Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed

by Mortimer Moore, William

  After the war General von Choltitz denied having formal dealings with the “enemy”, claiming to have agreed only to a “local” modus vivendi so retreating German troops could cross the Seine peacefully. But the Swiss Consul, René Naville, who also saw von Choltitz on 19 August, described him as “imperturbable”, merely doing his duty while warmly admitting that his “only desire was to return to an intact Paris, as a tourist, after the war”.83

  Von Choltitz subsequently claimed that he knew about Major Émil Bender’s role only from documents furnished by Raoul Nordling after the war, and that Bender “played a vague role in the Consul’s entourage”. Von Choltitz claims a senior intelligence officer told him that “a certain Bender was an officer in the counter-espionage service who, towards the end, thought it useful to furnish information to the enemy”. More equivocation follows: “Personally I do not remember him [Bender], I only know that the Consul-General came on two occasions, accompanied by men unknown to me and that one of these was von Posch-Pastor. According to my staff and my secretary, who had run the desk there for several years, Bender never came without Raoul Nordling.” He then continues, saying that Bender was never even an officer and that any maps that Bender furnished to others indicating areas held by the Resistance which would not be attacked by the Germans, or thoroughfares where the Germans would be allowed to pass unimpeded, never came from the Hôtel Meurice with his authority.84 Why should von Choltitz say this? Writing in West Germany during the early Cold War period, neither a full member of the anti-Hitler resistance, nor an unapologetic Nazi, von Choltitz was clearly troubled by his war record. Meantime, Bender’s role is fully acknowledged in Nordling’s memoirs and reputable histories.

  Leo Hamon called Nordling from the Préfecture to agree on precise, practical details of the truce agreement which were communicated to all buildings occupied by the Resistance. All prisoners were to be treated according to the rules of war. Neither side would inpede the Paris fire brigade in preventing the destruction of property. With respect to violations of the truce, General von Choltitz would distinguish between isolated incidents and concerted attacks. Resistance leaders Alexandre Parodi, Roland Pré, Paul Ribière, Charles Luizet, Leo Hamon and Yves Bayet approved the truce while refusing to negotiate directly with von Choltitz, a role they left to Nordling.

  Nordling’s telephone rang incessantly with reports that German troops were not respecting the truce. One call complained that German troops were attempting to infiltrate the Préfecture from the Metro. Nordling immediately rang von Choltitz, who was in bed.

  “If I wanted to take the Préfecture, I wouldn’t take it via the Metro,” replied an exasperated von Choltitz. “I would send tanks and aircraft and in five minutes everything would be destroyed.”

  Nor were sins against Nordling’s truce entirely on the German side. Henri Buisson witnessed the arrival at the Préfecture of a lorry containing five tons of weapons and ammunition, which certainly went against the spirit of the truce.85 Several Resistance strongholds used those precious hours to replenish their armouries.

  As incidents continued, the Swedish Consulate became, in Nordling’s words, a “véritable plaque tournante”. When a message arrived that the Germans had arrested policemen wearing FFI brassards, a call from Nordling’s Consulate secured their release.86

  At 11pm Nordling heard from one of de Gaulle’s delegates saying that de Gaulle’s provisional government had not yet decided its position on the truce but, until they had, Nordling could be their foreign minister. Nordling’s priority was to gain time. It would have been impossible to negotiate with von Choltitz without knowing Resistance intentions, what they would accept and what they would reject. Nordling needed to meet the CNR to do this, asking them, “Are you really speaking in the name of all the Resistance or only for a few groups of isolated résistants?”

  “The majority of the Conseil de la Résistance and the delegates of the government in Algiers support this mission which it prays you will accept,” came the reply.

  Until the liberation, Nordling and his collaborators lived in the Swedish Consulate, their evenings lit by oil lamps and candles. When lucky their meals came from the canteen of a bank in the same block, otherwise they ate their way through the consulate’s tinned stores. They barely slept and when they did the telephone would wake them, the pleading and negotiating would resume, and so on throughout that momentous week.87

  DOCTOR VICTOR VEAU ONLY HEARD ABOUT Nordling’s truce at 10.30pm. The version he heard came from the International Red Cross, that if the fighting did not cease by the following morning the Germans would bomb central Paris, which was something of a canard.88

  In the meantime another resistance doctor, Liebovici, noticed how corpses were filling the city mortuaries. Despite the comparatively high casualties among the Resistance, they had made fifteen clearly defined attacks around the city while the Germans had made only six ripostes. “That night,” wrote Commandant Dufresne (aka Raymond Massiet), “the FFIs had full control of forty-three out of forty-eight quartiers, and our patrols, wearing FFI armbands, were patrolling the streets of the capital and exchanging shots with the Germans. Soon a member of one of my groupe-franc, the one commanded by Lieutenant Barat de Sars, was killed near the Quai de Conti. Fred Palacio was our group’s first victim.” Returning to Colonel Lizé’s Rue Guénégaud HQ, Dufresne was drawn into the effort to deflate the situation following the ceasefire.89

  Colonel Lizé, being both an old-school professional artillery officer and a longstanding résistant, thought the truce smacked of la Chute and the Armistice of 1940, which revolted him. Notwithstanding his traditional antecedants, for the liberation of France, Lizé was content to march with men of the Left.

  But Lizé’s traditionalism made his group an obvious target for Pétainistes to approach. The former Inspector General of Cavalry, General Charles Brécard, who marked down Lieutenant Philippe de Hauteclocque (devenu Leclerc) as a high-flyer during the 1920s, was Grand Chancellor of the Légion d’Honneur, known for spending the Occupation at the races and sufficiently sucked into Vichy’s nomenklatura to represent Pétain at Henriot’s funeral. In what was widely interpreted as Pétain’s last attempt to seize the initiative in Paris, Brécard sent two emissaries to Commandant Dufresne with an extraordinary proposal. From the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, Brécard would ceremoniously entrust the flag of the Legion d’Honneur to the people of Paris ready for General de Gaulle’s arrival. The Resistance treated this suggestion with contempt. In fact Brécard was a decent, albeit unintellectual man, always anti-German, whose loyalty to Pétain was founded on them both belonging to the génération de feu—the Great War generation. After sending Brécard’s emissaries packing, Dufresne placed Brécard under house arrest in a comfortable hotel. Having promised Dufresne’s men that he would make no telephone calls, Brécard tried to pull a telephone into the lavatory. Dufresne’s guard cut the line. “They stripped me of everything!” protested Brécard.90

  At the Hôtel de Ville, Pierre Taittinger and Victor Constant passed this time drafting and redrafting an affiche asking Parisians to remain calm and disciplined. But Taittinger’s first affiche claimed falsely that Paris had been declared an open city. The Resistance made him redraft it as an appeal for calm and discipline, which typified the behaviour of most non-combatant Parisians anyway.91

  Despite their political differences, Rol-Tanguy and Lizé were pleased that sizeable portions of Paris were now under FFI control. Their main concerns, however, were first, that weapons stocks remained too low; second, that the Quartier Latin was the epicentre of conflict with the Germans. The Boulevard and Place Saint-Michel, the Place de l’Odéon, the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Rue Saint Jacques experienced serious gun battles. This quarter now represented an obvious point for German retaliation.92

  Hence Nordling’s truce promised to be patchy at best. On the Ourcq Canal the Germans blew up a barge full of explosives, wrecking Pantin’s dockside warehouses. Watching th
e smoke column mingle with a summer storm in the night sky, Henri Rol-Tanguy did not feel much like compromising with anyone.93

  20 August 1944

  AT DAWN ON 20 AUGUST at Vichy’s Hôtel du Parc, the ever-attentive Dr. Bernard Ménétrel prepared Marshal Philippe Pétain for his journey into captivity. When first told that he would be moved to Belfort, Pétain frantically considered alternatives, even throwing himself on the mercy of the Maquis.94 To test feasibility, Ménétrel sent envoys to contact the FFI in the Auvergne and enquire what sort of reception Pétain could expect if he surrendered to them. To Pétain’s surprise the FFI’s command structure was more hierarchical than he expected; he would be held under house arrest until his former subaltern, General de Gaulle, decided what to do with him. Pétain quickly dropped that idea.95

  As a second option, now that Paris was uncontactable by telephone, Pétain sent Commandant Féat to consult Laval at the Hôtel Matignon. But when Féat reached Paris, Laval had already been removed. Féat saw Pierre Taittinger instead. Amazed that Pétain was still at Vichy, Taittinger told Féat about the Insurrection. Pétain now recognised that his only choice was to co-operate with the Germans, who threatened to bomb Vichy if he was not ready to leave for Belfort at 6am on 20 August.96

  Walter Stucki, the Swiss Ambassador in Vichy, was the fullest observer of Pétain’s final hours at the Hôtel du Parc. At 6.45am Stucki found the hotel surrounded by SS soldiers, with a tank in reserve. Stucki’s diplomatic pass got him through the cordon to the hotel’s entrance. Once inside he found that the brass grille gates to the upper floor stairs were locked and guarded by men from the 1e Régiment de la France. On the fourth floor he was greeted by Pétain’s staff, assembled and ready to say their adieux.

  The SS now forced their way into the hotel, sweeping up the stairs until they were blocked by the closed grilles. Through these, an SS major asked the French guard commander for directions to Pétain’s suite.

  “I am sorry,” said the officer. “The Marshal is resting. No one is allowed to disturb him.”

  The SS major withdrew but returned fifteen minutes later with General von Neubronn who politely asked Pétain’s guards to open the grilles. When they refused the grilles were kicked open by a jack-booted SS sergeant. Neubronn went straight to Pétain’s suite. Pétain asked to be allowed to finish dressing and Neubronn waited.

  “Are you aware of the Marshal’s age?” Dr Ménétrel asked Neubronn’s adjutant. “He has been brusquely awoken. He is facing a long and tiring journey. Don’t you think he should be allowed to take some breakfast?”

  While Pétain and Nini took their time over coffee and croissants, Ménétrel took Stucki and Valeri into his office to show them the latest conditions imposed on Pétain, drafted by Cecil von Renthe-Fink; namely that Charles Rochat, Général Bridoux and Admiral Bléhaut should be included in the Belfort convoy. By now Pétain was ready and, according to Stucki, “looking as composed and calm as I have ever known him”. He handed some letters to Stucki and Papal Nuncio Valerio Valeri—protests against his treatment and declarations of his patriotism. Pétain wanted the whole Corps Diplomatique to know what was happening, hoping they could prevent him being taken to Germany. But his fate was decided.

  Walking down a line-up of his staff, Pétain shook their hands before entering the lift. In the foyer he was saluted by a guard of honour from the 1e Régiment de la France, each man’s eyes welling with tears. Dressed like a country gentleman, Pétain muttered, “Anyone who did not know what was going on, seeing me in this outfit on such a morning, would probably think I was going for a walk in the country.” Then Pétain told his staff, “Carry on as normal. Continue to work just as if I was there, better than before, if possible.” As he turned away towards the cars, the little daughter of one of the staff who always greeted him ran up to kiss him good-bye. Even Stucki cried.

  By now a considerable crowd had gathered to see him off, breaking into the Marseillaise as Pétain got into one of several large, dark limousines.97 They remembered the hero of Verdun, not the shameful years of collaboration and Milice excesses.

  At 1pm, Admiral Auphan, Pétain’s personal representative in Paris, received a radio message from the Hôtel du Parc. He was ordered to publish Pétain’s final proclamation. Few copies ever saw daylight, but those that did made Pétain’s excuses: he tried to save France from the worst, and that even if he was not France’s sword, he tried to be her shield. He now prayed that the French would “gather around those who will guarantee to take you along the road to honour and the paths of order”.98

  AT HIS HÔTEL DE VILLE SUITE Pierre Taittinger was woken at 3am by a telephone call warning him that the Hôtel de Ville would face a Resistance assault at 6am.

  “What on earth?” thought Taittinger. “An assault! ”

  It seemed ridiculous considering that Colonel Lizé’s deputy, Commandant Dufresne, had spent several hours there the previous day.

  An hour later Taittinger received another call.

  “There’s something you don’t know which is that, contrary to anything else that may have been agreed, you are going to be arrested, and it is so that you can avoid this unpleasantness that I am warning you.”

  Gulping with emotion, Taittinger thanked his caller for the warning and asked his name; no answer. The caller admitted that although he was now with the FTP, Taittinger once helped him.99

  At 6am, washed, shaved and wearing a fresh shirt, Taittinger felt ready for whatever came his way. Across the building’s frontage the windows were open and he saw Resistance sentries taking position and sections of FFI patrolling the square.

  The assault party included FFI, Delegation bodyguards, police and female auxiliaries, and was led by Roland Pré and Leo Hamon.100

  Suddenly a Panther tank appeared from the Rue de Rivoli, its massive tracks grinding the cobbles, while its turret and powerful cannon turned menacingly from side to side. The FFIs took cover in doorways, front areas and the Metro station staircase. Once the Panther had passed, the FFIs continued their so-called assault.101

  Sixty FFIs armed with assorted weapons took over the Hôtel de Ville. Then a car arrived pulling a small trailer loaded with more arms and ammunition. Contemplating their youth, Taittinger felt he was watching a cadets’ wargame. Nevertheless, they took themselves seriously and soon informed Taittinger they were arresting Périer de Féral, despite several protests from municipal officials, including Taittinger, that Féral was a longstanding member of the Armée Secrète.102

  Leo Hamon found René Bouffet, Prefect of the Department of the Seine, in his office.

  “In the name of the Comité Parisien de Libération and on behalf of the provisional government of the Republic, I am taking possession of the Hôtel de Ville,” said Hamon.

  “You will have to account for everything that you do,” said Bouffet, struggling to remain composed. “I have been trying to save Paris. You are committing a youthful prank which might have appalling consequences.”103

  In the meantime, in an unassuming diplomatic way, FFI Lieutenant Roger Stéphane established control. Inside the Hôtel de Ville, FFI numbers increased to four hundred. Political arrests began. Those detained considered escaping via the same underground passages suggested to Édouard Herriot three days before. But Taittinger decided to face whatever music came his way, along with Romazotti, Marcel Cornillat—who had negotiated the city’s food provision throughout the preceding weeks—and André Ruegger, the Municipal Council’s secretary, none of whom believed they had acted shamefully.104

  Now a prisoner, Taittinger was led along corridors where previously he had met only deference. Although his chauffeur Léon remained loyally beside him, it hurt. First he was taken to Bouffet’s office, now occupied by Lieutenant Stéphane, its magnificent furnishings submerged by weapons and boxes of ammunition as purposeful looking young men and women wearing blue clothing and FFI armbands came and went. Cradling an arm injured outside the Préfecture the previous day, Stéphane appeared exhaus
ted. Attempting conversation with Stéphane, Taittinger mentioned his time at Verdun.

  “I wasn’t there,” replied Stéphane. “That’s something that distinguishes us.”

  There was a burst of machine-gun fire outside and Taittinger threw himself under the table.

  “I did not do Verdun,” said Stéphane tersely. “And I am not under the table either.”

  Stéphane told Taittinger that he was a prisoner, albeit for his own protection.

  “We are in a revolutionary period,” said Stéphane. “And it would be best from all points of view if you allowed yourself to be taken into protective custody until there is freedom on the streets again.”105

  After allowing Taittinger to telephone his wife, Stéphane told his prisoners they would eventually be going to “the Depot”—the cells connected to the Palais de Justice. But first stop was the Préfecture. Accompanied by Romazzotti, Cornillat and Ruegger, Taittinger descended the Hôtel de Ville’s red-carpeted staircase. This time there were no Gardes Républicaines in resplendent cavalry uniforms to raise their swords to their chins in salute, merely young men toting rifles and Sten guns.

  A passing German armoured car noticed the FFI emblazoned Citroen parked outside the Hôtel de Ville and opened fire. Again Taittinger threw himself down, breaking the gold watch in his waistcoat pocket. A few bursts of fire shooed the armoured car away but Stéphane’s men were unsettled. It seemed unwise to approach the Préfecture by the obvious route across the Pont d’Arcole. With his virtually unparalleled knowledge of central Paris, Taittinger suggested the underground passage to the Assistance Publique building on the opposite side of the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Exiting on the Avenue Victoria, they encountered Taittinger’s friend, Dr. Durand, who guided them to the Secretariat General where suitable rooms for holding prisoners were available.106

  Held in a room overlooking the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Taittinger, his colleagues and their guards found dead corners in which to avoid stray bullets whistling through the open windows as the gunfire increased. With his captors’ permission Taittinger made some telephone calls, including to Raoul Nordling, but no one could prevent such incidents. In the distance FFIs could be seen firing from the Hôtel de Ville at German vehicles and any Parisian not wearing a Tricolore armband. Taittinger watched as a German staff car crossed the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville unscathed while a Parisienne and an elderly gentleman were shot dead. A young man sans armband emerging onto the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville from the Pont d’Arcole swiftly retraced his steps. “Do they have commemorative plaques, these Parisians pointlessly gunned down by our own?” Taittinger asks bitterly in his memoirs.107