The FFIs’ titular commander, General Koenig, supported Leclerc’s viewpoint saying, “The FFI represents the worst of dangers for Paris.” But to formally enroll the best résistants in the French Army, de Gaulle needed more uniforms and equipment than the Pentagon envisaged in their French rearmament programme. But Uncle Sam’s coffers were not bottomless and de Gaulle’s new divisions had to use up pre-1940 French uniform stocks the Germans disdained to requisition and bolts of feldgrau cloth they left behind. Equipping them meant using pre-war and captured weapons.
De Gaulle’s most extraordinary request that day, and one which he subsequently denied,134 was that American troops should march through Paris not just as an Allied victory march but to support his authority and warn the French Left who was in charge. Considering that the previous year in French North Africa, French officials eschewed seeking Allied help to maintain order (Leclerc’s freshly equipped division undertook a small police operation in Morocco), Eisenhower was amazed. “Here there seemed a touch of the sardonic in the picture of France’s symbol of liberation having to ask for Allied forces to establish and maintain a similar position in the heart of the freed capital.”135 But liberated France was not French North Africa, and Paris was the largest city the Allies had liberated. If it became politically unstable it could undermine subsequent operations. “I understood de Gaulle’s problem,” Eisenhower wrote, and he personally ordered two infantry divisions to parade through Paris on their way to the front.136
Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont was surprised by de Gaulle’s attitude to the Resistance after 1944. “Was he really worried by the menace of subversion? Were we really dangerous in his eyes?” COMAC and the Resistance’s command structure remained in place for months after the Liberation. With the Germans gone the Resistance could only become a kind of Home Guard. Valrimont states unequivocally that they never intended to challenge de Gaulle’s authority. “Ah, but you don’t understand that he [de Gaulle] was afraid of you,” Philippe Ragueneau told Valrimont.137 De Gaulle recognised that paranoia is sometimes the price of survival.
General Bradley wrote scathingly of the affair, “By this time Leclerc’s men had disappeared into back alleys, brothels and bistros. I worked out a plan with Gerow whereby we could redeploy Norman Cota’s 28th Infantry Division through the streets of Paris to its jump-off point east of the city without loss of time. In this way, on 29 August, de Gaulle got his ‘parade’ down the Champs Élysées and I got the 28th Division tactically poised for pursuit of the German Army.”138
28 August 1944
OFFERING NEW CASUALTY FIGURES of twenty-five killed and eighty wounded, post-Liberation newspapers not only blamed Miliciens for the wildcat shootings of the 26th, but extravagantly claimed that Miliciens launched rocket flares to guide the Luftwaffe air raid that evening. To Jean Galtier-Boissière’s intense pleasure, formerly sidelined, anti-Vichy writers like Claude Mauriac and Georges Duhamel made their comebacks almost immediately.139
“Eh bien, mon cher,” said Petiet, a stamp seller on the Rue de Tournon, who knew Galtier-Boissière laid down his pen in 1940, “you were right all along.”
Sharing the inter-class camaraderie of those who chose “the right camp”, Petiet introduced Galtier-Boissière to a cobbler who was tortured by the Gestapo following a neighbour’s denunciation.
“I suppose now that you’re going to sort this creep out?” suggested Petiet.
“That would be difficult,” replied the cobbler.” He is now a full member of the Resistance and denouncing collabos for all he’s worth!”
Having seen un vieux plaisantin (an old joker) poncing around in an old naval uniform, whom he remembered sporting a Nazi buttonhole in 1941, Galtier-Boissière knew such conduct was widespread.140
There were also tragic mistakes immediately after the Liberation, such as when the Louvre’s Jean Jaujard was arrested at gunpoint and an elderly couple was arrested and lynched after their Japanese servant showed himself at a window on the Rue de Rivoli.141
Some former Vichystes were more tragic than contemptible. Placed under house arrest on 19 August, General Charles Brécard, Vichy’s Chancellor of the Légion d’Honneur, was visited by his friend Pastor Marc Boegner. Before being allowed to see Brécard, Boegner was interviewed by interim Chancellor of the Legion d’Honneur, the Resistance General Bloch-Dassault, who remembered Boegner from his time as a Protestant chaplain to the French Vth Corps during the First World War, reeling off names of mutual acquaintances. Bloch-Dassault then told Boegner that, as a former Vichy official, Brécard would face a tribunal. But recognising that Brécard was, at worst, a borderline collabo, Bloch-Dassault wanted to know if Brécard would agree to talk to him. Boegner found it infinitely sad seeing Brécard treated as a traitor when he should have spent his retirement as a decent, uncomplicated old general, fond of horses and racing. After chatting with Boegner, Brécard chose to face the music and speak frankly with Bloch-Dassault.142
CAMPED IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE, the Spaniards of la Nueve were totally uninterested in the épuration (purge) or Laval’s last political manoeuvres. “For us, de Gaulle, Free France, the Resistance, now in triumph; those were the only things that counted,” wrote Dronne.143
The Bois was invaded by Parisians wishing to meet them, and Parisiennes looking for men whose Gaulliste record hopefully fitted the freedom-loving years that lay ahead. One member of la Nueve, picked up by an elegant Parisienne of a certain age, after making love, slept on her bedroom floor using his boots as a pillow; too used to the hard life.144
Leclerc’s warriors were also bemused by aspects of emerging youth culture; Zazous sported whatever extravagant clothes, usually retro, they could find along with long, quaintly arranged hair. While completely uninterested in the war, Zazous liked Jazz and could be friendly and kind unless begging for Camel cigarettes which were included in US ration packs. To one who asked too insistently, one of Dronne’s Spaniards replied, “If you want cigarettes, blondie, join up and you will get them in your rations.” The Zazou’s face turned so sour that three Spaniards dragged him and two others into a half-track and gave them each a military haircut. Released a few minutes later with buzzed hair, they looked mortified.145
During the 2e DB’s rest period, Raymond Dronne drove a Jeep back to the Sarthe where he came from. He wanted to hug his mother for the first time since 1937 and catch up on family news. He also discovered that when Vichy condemned him to death in absentia, a notice was placed outside the mairie in Le Mans. More fascinating was reading the “blue paper” requiring his family to pay the court costs, and discovering that the officer who chaired the tribunal was none other than General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, who now commanded the French First Army.146
29 August 1944
PREMISES USED BY THE OCCUPATION AUTHORITIES were targeted by the US Army. The Soldatenkino (Soldiers’ Cinema), formerly the Cinema Marignan at 27 Avenue des Champs Élysées, was soon under American supervision. The Avenue Kléber’s Hôtel Majestic was soon fitted with an American radio mast to service the US High Command. The city’s excellent hospitals, La Pitié, Lariboisière and Beaujon, quickly became military hospitals. There was also the American Hospital in Neuilly, surrendered to the 2e DB on the 25th.147
Unlike the departing Germans, American GIs were unlikely to speak a second language and were easily impressed. While many happily gave their K-rations, others sold their food expensively. They gambled in the streets, chatted up French girls, chewed gum, drank too much, laughed too loudly and seemed strangers to old world notions of respect and deference. With demand outstripping supply in bars and cafés, and one dollar buying fifty francs, the temptation to raise prices or rip off les boys was understandable.148 Despite witnessing the liberated city’s outpouring of joy merely days before, such practices—mixed with the bitter lees of collaboration—led Ernie Pyle to write cynically, “I am glad you share my rather low opinion of Paris. When I was there I felt as though I were living in a whorehouse, not physically but spiri
tually.”149 But some Americans would always visit Paris for the same things Hemingway came for.
While GIs drank in cafés around the Champs Élysées, Parisians gathered to watch General Norman Cota’s 28th US Infantry Division march from Neuilly to the Place de la Concorde. “Enthused by the power of all this new equipment and by the sporty and practical uniforms of the men, these spectators did not shrink from making the comparison between them and the fatigued soldiers and clapped vehicles of the retreating Wehrmacht that they had seen during the last few weeks in the same place,” wrote Charles Lacretelle.
Accompanied by Girard, Leclerc lunched again at Chez Chauland before joining General de Gaulle on the dais erected on the Place de la Concorde. From there, accompanied by US Generals Bradley, Hodges and Gerow, they would watch the 28th Infantry Division march past.150 With a red keystone emblem as its shoulder patch, the 28th Infantry Division was largely composed of National Guard regiments, some of which pre-dated the American Revolution. Unlike General Barton’s 4th Infantry Division, Norman Cota’s 28th ID had taken no part in D-Day but landed in France on the 22 July. By the time the 2e DB reached Paris the 28th had fought solidly for over four weeks, earning from the Germans the nickname “bloody bucket division” for their doughty conduct.
Their parade from Neuilly to the Arc de Triomphe and then down the Champs Élysées began with Jeeps rolling slowly along in low gear carrying General Norman Cota and his staff. Cota had only been with the 28th ID since 14 August, but on D-Day he became a hero; hence it was fitting that he should lead his men through Paris and be saluted by his friend General Gerow. Behind them were M8 armoured cars from the division’s reconnaissance regiment. Reaching the Place de la Concorde the parade split, half turning north along the Rue de Rivoli while the other half turned south along the Seine’s quayside, reuniting east of the Louvre. Next came the infantrymen of the 110th and 112th Infantry Regiments, marching twenty-four abreast so that their phalanxes stretched the width of the Champs Élysées; the fit, well-fed young men of the New World rescuing the Old.
De Gaulle subsequently insisted that this parade had nothing to do with his régime needing a show of Allied support. While Norman Cota’s men basked in the cheers of Parisians, they were blissfully unaware of the politics behind the piece of theatre in which they were taking part. From there they rejoined the battlefield and cleared the forest of Compiègne. Americans would liberate the Réthondes’ forest clearing where that luxurious wagon-lit had stood, where Marshal Foch humiliated the Germans in 1918 and where Hitler humiliated the French in 1940.
IT TOOK THREE DAYS FOR FIELD MARSHAL MODEL to recognise that Dietrich von Choltitz’s performance fell considerably short of the “last man” defence expected by Hitler. But, when he did, Model demanded an OKW enquiry into von Choltitz’s conduct.151 Otto Abetz helped to mitigate the effects for von Choltitz’s family. “He helped me to his utmost,” von Choltitz testified at Abetz’s post-war trial.152
Provided his family was safe, von Choltitz was philosophical about captivity, writing in his memoirs of the fortitude of German soldiers who became prisoners. After passing through French and American hands he was flown to England and held at Trent Park, an attractive Regency mansion in the Essex countryside once owned by the Sassoon family. Since 1940 it had accommodated important German prisoners of war in considerable comfort. They ate in a formal dining room, and there were well laid out salons where they could sit and converse freely. They were allowed alcoholic drinks, to listen to the radio, and to read newspapers and books. The books had previously belonged to the German Embassy in London and included all genres, beautifully bound. They were waited on, could send out for sundries, and have their uniforms repaired while they lasted, after which, like other POWs in British hands, they wore a chocolate-coloured version of Battledress. “But,” wrote von Choltitz, “in each room they [the British] had installed a microphone.”153
German Jews employed by British Intelligence listened to their conversations on headsets below stairs. When a conversation took an interesting turn it was recorded onto black disc records and transcribed for analysis. The captive “house party” began during 1942 and its first guests were senior officers from Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Hence several inmates already had two years during which to discover microphones before von Choltitz’s arrival, always supposing they ever entertained more than a suspicion.154
By mid-1944 Trent Park’s inmates had separated into cliques, with a distinct anti-Nazi circle established around aristocratic panzer generals like General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, captured at Alamein, and General Friedrich Freiherr von Broich, captured in Tunisia, who had been Claus von Stauffenberg’s CO when he was seriously wounded. Among such men Dietrich von Choltitz could speak candidly.
On 29 August, four days after Lieutenant Karcher rushed up the stairs of the Hôtel Meurice, recordings show von Choltitz describing his interview with Hitler on 7 August: “I saw Hitler four weeks ago when he nabbed me for Paris. … It was shortly after the assassination attempt and he was still rather jaded. … Hitler made me a speech for three quarters of an hour, as though I were a public meeting. … I was almost sorry for him because he looked so horrible.”155
Ritter von Thoma urbanely drew him out.
“I have witnessed some dreadful things,” von Choltitz continued, describing various SS atrocities in Paris which he was unable to control, particularly the murdered French women left naked in one of the city’s prisons, to which he was alerted by the Swiss Consul René Naville.
“Yes,” replied von Thoma. “That is known here. The only consolation for the Army is that the papers here always lay stress on the SS and Gestapo.”156
Then von Choltitz updated von Thoma, von Schlieben and von Sponeck on the fate of their friends following 20 July, estimating that three or four hundred Germans had been executed both officially and otherwise following the failed coup.157
Under von Thoma’s spell, von Choltitz soon admitted involvement in events that undoubtedly marked him down as a potential war criminal.
“The worst job I ever carried out,” said von Choltitz, “which I carried out with great consistency, was the liquidation of the Jews. I carried out this order down to the very last detail.”
“The whole thing is done on Hitler’s orders,” replied von Thoma.158
At the 1994 Colloque about the Liberation of Paris the elderly Henri Rol-Tanguy said, “On the 16 and 21 August [1944] the BBC announced that General von Choltitz’ name was on a list of War Criminals. This is an event of great importance which could not have failed to affect the attitude of the Commander of Gross-Paris.”159 For all his bullishness, here Rol-Tanguy effectively admits facing an opponent hobbled by conscience and remorse.
30–31 August 1944
ON THE MORNING OF 30 AUGUST Leclerc visited General Leonard Gerow to set the record straight over the parade on the 26th. On hearing something of French priorities, presented with that patrician charm which Leclerc could manage when required, translated by Girard, Gerow seemed mollified.
“If I had known I could have organised air cover,” said Gerow, now smiling. “If you had come and seen me as I asked, I could have let you use your whole division for the ceremony.”
Leclerc listened with a bored expression that Girard knew well. Outside Gerow’s office Leclerc told Girard, “It doesn’t make any difference. One can’t discuss matters which have diplomatic implications. General de Gaulle didn’t want the Americans involving themselves. One could hardly tell them that. In such conditions it’s obviously difficult to speak out.”160
Their next stop was the Hospital Val de Grace to visit the 2e DB’s wounded.
“Ah, Girard,” groaned Leclerc, seeing the rows of his wounded soldiers. “Can we really go further? Into Germany?”
Liberating Paris was something of an anti-climax for Leclerc. “The General is going through a period of pessimism,” wrote Girard. “He is disappointed by the French among whom he finds neither verve nor nationa
l pride.”
“They have done nothing, prepared nothing, only thought about getting by,” said Leclerc in one of his flowing discourses.161
Compromise with former Vichy supporters was something Leclerc found exceedingly difficult. As a Gaulliste de la première heure he was always convinced that France’s route to freedom lay in fighting alongside the Allies, even if he did not particularly like les Anglo-Saxons. But if there was anyone Leclerc seriously disliked, it was a “Vichyssois”—said with a deliberate nod to the well-known potato-based soup, Vichyssoise. Yet there were exceptions, like when he was approached by his former comrade from 1930s North African policing operations, Henri Lecomte. Though once they were great friends, enquiries suggested that, since 1940, Lecomte had merely been a wine merchant and, while not actively Vichyssois, he had leant that way. At first Leclerc inclined to send Lecomte packing. But Lecomte pleaded, begging for a chance to expiate his previous indolence by bringing his organisational skills to the 2e DB’s staff. Leclerc agreed.162
Yet, on another issue, Leclerc seems to have taken an opposite standpoint. Visited by Jacques Branet at the La Tour-Maubourg barracks, Leclerc agreed that the 501e RCC should replace its colonel, Louis Warabiot, who was not a Gaulliste de la première heure, with Colonel Émile Cantarel who, while not one either, had joined de Gaulle much earlier, and was also younger and more likely to be respected by a regiment whose character was always Gaulliste. Having failed to get this change from Billotte during early August, Branet wrote with satisfaction, “My walking stick indicated that I had been wounded, and perhaps my wounds giving weight to my requests, I obtained from the General the head of our colonel, and his replacement by Cantarel.”163
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