Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed

by Mortimer Moore, William

  The roads in 5th Infantry’s area were littered with blackened corpses, mostly German but some Americans as well. While Bruce chatted to General Irwin and 5th ID’s chief of staff, Colonel Thackeray, John Mowinckel arrived requesting supplies from an abandoned Wehrmacht warehouse to furnish a Special Intelligence HQ. Bruce found enough stock to furnish “all the hotels on the Riviera”, as he colourfully described it.135

  It was at Irwin’s CP that Bruce hooked up with writer Ernest Hemingway and his driver, Red Pelkey. Hemingway had installed himself at Rambouillet following two days of “unofficial reconnaissance work” which suited his partisan spirit. Hemingway also wanted to be the first American into Paris and was accompanied by two truckloads of FFIs he had met near Rambouillet; an ill-clothed little group, commanded by an exhausted looking Frenchman called Tahon Marceau. Although armed only with a few captured pistols and a couple of Sten guns, their patrolling was competent enough to ascertain that the Germans had abandoned Rambouillet that morning. Patrolling the town’s southern approaches with them, Hemingway found a deserted roadblock which had earlier accounted for an American patrol. The locals had kindly buried the dead Americans, but their equipment remained with their vehicles and Marceau’s FFIs helped themselves.136

  As they patrolled Rambouillet, the inhabitants told them that a German battlegroup including tanks remained east of the town. Hemingway advised an American sapper party to leave all mines in situ and requested heavy machine-guns from Irwin. Irwin refused, but felt unable to leave a great American writer in danger and sent a reconnaissance detachment to reinforce him.137

  Hence it was on the morning of 20 August, when Hemingway visited Irwin’s CP the second time, that he met David Bruce and they agreed to meet at Rambouillet later that day. It would be exaggerating to say “Papa liberated Paris” but, aided by Marceau’s FFIs, he certainly “liberated” Rambouillet which became an essential springboard for liberating Paris.138

  IT WAS BECOMING A HOT DAY. The air of Paris was fetid from uncollected refuse. On those streets that avoided becoming shooting galleries, housewives queued outside bakers’ shops and the faithful still attended Mass. Bathers still swam in the Seine by the Pont Royal or sunbathed on the artificial beach near the Pont Iena. There remained moments of humanity between occupiers and occupied; guards manning the barriers around the Rue de Rivoli apologised before hand-searching anyone wishing to pass. At the checkpoint on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, seeing an old man visibly distressed when tipping out his shopping basket to be searched, a German soldier helped him repack it. There were similar barriers on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, the Rue du Bac, the Rue de Luynes and the Rue Gribeauval. When an elderly Parisienne approached German sentries on the Place des Pyramides asking if she could search for her cat in the Tuileries gardens, the sentries accompanied her, calling the cat’s name among the shrubs.139

  Not far away, Maurice Goudeket skulked in the air-raid shelter, wondering if he dared show his Semitic face while briskly returning to the Palais Royale apartment he shared with Colette. “Comrade, comrade,” said the gardener, “the gates are open and there are people walking in the gardens.” Furtively peeping outside, his heart racing, Goudeket made a brisk dash for the Palais Royale. Approaching the building, Goudeket recognised the comely frame of France’s greatest erotic authoress outside their home, visibly distressed. Just as he expected, Colette had sent many friends searching for him. Whenever they drew a blank, she despaired that he might have been deported. Then she saw him. At first she was cross at being caused such worry and his explanation was unimpressive. She berated him over her efforts to protect him during the previous four years. Goudeket listened, tears coursing down his unshaven cheeks, and then they embraced and went inside.140

  At this late stage of the Occupation, German theft lacked the methodology of Kurt von Behr’s M-Aktion. On the Boulevard de la Madeleine, a lorry, loaded with bedding, skidded while turning out of a sidestreet, throwing a smart mattress into the road. Good bedding was much sought after and the mattress was quickly picked up by two Parisians and pulled into a doorway. The lorry reversed and its German crew made the Parisians surrender the mattress at gunpoint.141

  There were more German patrols than previously, sometimes mounted on ubiquitous Kübelwagens carrying a MG42 machine-gun or a similarly armed motorcycle-sidecar. These patrolled the streets checking for anything that might impede retreating German columns. A Panther and various smaller tanks attached to the Luxembourg Stützpunkt, laagered along the Rue Crébillon, would sally forth to show Parisians that the Germans had not yet departed.

  But, where the Wehrmacht were thinner on the ground, the FFI took advantage. The FTP’s aggressive patrolling caused lively engagements in the 13th Arrondissement around the Place d’Italie, Avenue des Gobelins and Place de l’Hôpital. In the 10th Arrondissement, home of the great railway stations Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est, the Germans remained in possession until the end. Being in strength at the Clignancourt barracks meant the German garrison was difficult to dislodge from the 18th Arrondissement; northern Paris would be liberated last.142

  In the Latin Quarter’s Rue de Buci, the FFI expelled some Japanese from a small hotel, pushing the hapless Orientals into the street for debagging and degradation. While on the Place Saint-Michel the FFI laid out planks with nails sticking up. When Wehrmacht trucks drove over them, puncturing their tyres, Rol-Tanguy’s men opened up with machine-guns. A bus pressed into German service was also immobilised.

  Stepping outside his home in the university area, Jean Galtier-Boissière noticed the FFI machine-gun set up on the pavement watching over the Pont Saint-Michel and the young men in shirt sleeves and armbands toting rifles and small pistols, using all their brute strength to push disabled vehicles into position to form a barricade.143 Nordling’s truce made time for more impromptu fortifications to be erected. Entire neighbourhoods cooperated to build them, not just working-class militants as in 1871. A barricade could be made from anything; a wrecked vehicle, or an overturned cart or trailer was often a good start, followed by pieces of furniture, household junk, hacked up cobblestones, felled trees, the circular grids covering tree roots, paving stones or macadam (that could sometimes be lifted like thick vinyl). If situated near a park, soil provided useful aggregate. Barricades came in all sizes, whether blocking off an entire street or merely protecting a machine-gun nest. Often of questionable military value, barricades undoubtedly offered some protection to those behind them. But their effectiveness hugely depended on where they were and what hostile forces they had to face.

  Galtier-Boissière watched fascinated as the Boulevard Saint-Michel barricade took shape, supported by around fifty FFIs. But being untrained they scurried for cover in doorways when a Kübelwagen appeared. The Kübelwagen waited. A few moments later a bus used as an ambulance needed to be let through. When the FFIs lifted the spiked planks to let the bus pass, the Kübelwagen rushed through behind. Inexperienced FFIs fired from all sides, forgetting the risk of hitting each other in the crossfire. Luckily only one was injured.

  “Well, what’s the situation?” Galtier-Boissière asked a young FFI.

  “Confused,” admitted the lad. “We’re supporting our comrades at the Palais de Justice and the Préfecture. Yesterday we made a great job of shooting up a convoy. Didn’t you see?”144

  Relieved to be past military age, Galtier-Boissière thought 1944’s street fighters more akin to the Parisians who defended Clichy for Napoleon in 1814 than Great War veterans like himself. “One could go home at lunchtime with one’s rifle; everyone was at the windows watching you and cheering, from the milkman to the grocer and the bistro owner offering a glass of white wine.”

  More unreal to Galtier-Boissière were the badauds (onlookers) who were sometimes desperately naïve, understanding the risks only when someone fell down dead. Galtier-Boissière explained the rankings among the badauderie héroïque, or heroic onlookers. Les risques-tout, the risk alls, were happy to mill around b
ehind combatants where they had good chances of being hit, while les autres, the others, observed from street corners, like Galtier-Boissière himself. Less chic but more sensible were les moins braves, the less brave, who stood considerably further back.145

  The Latin Quarter had quickly become a no-go area for the Wehrmacht. Once its narrow streets were barricaded, résistants could move around freely. Their only uniform was an armband. Whether adorned with the letters FFI or FTP, these easily made armbands usually bore the Tricolore’s blue, white and red, and the Cross of Lorraine. Simply wearing one made its wearer a combatant, especially if he had a weapon.146

  RAOUL NORDLING WAS ANXIOUS lest the precious truce he negotiated fell to pieces. But General von Choltitz’s good faith was confirmed when an officer at the Meurice telephoned Nordling to discuss arrangements for loudspeaker cars to circulate the city. Similar suggestions came from the Préfecture. However, the FFI had problems providing loudspeaker cars because those obedient to Rol-Tanguy and Lizé refused to recognise the truce, barricades increasingly restricted circulation, and FFI vehicles were mostly garaged at Denfert-Rochereau south of Montparnasse. But an arrangement was made for German and French loudspeaker teams to meet at the Place Vendôme at 2.30pm where Raoul Nordling, assisted by Émil Bender, would issue guidelines.147

  On the way, Nordling was gratified to see the Place de l’Opéra filled with Parisians taking their Sunday stroll, discussing his truce and the huge concession made by von Choltitz. Tricolores were unfurling from windows and rooftops, in a way not seen since 1940.148

  Reaching the Place Vendôme, Nordling and Bender found German Feldgendarmerie and French police wearing Resistance armbands awaiting them. But they soon discovered that neither team had any formal orders beyond translated copies of the morning’s agreement. Furthermore, the German envoy was being more cooperative than the French, who had not sent anyone of significant rank. On his own authority, Nordling gave Bender orders for the Germans; then, turning towards the French policemen, he explained that the German authorities had agreed to suspend hostilities, which would also save Paris from destruction, though he believed that danger had receded. Switching between speaking German and French, Nordling gave both groups orders to tour Paris reading out the ceasefire proclamation with loud speakers.149

  “What are you lot doing down there?” yelled the Gaullist Marcel Willard from the balcony of the Ministry of Justice.

  Nordling explained that he was giving orders to announce the truce.

  “What truce?” scoffed Willard. “There isn’t a truce!”

  Shaking his head, Nordling went up to Willard’s office.

  “Would you please telephone the Préfecture of Police,” said Nordling wearily.

  After doing as Nordling asked, Willard accepted that a truce was in force. Nordling returned outside and sent both loudspeaker teams on their way. Unbeknown to him, something had happened which became the day’s highlight.150

  ALEXANDRE PARODI BELIEVED THAT MEETING Resistance leaders personally would be more effective in getting the truce honoured on the French side. Accompanied by his sister, Roland Pré, Émile Laffond and a young female driver wearing a blue Red Cross uniform, Parodi left Rue Séguier at around 2.30pm. Perhaps the truce made Parodi’s staff over-confident and sloppy about security. Their car contained several Resistance documents which would make compromising reading if they fell into German hands. Emerging from the Boulevard Saint-Germain opposite the War Minstry, they were halted at a checkpoint which included two 75mm PAK guns, and twenty well armed German soldiers. Speaking bad French, a sergeant said, “Terrorists to kill our comrades.” Then he gesticulated, saying, “To visit car.” After finding documents and a FFI armband on the car’s floor they arrested everyone. With their hands in the air, Parodi’s party were searched. A German intelligence colonel perused the seized papers and artefacts. “Very serious,” he said.

  “We are important people in the Resistance,” said Parodi. “A truce has been concluded with the general commanding Gross-Paris, negotiated by Monsieur Nordling, the Swedish Consul, and we were circulating to see that it was applied. We have been arrested during the truce. You should set us free immediately.” The colonel decided to take them to von Choltitz to clarify the situation. They departed for the Hôtel Meurice in two cars.151

  AT AROUND 3PM CHARLES LUIZET EMERGED from the Préfecture’s main gate to announce the ceasefire. According to Notre Dame’s Monsignor Brot, who watched from the opposite end of the Parvis, Luizet was wearing dress uniform including a sword, though few other accounts confirm this. “I descended from my lodgings and went to look outside, accompanied by a curate and one of the Cathedral’s workmen,” wrote Brot. “The front of the basilica had received a few good hits from German tanks. While we were taking stock of the damaged sculptures, thankfully not too serious, a car full of German soldiers arrived, letting rip all around with their machine-guns. We only just had time to take cover, running as fast as we could and throwing ourselves on the ground. It was a close one and, looking about us, there were plenty of dead and dying lying on the ground. Once again, we learnt not to trust German promises.” Notre Dame remained closed that Sunday.152

  Luizet’s appearance outside the Préfecture was the culmination of several events; at 2.20pm he advised all departmental commissariats in Paris that the ceasefire must be respected. Then, at 3.18pm he gave the formal ceasefire order to all police stations in the name of the Comité de la Liberation de la Préfecture de Police. All shooting at German personnel was to cease until they had left Paris.153

  AROUND 4PM, STEPPING OUT FOR A STROLL amid sporadic gunfire, Henri Culmann reached the Boulevard Saint-Michel’s junction with the Rue Monsieur le Prince where he saw a police car with an attached loudspeaker, followed by a Wehrmacht vehicle on whose roof sat a Paris policeman. “Every fifty metres these vehicles would stop and the loudspeaker informed the population that the Germans had consented to regard the FFIs as combatants and therefore to treat as prisoners of war rather than francs-tireurs any FFI who fell into their hands. A truce had been agreed whereby both the FFI and the Germans ceased firing at one another.”

  On the Place Edmond Rostand, beyond the pretty, art nouveau fountain, Culmann saw five Panther tanks hovering around the Rue Gay-Lussac, their commander chatting to a French fireman officer, before departing in opposite directions. Suddenly machine-gun fire raked the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Fearing for his life, Culmann retreated along the Rue Soufflot where a concièrge gave him a glass of water. When the firing ceased he rejoined the Boulevard Saint-Michel from the Rue Le Goff. Four of the Panthers were still around and, when firing broke out again, Culmann watched in horror as a Panther’s turret turned towards an assumed target and fired a long burst from its coaxial machine-gun. “I will remember all my life the sight of that turret cranking jerkily round and then the thin blue plume of smoke drifting up from that weapon,” Culmann wrote. “Everyone fled screaming and falling about. I stumbled and found myself on top of someone, while nearby five fallen bodies lay on the cobbles bleeding and trying to get up. These unfortunates were moved to an aid post in the foyer of a hotel on the Rue Le Goff where, thanks to the angle of the road, they could not be hit by that tank’s machine-gun. Remembering their injuries, they were mostly legs and lower body, since the burst had been aimed low. I used my neck-tie to tourniquet the leg of a young woman who was bleeding profusely and went to telephone for help. Following my pleas, the first stretcher bearers arrived with a speed and courage I will always admire. The worst injury was a man with a hideously broken thigh, visible through his ripped trousers. He was taken into a nearby house. I later learnt that he lost his leg and that two others died.”154

  If Nordling’s truce held, even patchily, most Parisians welcomed it as a saviour from death, injury and damage. But many FFI regarded cars with loudspeakers announcing the truce as an absurdity, a German ruse to divert attention from their suppression of important centres of resistance. If the SS violated the truc
e, some FFI denied its existence.155

  Sonderführer Robert Wallraf thought French ceasefire initiatives were worth no more than Monsignor Brot thought German ones were. “They fired from all sides at any location where German soldiers expected to feel safe. Resistance vehicles drove at breakneck speeds along all avenues; inoffensive in appearance, they fired with machine-guns at any German vehicle they encountered. The Resistance turned the streets of Paris into an environment full of dangers.”156

  IRRESPECTIVE OF NORDLING’S TRUCE, the Resistance continued seizing government buildings. Having got inside the Ministry of the Interior on the Place Baveau, senior résistants Gus, Chevrier and others headed for the minister’s apartment. Brushing past the entrance hall’s famous renaissance tapestry of God the Father—onto which someone wittily pinned Pétain’s image over a prostrate man—they reached the minister’s luxurious bathroom where they showered before sitting naked in the salon’s armchairs smoking. Surveying the minister’s luxurious apartment, Roger Chevrier remarked, “If I ever return to being an ordinary soldier, I reckon that after today living like a proconsul, I will have paid for it.”

  They then returned to Saint-Phalle’s house where, amid the comings and goings of armed résistants, someone played the Marseillaise and Chopin’s Tristesse on the grand piano.157

  “We’re playing with them with this talk of an armistice, but if they take it for the real thing that would be boring,” Saint-Phalle told a young résistant. “Tell them [the Allies] that they can come, that the Germans are not numerous and that, for them, it will be nothing.”158

  AT THE HÔTEL MEURICE, PARODI’S PARTY waited in the lobby for nearly an hour. Parodi felt convinced that once they explained themselves to von Choltitz they would be released immediately. Then a red-faced Gestapo officer appeared. “Follow me,” he said contemptuously. “I have a few little questions to ask you.” Parodi protested that their arrest contravened the agreement agreed with von Choltitz. Outside, except for his sister and the chauffeuse, Parodi and the men were driven to a Gestapo sub-office at 64 Avenue Henri-Martin in the 16th Arrondissement.159