a recruiting drive around liberated Normandy. Divry said morale among recruits was very high, but the atmosphere in France was avachi—“milked” or “drained” of joy and pride. “Truly France needs a blast of fresh air, plenty of young men and some not bad enthusiasm,” Divry finished.133

  On 21 July, amid summer drizzle, two olive green Buicks waited under Dalton Hall’s portico. “No one remained,” wrote Girard, “no guard, no sentries; nothing but the cows on the grass to observe the great entrance, its gates open towards the park. Then the sound of a cane tapping on the floor of the lobby, a few noises of doors closing, the cars rolling away on the compressed gravel, a last look back to the great façade, now sad in that grey early morning.”134

  It took several days for the 2e DB to leave Yorkshire and reassemble near the south coast. Using railways saved wear and tear on England’s battered roads. As Hull’s inhabitants watched, Leclerc’s officers supervised the loading of equipment. Those moving south by road had a harder journey, not always welcomed by the towns and villages they passed through. “The French Army can only offer regret and best wishes,” said one communiqué.135 War-weary England hailed and saluted them on their way, observed Rochambelle Suzanne Torres.136

  Paul de Langlade made a night stop at Burford’s Bull Inn, a traditional coaching inn which reminded him of Dickens’ Pickwick Papers.137 Philippe de Gaulle, being more junior, shared his men’s discomforts. “At each stage’s end, we slept in our bedrolls on camp beds and ate from our mess tins in great tents prepared the length of the journey. We were served as we went along according to which unit arrived first, all filing through, irrespective of rank or station, black Americans appearing disconnected and blasé handing out lukewarm meat and beans, known as ‘X’ rations, washed down with either a cup of coffee or water. So would we be nourished every meal, in an identical manner, doubtless so that we could then absorb the individual ‘K’ rations every day for the next eight months.”138

  THROUGHOUT JULY THE FFIs’ CAMPAIGN against the Wehrmacht’s communications gathered pace, mostly involving the removal of railway track; sabotage which merely required tools and knowledgeable saboteurs rather than weapons or explosives. Two bridges were brought down on the lines Beauvais-Clermont and Creil-Compiègne. A railway engine was sent thundering into the big workshop at Argenteuil, wrecking itself and five others, and brake cables were cut liberally on wagons, causing havoc among rolling stock and marshalling yards.139

  Some of this sabotage was quickly repairable but serious destruction would only be repaired after the liberation. The Germans retaliated where possible, hence réseaux that repeatedly hit targets in the same area placed themselves in greatest danger. The network of railways immediately north of Paris, linking Belgium and Germany to Normandy, was frequently targeted. Creil, Beauvais, Compiègne and Crépy-en-Valois were often hit several times a day, rendering connected railway networks useless for up to twelve hours a day.140

  At four railway centres around Paris; Argenteuil to the northwest, Gagny on the east, Villeneuve-Saint-Georges to the south and Plaisir to the southwest, FFI sabotage was so effective that German reinforcements were carried in lorries via secondary routes never designed for heavy haulage.

  Road traffic was hit as well; on 18 July six Wehrmacht tanker lorries were blown up in Paris. The following day another lorry was attacked, killing one man and wounding another. Nor, with the French capital’s main arteries clogged by retreating Wehrmacht vehicles, did it take much to cause a serious traffic jam. P1’s July report mentions a dozen deliberate punctures. Once vehicles became stationary they could be attacked, rendering captured weapons and other supplies to the Paris FFI. Just as sabotaging signal equipment caused railway chaos, so the removal or obliterating of signposts inconvenienced the Wehrmacht on the roads.141

  When Montgomery’s British 21st Army Group established a foothold east of the Orne River and the Americans built up for their big breakout and right hook, P1’s 2e Bureau knew by 24 July. By logging which German units went to Normandy and in what condition they returned, P1 gleaned an accurate picture of how the Wehrmacht was ground down. “All this information was, for my staff, of the utmost importance,” Rol-Tanguy told Bourderon. “It signified that, unless there were massive transfers from other fronts, especially the East, German manpower was going to collapse. Also the arrival of reinforcements from the Russian front was unlikely since it would have been militarily suicidal.”142

  Yet, as Rol-Tanguy admitted, “The German war machine held.” Even so, it became inevitable that there would be a big German fallback to the sort of lines held during the First World War. In more general terms P1’s report notes the destruction of ports in Brittany and along the Mediterranean coast, developments like the first flying bombs, and the first stirrings of evacuation of German support personnel—German railway workers withdrawing from Brittany, the Organisation Todt leaving Saint-Nazaire, German postal facilities slimmed down at Paris-Montparnasse, ancillary supplies leaving the Hôtel Majestic, and vehicle spares evacuated to Belfort. From such details, Rol-Tanguy concluded that the Germans would soon pull out. But what damage would they leave when they went?143

  27 July 1944

  LA MUETTE METRO STATION in the 16th Arrondissement was lucky for the Gestapo. It was there, during 1943, that they had arrested General Delestraint and his ADC. On 27 July they were lucky again, capturing André Rondenay (codename Jarry)* the Military Delegate for northern France’s Resistance regions P2 and P3. Rondenay’s deputy, Alain de Beaufort, tried to escape but was shot in the leg and captured. Being only one rank below Jacques Chaban-Delmas, Rondenay’s arrest was a triumph for the Gestapo. Previously that day Rondenay had met with Pierre Sonneville to discuss cutting off gas and electricity in Paris; they discarded such action as more likely to inconvenience Parisians than harm Germans. After Sonneville, Rondenay visited Maurice Bourges-Manoury, an experienced résistant who smoothed Chaban-Delmas’ promotion. It was while travelling between Bourges-Manoury and Chaban that Rondenay and Beaufort were arrested.144

  This happened amid a spate of betrayals. A resistance leader in the Seine et Marne, named Renard, after beginning well, started to embezzle resistance funds to impress his mistress. When sanctioned, Renard threatened to denounce résistants to the Gestapo, a threat he probably carried out, leading to the betrayal of an arms cache in the monastery at La Brosse-Montceaux and over ninety deaths.145

  There was also friction between different resistance groups. The FTP were pressing for the promotion of Henri Rol-Tanguy to command all active combatants in P1. Effectively this meant handing the practical management of the FFI around Paris to the FTP, something Chaban-Delmas was unlikely to welcome. COMAC’s three Vs, with their populist outlook, supported Rol-Tanguy’s candidacy. Even Count Jean de Vogüé prioritised an ability to integrate with ordinary FFIs, something that prevented him from previously supporting Rondenay. When news of Rondenay’s arrest reached COMAC on 31 July, Paul Ély suggested Pierre Sonneville instead. But Sonneville was involved with damage limitation missions from which he had not returned, leaving Chaban-Delmas with no alt
ernative but to confirm Rol-Tanguy’s appointment while insisting that Rol-Tanguy’s remit was “strictly technical”.146 Once again the arrest of a Gaullist résistant meant promotion for Rol-Tanguy.

  Now that the FTP dominated the Resistance in the Department of the Seine, Chaban-Delmas recognised that it would be harder to stop them launching an insurrection when it suited them. Gratifyingly, the number of résistants in the Paris area had doubled since December 1943. But weapons were in desperately short supply and setbacks like La Brosse-Montceaux made things worse. Sixty thousand willing résistants there may have been, but P1 possessed only 1,750 firearms; a gun for one man in thirty-five.147

  28–31 July 1944

  EVEN AFTER FOUR YEARS no one suspected that Rose Valland was supplying detailed information to the Resistance. Dr. Walter Borchers, a Nazi art expert who occasionally expressed his distaste for the Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg’s methods, was amazed that canvasses by Braque and Picasso were still coming in. Then, after Borchers was posted to the Normandy front, came the contents of the Weil-Picard apartment: Fragonards, Boldinis, several lesser works in their style, and Impressionists including two Dégas and a Renoir.148 Cataloguing the Weil-Picard collection took around a fortnight; sorting, hanging the best items in the Salles des Martyrs—as Rose Valland called the ERR’s show rooms—and then dispersing the Weil-Picard family’s possessions to depositories in Germany.

  Next, on 21 June, the ERR cleared the Esders’ apartment at 48 Rue du Villejuste. The Esders’ possessions included several superb Ancien Régime portraits and Louis Quinze furniture. Wherever possible French treasures disappeared to Germany. On 7 July the ERR’s Dr. Bruno Lohse, a friend of Goering who kept himself away from the front with skiing injuries and kidney complaints, arrived grinning at the Jeu de Paume with a lorry-load of thirty-six carpets. Valland writes that while these were mostly second-rate, Dr. Lohse’s haul sadly also included three Gobelin tapestries. The Nazis’ greedy eyes also appreciated small bronze statues, so often held in private collections during the nineteenth century. Whether they were busts of Voltaire, reproductions of classical gods or derived from sculptors like Rodin, into the Nazi maw they went. But with the Allies approaching, the ERR’s activities became less disciplined. Rose Valland writes irritably that the ERR’s Herr Rochlitz “has packed up all the goods, furniture, and pictures from the Grassier household and sent them to Switzerland. Has he obtained the proper authorisations? A package has been sent by young Rudolph Scholz, the ERR photographer, to the following address, ‘Frau Rochlitz Hohenschwangau bei Fussen, Gipsmuhle’.” Given that Rochlitz had a dealership in Paris before the war, Rose was rightly suspicious.149

  Towards the end of July Dr. Bruno Lohse received orders sending him to the front. The ERR put on a farewell party for him at the Jeu de Paume where he stood resplendent in uniform, exclaiming his Siegfried-like enthusiasm for the fight ahead. He returned to Paris on 28 July, driving a little camionette loaded with stolen poultry, butter and a whole lamb. While German troops suffered in Normandy Lohse held a banquet at his Avenue d’Iena lodgings attended by the ERR’s Paris director, Baron von Behr.150

  The art requisitions of June and July were now being sorted into one of the ERR’s biggest-ever train shipments. But four years spent witnessing systematic theft, cowardice and sickening venality, made Rose Valland realise that this was a train she should stop.

  AS THE 2e DB ASSEMBLED ON ENGLAND’S SOUTH COAST, the Malaguti affair played out its final coda. To General Koenig’s final pleas for mercy to Marcel Malaguti, Leclerc replied, “If General de Gaulle wishes, when the hour of battle is upon us, to dismiss me from the command of this division which I have formed and built up into the magnificent weapon it is now, then I will carry out his orders. As for re-employing Malaguti under my command again, that is not something I will do at any price. The loyalty and trust required on this level cannot suffer reserve.”151 When news of Leclerc’s intransigence reached de Gaulle, he appointed Colonel Pierre Billotte as the division’s third battle-group commander “in the general interest”, as he put it.152

  Leclerc was relieved to reach Southampton. “After parking our vehicles on the roads, we gathered in a camp; long rows of enormous green covered tents,” wrote Girard. Watching his men pass through a cafeteria-style mess, being served roast chicken, vegetables, cheese and hot coffee, Paul de Langlade was impressed by America’s talent for mass provisioning.

  That evening Leclerc suffered a malarial attack. He usually managed his symptoms by lying down with a handkerchief over his eyes to block the light. This time was worse than usual, compounded by fever and nightmares. Girard sent for Dr. Richet. “He arrived after ten minutes, which seemed an age, but was reassuring,” Girard writes. “Such malarial attacks are usual among men who live so much on their nerves. This incident left a profound impression on me. I worried for him and for all of us.”

  Through the night the 2e DB’s vehicles arrived at the quayside to be loaded aboard LSTs. By dawn, however, much of the division was still parked up along the streets of Southampton; their crews milling around waiting, chatting to locals fascinated by Frenchmen in US uniforms. “I walked along the quays,” Girard continues. “The atmosphere! The funnels of tugboats, the masts of trawlers, the smell of iodine, reminded me of my old port of Dieppe. In one corner Dupont’s company had formed a choir and the men were banging out songs amid great applause.”

  It was 4am before Leclerc’s staff embarked. When their LST commander knew Leclerc was aboard he had his sail-maker create a pennant—blue and white diagonals surmounted by the Cross of Lorraine and the two stars of a général de brigade—and run it up the mast.* Recognising that another phase of his Gaullist odyssey had ended, Girard contemplated the previous four years. “Surely it was incredible to see, on the bridge of an American boat, a pennant fluttering which bore the Cross of Lorraine of those terrible Free French?”153

  * During early 1944 the Resistance in the Haute Savoie, commanded by Chasseurs Alpins officers, set up a strong point on the Glières plateau. A combined force of Milice, French police and Wehrmacht surrounded them and hunted them down inflicting around 140 resistance fatalities. Glières was a tragically premature uprising.

  * The Combattante was a British built Hunter-class frigate.

  * De Gaulle’s original nominee as Commissioner in Normandy, Bordeau de Fontenay, had been unable to get out of Rouen, which was still in German hands. But de Gaulle was relieved to find that Coulet had liaised with the local mayor, Monsieur Dodeman, and was waiting to receive him with the entire Bayeux town council.

  * A battle during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 where a French cavalry force sacrificed itself in conditions similar to the Charge of the Light Brigade against a Prussian force three times greater.

  * Some versions of this incident say Morlot’s men wore Milice uniforms.

  * It is easy to assume that the murder of Jean Zay by the Milice on 20 June was part of this vengeance cycle, but Henriot’s assassination was planned too early to suuport this idea. As with the murders of Victor and Hélène Basch, such incidents merely demonstrated the Milice’s criminality.

  * In January 1944 the prison service came under the authority of Joseph Darnand, head of the Milice. Baillet was a collabo nominee, whom Mandel seems to have trusted during his final hours, doubtless unaware of Baillet’s Milice membership and involvement in the murder of Jean Zay. Baillet was executed after the war.

  * In 1946 Bucard was convicted of treason and executed by firing squad.

  * At his post-war trial, Pierre Gallet’s defence claimed that Gallet’s actions prevented a greater loss of life if SS Major Neifeind had had his way. Gallet was condemned to death in 1948 but reprieved and released in 1953.

  * André Rondenay had escaped from Oflag IVC, Colditz Castle, a couple of years earlier. Along with four comrades, he was shot by the SS at a well-used killing site in the woods near Domont in mid-August.

  * Leclerc remained self-effacingly slow
to upgrade his insignia to that of a divisionnaire.

  Chapter 3

  The 2e DB Lands in France

  1 August 1944

  WOKEN BY A FANFARE ON THE SHIP’S TANNOY, Christian Girard rose from his bunk, saw the French coast through the porthole, and smiled. Leclerc had a good night with no recurring malaria. Guy de Schompré and Paul Répiton-Préneuf were already ashore hooking up with US Army officialdom on Utah Beach. At 11am a launch tied up alongside the LST, rocking on choppy waves. Dressed in a raincoat and forage cap, sporting merely the two stars of a général de brigade, Leclerc led his staff down the stairs and jumped into the bobbing motor boat, quickly followed by Reption-Préneuf, Schompré, Girard, Gribius, Colonel Bernard, Robert Quillichini and Jacques de Guillebon.1 As the launch pulled away, past Liberty ships swaying at anchor, towards the rose-pink sand of La Madeleine, Girard found himself dumbstruck by the depth of his feelings. Eventually the launch reached a prefabricated metal jetty. Leclerc and his staff climbed up and stomped along the jetty’s walkway towards the beach.