Paris '44: The City of Light Redeemed
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When Otto Abetz was put on trial in 1949, von Choltitz appeared as a defence witness. Lawyers were now well familiarised with the épuration’s tribunals in Nanterre. But in Abetz’s case the facets of French life in which he involved himself were so numerous, creating voluminous paperwork, that the tribunal was swamped. Thus, despite the fact that Abetz had been held in French prisons for three years, the case against him was ill-prepared. As the post-war French economy revived, ambitious French lawyers became less interested in state prosecution work, especially if it was complex. Abetz’s prosecutor was a young captain from the army’s legal service, who was out of his depth and tried to hide his inexperience behind an air of dilettantism. Contrastingly, Abetz had an experienced and sophisticated barrister who relished fighting a difficult case.41 His role in the deportation of Jews and the cynical negotiations to return Georges Mandel to France so the Milice could murder him were hugely to Abetz’s detriment. To counter this problem, his counsel played the Paris card for all it was worth.
In his statement, von Choltitz claimed that Abetz vehemently advised him against carrying out Hitler’s destruction order. Once von Choltitz began disobeying Hitler, Abetz protected him by raising fake protests against the brutal conduct of Wehrmacht forces commanded by von Choltitz, saying that he personally ordered the torching of the Grand Palais to punish the French police, thereby giving the impression that von Choltitz was a ganzharter, in order to save his family from repercussions under Sippenhaft. This bought time for von Choltitz, enabling him to delay carrying out Hitler’s destruction order until it was too late anyway.42 Spared the death penalty, Abetz was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment. Further depositions reduced this to fifteen years’ hard labour, but a petition, whose signatures included von Choltitz and Ernst Junger, effected Abetz’s release in 1954.43
On the afternoon of 25 August 1944, something about von Choltitz impressed Billotte, making him write, “Choltitz had de la tradition.” Writing in the early 1970s, Billotte continued, “If Paris was not destroyed it is also thanks to decisions taken by enemy personnel such as Dietrich von Choltitz, without forgetting the philosopher General Hans Speidel, Rommel’s former chief of staff. By chance, Speidel was then chief of staff to Field Marshal Model. He reassured von Choltitz in his conduct and it seems that he detoured to the lower Seine all or some of the divisions that the Wehrmacht sent to reinforce Paris. In doing this, this German patriot in no way betrayed the interests of his country. The actions of these divisions on the lower Seine were just as obstructive to the Allied offensive as if they had been in Paris. But even if it has never been sworn to me, I remain convinced that this civilised man, choosing between two manoeuvres of equal military value, chose the one that spared ‘the City of Light’.”44
Billotte later claims that his efforts to get von Choltitz released in 1947 contributed to his social ostracism when he returned to West Germany and his inability to get more than a modest job in recruitment.45 Since many German gentlefolk, whose family property fell behind the Iron Curtain in 1945, struggled to regain their former status in West Germany, von Choltitz’s post-war misfortunes were unremarkable. Billotte continues, “This professional soldier of the Reichswehr respected military tradition, the rules of war, and the natural rights of men and women subjected to conflict. Nor was he without culture, and his sensitivity to Paris, which he regarded as a treasure of humanity and masterpiece created over centuries, was real. This soldier put the principles of morality which he had forged within himself above the duty to obey orders he regarded as immoral. Before he was a soldier, von Choltitz was a man. It is truly sad that more of Hitler’s generals did not practice the same ethics; Nuremberg would not have had to deal with the criminals among them.”46 It is clear from these words that Billotte liked von Choltitz. Nevertheless Billotte qualifies this viewpoint, rejecting von Choltitz’s attempt to establish that Paris’ survival was entirely attributable to him. “Contrary to certain excessive passages in his memoirs, Paris does not owe him everything, but it owes him a lot.”47 Billotte ended the war with enough prestige to give a “serene judgement” of von Choltitz, which was to regard him as an honourable soldier.48 From the Vichy side, Pierre Taittinger, who was banned from taking part in post-war public life, wrote, “Von Choltitz made me a promise. He kept it.”49
“QUI EST DONC LE HÉROS?”—“Who, then, is the hero?” French civic society takes this question immensely seriously. Street names are changed with greater frequency than in most countries, depending on which new great ones require honouring. The Second World War naturally provided a new, complicated and fascinating generation of men and women needing recognition. Though which type of heroes received a road, avenue or town square named after them would depend on which political party controlled a town. Among the Resistance, men like Jean Moulin and Alexandre Parodi do well. Fittingly, as a keen rugby player, Jacques Chaban-Delmas has a stadium named for him. The “Gentleman of Paris”, Raoul Nordling, has his Avenue du Consul Général Nordling. But FTP leaders like Charles Tillon and Henri Rol-Tanguy are less lucky. For the Free French, Charles de Gaulle comes out on top with the Étoile and even an aircraft carrier named after him.
But if one wants to see who the French, and Parisians in particular, really regard as the heroes of 1944, among the pale stone plaques and street names the 2e DB seem to do best. The Avenue de la Libération is named after GT Billotte’s route into the city. While around the old Gare Montparnasse—which has become the long-named Mémorial du Maréchal Leclerc et de la Libération de Paris, Musée Jean Moulin, Ville de Paris—several 2e DB officers, including Jacques de Guillebon and Raymond Dronne, have small roads named after them.
After the European war ended, General Leclerc was sent out to the Far East, firstly to represent France at the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, then to reassert French authority in Indo-China after the Japanese Occupation. Although successful in the southern half of the country, Leclerc began to recognise over the next two years that only a negotiated political settlement could bring peace to the region. “Negotiate, negotiate at all costs,” he told Émile Bollaert during early 1947.
Leclerc’s next appointment was as Inspector General of French Forces in French North Africa, an appointment first created for Marshal Lyautey. Leclerc’s rank now entitled him to a personal aircraft. Surplus American machines were plentiful in Western Europe and the Mediterranean in 1945, and a B-25 Mitchell medium bomber was converted for his use, given the name Tailly II, and painted with the divisional badge of the 2e DB. But Tailly II had not been converted according to its North American manufacturer’s guidelines. It had also taken quite a beating during Leclerc’s last fact-finding mission to Indo-China for Leon Blum, sustaining several bullet holes, and, by November 1947, needed a comprehensive service.
The winter of 1947–1948 was one of the coldest on record, and when Leclerc arrived at Villacoublay for his last trip to French North Africa, his take-off was delayed until midday because the engine lubricants had been congealed by the frost. Once airborne, Leclerc’s flight was uneventful. His inspections went well, many colons proudly turning out to meet the Liberator of Paris. But on his flight inland to Colomb-Béchar, amid a thickening sandstorm, tragedy struck. While local dignitaries gathered on Colomb-Béchar’s camel square to welcome him, there was a crisis aboard Tailly II. Her pilot, Francois Delluc, clearly tried to make a crash-landing alongside the Mediterranean-Niger railway but, as he tried to put her down, Tailly II exploded, killing everyone aboard instantly, throwing aircraft parts and human remains over a wide area.
France came to an immediate halt. For the comparatively new president, Vincent Auriol, trying to keep his government on track in the face of frequent resignations, Leclerc’s death was the last thing he needed. De Gaulle was deeply upset, quickly visiting Thérèse and the children. As he left the Leclerc apartment on Avenue Kléber, the Constable was so overcome with grief that he needed his wife to help him down the stairs. The bodies
of Leclerc and everyone else aboard Tailly II were brought back across the Mediterranean aboard the Émile Bertin and greeted at Toulon by a RBFM honour guard commanded by Philippe de Gaulle and sombrely escorted to Paris.
As de Gaulle predicted, Auriol’s government honoured Leclerc with a state funeral in Notre Dame, finally allowing Cardinal Suhard the opportunity to conduct such an event for someone who deserved it. “All Leclerc’s boys are pouring into town,” wrote English novelist Nancy Mitford. Before the funeral the crash victims, all draped with Tricolores, and Leclerc’s coffin aboard the self-propelled 105mm gun Alsace, lay in state at the Étoile for Parisians to pay their respects. Men of the 2e DB formed up in immense phalanxes around veteran officers like Jacques Branet to honour their leader and condole with Thérèse and her children. Modern France has seen few occasions to match it.
Films and photographs show that, during Leclerc’s obsequies, scaffolding stood around much of the Arc de Triomphe. As part of this repair programme François Rude’s Le Départ des Volontaires 1792 was restored. Looking at that magnificent sculpture today one would need an expert mason’s eye to spot where the Panther’s armour piercing shell made its mark. The repairs have had seventy years to weather in. The scars the Occupation inflicted on France’s psyche have taken as long to fade.
* Le Père la Victoire is a long and complex song written during the 1880s when the spirit of révanche imbued French life. The voice of a centenarian calls on younger men to win the glory he can no longer do himself. By 1918 the song was synonymous with Clémenceau. For Churchill to have sung it word perfect to de Gaulle takes some doing. He must have practised at some stage with a gramophone and sheet music.
* According to Leclerc’s granddaughter, Madame Bénédicte Coste, there was no doubt among the 2e DB that they were first to the Eagle’s Nest and that 2e DB tanks subsequently blocked the road.
* In November 1951, four months after Marshal Petain’s death, Maitre Isorni joined several prominent former members of the Vichy establishment, including Pierre Taittinger and General Brécard, in forming a committee dedicated to rehabilitating Pétain’s reputation.
* Bailly’s and Bizien’s memorial plaques and niches are within a row of ten set into the wall of the Jardin des Tuileries, outside the Jeu de Paume, facing onto the west end of the Rue de Rivoli.
Acknowledgements
It seems ages since my first book, a biography of General Leclerc, first came out, written in part as preparation for this, my second book. Paris during the last months of Occupation and the Liberation has been a source of fascination for me since first reading Is Paris Burning? by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre during my late teens. Ever since then I have wanted to know more, to have a fuller, more detailed picture which gave background to names and to understand the emotions and motivations behind the liberation of the most important city in western Europe to be occupied by the Nazis. I hope this book achieves the task I set myself even though various other books on this subject have also appeared recently.
In the first place I should thank both Giles MacDonogh and Martin Windrow for the kind endorsements they have both offered after reading the manuscript. Among my relations my mother, Bea Mortimer-Moore,—to whom this book is dedicated,—has been a kindly rock throughout. My first cousin Rachel Dowding-Roberts read through the manuscript. My accountant and cousin Bertie Garforth-Bles has kept me out of trouble while I wrote. Another cousin, John Bate-Williams, gave me his excellent photograph of the 2e DB memorial at Alençon and, with his son Rory, found me various source books on French AMAZON and Mark Whitcombe, himself an experienced writer, was also helpful. I also owe immense gratitude to Lord Hotham,—whose home served as Leclerc’s divisional HQ before they embarked for France,—who read through the first draft. Madame Benedicte Coste, Leclerc’s excellent grand-daughter, corrected my French and sometimes, worryingly, my English as well and Dr Kate Culley helped me with photograph layout and captions.
At Casemate, who seem to be getting used to me, I would like to thank Steve Smith, Tara Lichtermann and Libby Braden in New York; while in Oxford I would also thank Clare Litt and Mette Bundgaard. Once again Dr Christine Levisse-Touzé and her assistant Cécile Cousseau at the Memorial du Maréchal Leclerc et de la Libération de Paris, Musée Jean Moulin, Ville de Paris were very helpful regarding photographs. Ruth Hoffmann at the Magnum Agency was also helpful; it is not every day that one negotiates to use photographs taken by Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Lastly and mostly I would like to thank my agent Robert Dudley for his patience in putting up with me and guiding this book to its present home.
WIlliam Mortimer-Moore.
Source Notes
Preface
1 De Boissieu, Alain. Pour Combattre avec de Gaulle. Plon 1981. Page 214.
2 Ibid. Pages 214–215.
3 Boissieu. Interview with Jean-Christophe Notin shortly before Boissieu’s death. Notin. Page 227.
4 Boissieu. Page 216.
5 Ibid. Page 217.
6 Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle. The Rebel: 1890–1944. Collins Harvill. 1990. Pages 514–515. This conversation was taken down at once by de Gaulle’s staff and appears in the appendices to his Memoires de Guerre. Vol II.
Chapter 1
1 Lottman, Herbert. The Fall of Paris. June 1940. Sinclair-Stevenson. 1992. Page 162.
2 Lacouture. Page 187.
3 Guy, Claude. En écoutant de Gaulle. Grasset. 1996. Page 91.
4 Ibid. Page 89.
5 De Gaulle, Charles. Mémoires de Guerre. Plon 1999 Edn. Pages 60–61.
6 Kersaudy, Francois. Churchill and de Gaulle. Fontana 1990. Page 66. & Spears. Vol 2, Page 162.
7 De Gaulle’s ADC, Geoffroy Chaudron de Courcel was standing with de Gaulle at that moment and told French historian Francois Kersaudy that he never heard Churchill say this. De Gaulle himself dismissed the anecdote with “Churchill is a romantic type.” Kersaudy, Churchill and de Gaulle. Page 66.
8 Spears, General Sir Edward. Assignment to Catastrophe. 1954 Vol 2. Pages 218–219.
9 Lottman. The Fall of Paris. June 1940. Page 286.
10 Spears. Vol 2. Page 136.
11 Lottman. The Fall of Paris. June 1940. Pages 297–298.
12 Lottman. Pages 299–300.
13 Lottman. Pages 300–301 & Bullitt, William C. For the President. Vol 2.
14 Lottman. Pages 335–340.
15 Lehrer, Steven. Wartime Sites in Paris. SFTafel. 2013. Page 28.
16 Kersaudy, François. Churchill and de Gaulle. Fontana 1990. Pages 71–76. & Lacouture, Page 204. Lacouture says that the source of Ybarnegaray’s quote was Sir Edward Spears and that it was hearsay.
17 De Gaulle, Charles. Mémoires de Guerre. Plon 1999 Edn. Page 73.
18 Ibid.
19 Amouroux, Henri. Le Peuple du Désastre. Laffont 1976. Page 353.
20 De Gaulle, Charles. Mémoires de Guerre. Page 75. Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle. The Rebel. Pages 211–212. & De Gaulle/Tauriac. De Gaulle, Mon Père. Vol 1. Pages 115–120.
21 Lacouture, Jean. De Gaulle. The Rebel. Page 212. Quotes from Lacouture’s interviews with Courcel and Malraux.
22 Lacouture. Pages 221–222.
23 CAB 65/7, WM 171 (40) 11, 18/6/40
24 Lacouture. Page 223.
25 Moisson, Pascale. Anecdotes sous la botte. L’Harmattan 1998. Page 14.
26 Boissieu, Alain de. Pour Combattre avec de Gaulle. Plon 1999. Page 56.
27 Branet, Jacques. L’Escadron. Flammarion 1968. Page 56.
28 Gribius, André. La vie d’un officier. Éditions France Empire 1971. Page 47.
29 For fuller information on this aspect see Free France’s Lion by William Mortimer-Moore.
30 Guitry, Sacha. Quatre Ans d’Occupations. Éditions de l’Élan. 1947. Pages 103 and 255–256.
31 Taittinger, Pierre. … et Paris ne fut pas détruit Nouvelles Éditions Latines. 1956. Pages 23–26.
32 Gilles, Christian. Arletty ou la liberté d’être. L’Harmattan. 1988. (Re-issued
2000). Pages 38–39.
33 Pryce-Jones. David. Paris in the Third Reich. Collins. 1981. Pages 69–70.
34 Jackson, Julian. France—The Dark Years. Oxford UP. 2001. Page 275.
35 Ousby, Ian. Occupation. The Ordeal of France. 1940–1944. John Murray 1997. Pages 208–209.
36 Bourderon, Roger. Rol-Tanguy. Tallandier. Paris. 2004. Pages 151–154.
37 Ibid. Pages 172–173.
38 Mortimer-Moore, William. Free France’s Lion. Casemate 2011. Pages 72–94.
39 Bourderon. Page 175.
40 Kupferman, Fred. Laval 1883–1945. Flammarion 1988. Pages 306–307.
41 Gildea, Robert. Marianne in Chains. Macmillan. 2002. Page 257.
42 Bourderon. Page 187.
43 Ibid. Pages 190–191.
44 Ibid. Pages 192–197.
45 Ibid. Pages 198–201.
46 Ibid. Page 202.
47 Ibid. Pages 203–206.
48 Webster, Paul. Pétain’s Crime. Macmillan. 1990. Page 149.
49 Whitcombe, Mrs G.M.V. née Elisabeth Bles. Conversation with author—October 1992.
50 Feliciano, Hector. The Lost Museum. Basic Books. New York 1995. Pages 49–50.
51 Valland, Rose. Les Carnets de Rose Valland. Fage Éditions 2011. Page 43. & Edsell, Robert. Monuments Men. Preface Publishing 2009. Pages 193–196.
52 Kupferman, Fred. Laval. 1883–1945. Flammarion 1988. Page 327.
53 Ibid. Pages 337–338.
54 Billotte. Pierre. Le Temps des Armes. Plon. 1972. Page 237.
55 Billotte. Page 239.
56 For a full account of this episode, read Colin Smith’s excellent Fighting Vichy–England’s Last War with France. Weidenfeld 2010.
57 Levisse-Touzé, Christine. L’Afrique du Nord dans la guerre. Albin Michel. 1998. Pages 276–277. & Beevor, Antony. The Second World War. Weidenfeld 2012. Pages 394–395. & Atkinson, Rick. An Army at Dawn. Little Brown. 2003. Pages 251–253. There is even a story that Darlan was murdered by a British agent sent by Ian Fleming!