“I couldn’t destroy Paris, whatever Hitler’s orders,” said von Choltitz, his voice cracking. “Your reprisals would have been too horrible.”269
When, at Alain de Boissieu’s request, the intelligence officer Cossé-Brissac asked von Choltitz whether Leclerc’s threatening letter drafted by Captain Betz the previous day reached him and if it had any effect, von Choltitz replied, “And how!”270
Room 32 already contained prisoners from the Meurice. They stood smartly when von Choltitz entered, then offered him a centrally positioned chair. Lastly von Choltitz mentioned losing his valise outside the Meurice. Betz sent Lieutenant Braun, another Alsatian officer, to take details. The Gare Montparnasse was now awash with photographers, one of whom snapped Lieutenant Braun taking down von Choltitz’s plea for his valise; a photograph believed, for many years, to depict the surrender itself.271
* Baroud d’honneur= a token resistance.
* Standing on an axis running due west from the centre of the Louvre, up to the Étoile and beyond, the rose granite Obelisk stands in memory of Francois Champolion, the first European to read hieroglyphs, and as a thumb to France’s rivals in Egyptology, the British.
Chapter 8
The Man of 18 June Arrives
25 August 1944 (continued)
AT RAMBOUILLET, CHARLES DE GAULLE SPENT the early part of that day of days pacing the château’s great terrace. As hourly bulletins of Leclerc’s progress arrived, the Constable reflected that, while only a colonel, he lobbied France’s patrons for seven modern armoured divisions. It took the Americans, persuaded partly by General Giraud, to provide three. Now one of those divisions had liberated France’s capital.1
For his triumphal entry into Paris, Commandant de Lignières acquired a smart black Hotchkiss chauffeured by a Rambouillet fireman and escorted by two M8 armoured cars. The rest of de Gaulle’s entourage would travel in two requisitioned gazogene-fuelled buses, hurriedly sprayed light green and decorated with the Cross of Lorraine.2 Mounting the Hotchkiss, de Gaulle felt “gripped by emotion and filled with serenity”. Dressed in his dark blue French air force uniform and improbably crushed cap, Claude Guy took the front seat beside the Rambouillet fireman.3
Driving from Rambouillet into central Paris normally takes under an hour. Even compared to Rennes, de Gaulle was amazed by the cheering crowds and fluttering Tricolores. At Longjumeau the numbers multiplied. At Bourg-la-Reine they doubled again. Then came the “exulting tide” at the Porte d’Orléans.4
Philippe de Gaulle had been ordered to the Gare Montparnasse to meet his father. After witnessing von Choltitz’s surrender, Philippe was one of those chosen to deliver surrender orders to the remaining German strongpoints. By 4.30pm, either in Jeeps, M8 armoured cars, or Stuart light tanks, these teams were ready to leave. Getting through the crowds would be difficult, especially if accompanied by a German officer. Some of these ‘homologues allemands’ even suffered abuse from the 2e DB before leaving the Gare Montparnasse; one German officer was clonked on the head with a helmet as he mounted a Jeep, an act caught on film. But French officers usually behaved correctly.5 Philippe’s homologue allemand was a despondent major whose health had been broken on the Eastern Front. But, before setting off to parley with the Waffen SS holding the Chamber of Deputies, Philippe was permitted to await his father.6
A cacophony of cheering accompanied de Gaulle’s entry inside the Gare Montparnasse where Leclerc recounted the afternoon’s events. Introduced to Henri Rol-Tanguy, de Gaulle looked over the young Resistance colonel appreciatively, recognising that such men had saved France’s honour. Moving on to Chaban-Delmas, whom he had met briefly, de Gaulle muttered, “Well I’ll be damned!” before shaking hands. “C’est bien, Chaban.”7 Then de Gaulle saw his son. Claude Guy had just told Philippe how anxious his father was to see him.
“Come with us,” the Constable said.
“Mon Général,” said Leclerc. “Enseigne de vaisseau de Gaulle has a mission which he must go and fulfil.”
The Constable’s expression changed to disappointment, “even disarray”. “Without a word he embraced me, something he didn’t usually do,” wrote Philippe. “He was probably aware of the new danger that I had to confront and worried perhaps whether I would return.”8
After Philippe’s departure the Constable inspected the second surrender document signed before his arrival. “You allowed Rol-Tanguy to sign!” he exclaimed to Leclerc. “Why do you think that I nominated you interim governor of Paris back in Algiers, if it wasn’t to take command of all forces in Paris until the arrival of General Koenig?”
“But Chaban agreed,” replied Leclerc.
“Even so it is not correct,” ruled the Constable. “In this matter you are the higher ranking officer and consequently solely responsible. Anyway, the plea that led you to accept this wording comes from those with unacceptable views.”9
But de Gaulle recognised that Leclerc acted in good faith.
“You have done well,” said de Gaulle. “I will nominate Rol-Tanguy a Companion of the Liberation.” Nevertheless he showed Leclerc a proclamation published that morning by the CNR which he believed demonstrated his point.10
De Gaulle’s next stop was the Ministry of War on the Rue Saint-Dominique. As they turned into Rue Eblé, a burst of machine-gun fire came from the tower of Saint Francis Xavier. De Gaulle stood in the road defiantly smoking a cigarette, while General Juin dismounted the Hotchkiss bearing a submachine-gun to protect his former petit-co. After a short detour, at around 5pm de Gaulle re-entered the building he had left as a junior minister in 1940.11
“Immediately I was seized by the impression that nothing had changed inside these venerated offices,” he wrote. “Gigantic events had upturned the Universe. Our army had been destroyed. France had been darkened. But at the old Ministry of War, the aspect of things remained immutable. In the courtyard a troop from the Garde Republicaine did the honours, as before. The vestibule, the stairs, the decoration; all remained as they were. There, in person, were the staff who formerly ran the place. I entered the minister’s office which Paul Reynaud and I left together on the night of 10 June 1940. Not a stick of furniture, not a carpet, not a curtain had been moved. On the table remained the telephone exactly where I had left it, with exactly the same names written by the buttons. Then I realised that there were other buildings particular to the Republic. All that was missing was the state. It fell to me to reinstate it.”12
Le Troquer and Parodi came to find him; public order and food provision required his attention. The exhausted Parodi insisted that de Gaulle visit both the Préfecture and the Hôtel de Ville. “We’ll go tomorrow,” de Gaulle replied, arguing that as national leader there was no need to present himself to a municipal authority. But Parodi knew this would not do and called Charles Luizet across from the Préfecture. Then Pierre Billotte arrived in person to report mission accomplished. No sooner had Billotte finished speaking than a large explosion came from the direction of the Palais Luxembourg.
“And you tell me it’s over,” mocked de Gaulle. “Go fast! There’s still a racket that needs sorting out.”
Billotte turned on his heel.
“Go,” said de Gaulle. “And should you feel daring enough to make an appearance at the Hôtel de Ville, there will be [the sort of] music which might cheer you up.”
Luizet told France’s new leader that the police were mounting a parade for him and that enormous crowds gathering outside the Hôtel de Ville would be disappointed if he did not come.
“Then if one must go, we’d better go,” said de Gaulle.13
At the Préfecture a smart parade of Gardiens de la Paix belied its hasty preparation. Their band played the Marseillaise and the Marche Lorraine. Whatever evils the Paris police collaborated with during the Occupation, the Insurrection saved their honour. Nearly eight hundred of them fought like lions for seven days; many were killed, some murdered. When de Gaulle thanked them they cheered him loudly. Their role is commemmorated by the red
lanyards they still wear. Before leaving the Préfecture, de Gaulle and other senior résistants decided upon the great march down the Champs Élysées for the following day; something France needed. More good news reached de Gaulle from General Koenig: in order to regularise the Allies’ relationship with France’s administration, General Eisenhower had recognised him as de facto French head of state.14
AT THE JEU DE PAUME, Rose Valland knew the Occupation was over when she saw German soldiers shot dead as Chad infantry took possession of the Place de la Concorde. A museum porter seen on the roof was suspected of being a German sniper until Rose volubly intervened. Immediately after being liberated, the Jeu de Paume was used to store surrendered weapons and German helmets.15
It was only when a negotiating party arrived bearing von Choltitz’s surrender order that Germans inside the Hôtel Crillon gathered on the ground floor. “So the road into captivity was beginning,” wrote Robert Wallraf. “Outside the Hôtel entrance stood two soldiers from Leclerc’s division. They took each man’s pistol and threw it in a basket. With my left hand I gave one of them my pistol.”
“And your watch, and your ring,” said a French soldier, pointing to Wallraf’s bracelet watch and signet ring. “Damn!” he thought, regretting not putting them in his pockets.
“Can’t I keep the ring?” asked Wallraf. “It came from my father.”
“Do you value your skin?” replied the French soldier.
Wallraf surrendered them before being led past crowds of angry Parisians.
“Murderers! Thieves! Sales Boches! Hitler kaput!” they screamed.
Then a Parisian called out, “These bandits don’t need their baggage! Take it all away!”
“Sans baggages!”—”Without baggage!” went up the cry.
Wallraf’s carefully packed rucksack was wrenched away. Along with others, he was pushed onto a lorry. Crowded together under the dark canvas canopy, they became unbearably hot. More prisoners were pushed aboard, one having his arm broken as the tail flap was bolted. Wallraf and his comrades were relieved when the canopy’s tail curtain was pulled down and the truck departed.16
DRIVING WITH HIS HOMOLOGUE ALLEMAND along the liberated Rue de Rivoli, Philippe de Gaulle was pleased to see Chad infantry controlling the Hôtel Meurice, but uncollected corpses, French and German, testified to the cost. It seemed perverse seeing central Paris decorated with war debris yet surprisingly undamaged. Past the Place de la Concorde, 2e DB vehicles were parking garrison-style, guarded by patrolling Shermans. The commander of Uskub agreed to escort Philippe to the Chamber of Deputies and a few FFI volunteered their support. Unfortunately an untrained FFI fired some shots towards the Seine, provoking a needless firefight, which took Philippe fifteen minutes to control.17
Around the Tuileries Philippe met Lieutenant Étienne Mantoux, Captain Robert Caillet’s co-pilot, who had dropped Leclerc’s message to the Préfecture the previous day. Having performed a similar mission, Mantoux advised Philippe that the Palais Bourbon’s defenders should see his German major waving the white flag in the first instance, especially since the rising camber of the Pont de la Concorde meant they would be approaching as though over a horizon. So Philippe’s unhappy prisoner had to sit on Uskub’s turret with his Wehrmacht tunic and cap fully visible while he waved a white flag. Faced with this extraordinary sight lumbering towards them against the backdrop of the Obelisk and the Crillon, the Palais Bourbon’s SS defenders held their fire, allowing Uskub to approach the railings and chain barriers. While his pale German major sweated, Philippe grappled with the barriers. “The SS won’t obey the Wehrmacht,” said the German major in halting French. “They will kill me, and you as well.” Keeping his cool, Philippe ordered Le Coz, his Jeep driver, to push the barrier enough for him to squeeze through. Recognising that his German major was frightened to the point of uselessness, Philippe called to Le Coz, “If you don’t see me come back out within a quarter of an hour, give the alarm,” and advanced alone towards the Palais Bourbon’s imposing frontage. Nearby, several FFI corpses underlined the danger of his mission.18
Entering through the great front door, Philippe met a tall, fair SS officer who said in slowly enunciated English, “We very much prefer to surrender to the Americans. We will fire at any civilians who approach. We only wish to negotiate with regular forces and will have nothing to do with partisans or terrorists.”
Philippe understood perfectly but, as his father would have done, he replied in French.
“There are no Americans in [this part of] Paris,” said Philippe, unaware of Hemingway boozing in the Ritz, a few blocks away. “You will surrender to French troops commanded by General Leclerc. Here is the surrender order from your General von Choltitz.”
Noticing the SS officer eyeing his naval ensign’s cap and the red pom-pommed bachi worn by Le Coz, Philippe wondered whether the garrison would accept his bona fides. All around France’s beautiful parliament building, Philippe saw the Waffen SS’s defensive measures; sandbags piled around windows, racks of stick grenades and Panzerfausts readily to hand. He had never been inside before, not even on a school outing during the 1930s. Led into an immense salon overlooking the Quai d’Orsay gardens, Philippe faced several SS officers eyeing him cautiously from behind a large, ornate table which was being ruined by German kit. The miserable Wehrmacht major mumbled indecipherably before going to stand alongside them. Philippe laid the surrender order before them.
“Here is the order of your general,” Philippe said in slow, deliberate French. “You must surrender to General Leclerc’s Deuxième Division Blindée of which I am the emissary.”
The SS officers exchanged worried glances.
“We will consider this and decide what to do,” said their senior officer.
“Leave your weapons,” said Philippe. “Gather up your personal belongings and assemble at the foot of the steps of the entrance on the Rue de l’Université, officers and men separately.”
“Who will collect us?” asked the large young SS officer. “We only want military lorries.”
Philippe assured them that they would not be harmed. Lieutenant Mantoux arrived with FFI to take all four hundred into custody. As soon as the Palais Bourbon returned to French control its Rue de Lille gates were opened enabling a fire engine to reach a burning Sherman, brewed up by FFIs mishandling captured weapons. Securing abandoned weapons became a priority.19
THE DEPOT WAS FULL, and few cells remained to accommodate new arrivals. Deciding to move prominent collabos to the Manège Huyghens assembly hall, the FFI posted a list in the exercise yard. Pierre Taittinger and his associates were dismayed to find their names on it, but that was a mistake. Following Rol-Tanguy’s directive to avoid using heritage buildings for FFI purposes, prominent collabos were being assembled at the Vélodrome d’Hiver, the winter cycling track made infamous by the grande rafle and collabo rallies. “Our names were read out by an armed FFI walking past the cells,” wrote Taittinger. “We hastily swallowed a little hot water, baptised ‘soup’, and awaited a panier de salade [basket of salad, French slang for a police van]. … We were then confined in these tiny, stiflingly hot sheet metal cages in which one could neither stand nor sit, and to reach them we were making our first walk since being imprisoned.”20
Following a twenty-minute drive, with shrieking crowds banging on the van’s sides, “Eventually we arrived in front of the Vélodrome d’Hiver, where everything had been prepared to give us a welcome which would remain in the memory as a symbol, to the shame of those who devised it, of these revolutionary days,” continued Taittinger. They waited in the van for around ten minutes as their guards added their own voices to the insults.
“You are about to see a band of collaborateurs, of men who sold out to the Boches, of traitors,” an FFI told the baying crowd.
Like a tumbril beside the guillotine, the police van discharged its prisoners singly while a senior résistant named and maligned each prisoner. “I present the dirty collaborateur Sacha Guitry,” he
said as the great boulevardier stumbled from the van (the guards refused to fold down the van’s metal steps), struggling to keep his balance. Someone raised a foot to trip him, but Guitry sidestepped. Receiving truncheon blows to his neck and kidneys, Guitry recoiled but, turning round, he saw former Vichy education minister Jérome Carcapino, beaten to a bloody mess. Seeing Carcapino tottering dizzily, Guitry caught him as he collapsed.21
Next came the former Prefect of the Department of the Seine, René Bouffet. Once out of the van, Bouffet was so badly beaten that he died a few days later. With Bouffet lying severely injured, it was the turn of Taittinger’s friend Romazzotti, who was also beaten up but not fatally. When his turn came, being a former rugby player, Taittinger wrapped his arms around his head, bent down and ran the gauntlet, suffering a few bruises.
Taittinger complained vigorously to an official. This turned out to be the Vélodrome d’Hiver’s concièrge who had previously organised rallies for both Doriot and Déat. Recognising him, several imprisoned collabos called out “Vive le Maréchal”, only to receive more beatings from this wretched man, desperately dissociating himself from Vichy.22 By evening Taittinger and Judge Dinthilac were organising first aid and food for those who chose le mauvais camp—the wrong camp.
ALAIN DE BOISSIEU’S SQUADRON had taken the La Tour-Maubourg barracks near Les Invalides. When its German garrison refused to surrender, Boissieu’s men fired machine-gun bursts at the windows. White flags appeared and Boissieu watched fascinated as fanatical Germans were pushed into the courtyard at gunpoint by wiser comrades. André Gribius transfered the divisional HQ from the Gare Montparnasse to La Tour-Mauborg.23
Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed Page 48