The Hotel on Place Vendome
Page 25
126 “every weapon imaginable”: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, 139.
126 “Hungarian strategy”: Ibid.
128 “standing by during his crisis”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 178.
128 “relations were somewhat strained”: Ibid.
128 Charles Wertenbaker as part: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, 141.
128 “My own war aim at this moment”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
129 “more than 300 members of the press corps”: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, 139.
129 “we have had very strange life”: Hemingway letters, August 27, 1944, Ernest Hemingway to “Small Friend,” manuscript, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston.
129 Hemingway and his men: See William E. Cote, “Correspondent or Warrior? Hemingway’s Murky World War II ‘Combat’ Experience,” Hemingway Review 22, no. 1 (Fall 2002).
129 Lieutenant Colonel S. L. A. Marshall and Lieutenant John Westover: See OSS Against the Reich: The World War Two Diaries of Colonel David K. E. Bruce, ed. Nelson Douglas Lankford (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1991).
130 “Hey, Jean-Marie”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
130 As Jean-Marie told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter: Ibid.
130 “spitting short sentences”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 179.
131 “went out to harass the remaining Germans”: Ibid., 172.
131 “From beneath the Big Dipper”: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, 144.
132 “So, we’re in this camp”: “The Liberation of Paris, August 1944: A Photographer’s Story,” Life, http://life.time.com/history/paris-liberated-rare-unpublished/#ixzz20hVX4nNZ.
132 “I had bicycled through this area”: Stephen E. Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches, to the Bulge, to the Surrender of Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002).
132 “to get into Paris before U.S. troops headed in”: “The Liberation of Paris, August 1944: A Photographer’s Story,” Life.
132 “Marshall, for God’s sake, have you got a drink?”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
133 “The old boy”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 187.
134 In his memoirs, Capa described: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, 144.
134 “The road to Paris was open”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 187.
134 “the thousands of faces”: Ibid.
134 “Bob Capa and I rode into Paris”: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, 144.
135 “Around the Chamber of Deputies”: Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection, ed. Richard Whelan (London, Phaidon Press, 2004).
135 “wanted to spend my first night”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 188.
135 “ran patrols and furnished gen”: Hemingway letters, August 27, 1944, Ernest Hemingway to “Small Friend,” manuscript, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston.
136 “It’s a wonder he ever got to the Ritz”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
136 Just east of the Place de Étoile: John Follain, “Hemingway Staged Own ‘Liberation’ by Invading Ritz Bar,” Deseret News, August 25, 1944, www.deseretnews.com/article/371853/HEMINGWAY-STAGED-OWN-LIBERATION-BY-INVADING-RITZ-BAR.html?pg=all.
137 “Otherwise everyone would think”: Ibid.
11: Ernest Hemingway and the Ritz Liberated
139 “Charley [Ritz] went with me”: On Hemingway’s unpublished story, set at the Ritz, see Susan F. Beegel, “ ‘A Room on the Garden Side’: Hemingway’s Unpublished Liberation of Paris,” Studies in Short Fiction 31, no. 4 (Fall 1994): 627–37; Files 356a, Hemingway papers, quoted in Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin, Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast: The Making of Myth (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991), 11.
141 “Of course, Mr. Hemingway”: Follain, “Hemingway Staged Own ‘Liberation.’ ”
141 “I’m the one who is going to occupy the Ritz”: Ibid.
141 “He entered like a king”: Ibid.
142 “I had known him when he was seventeen”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
142 Claude always said that the real liberation: Roulet, The Ritz, 147.
142 “Well, go get it!”: Watts, The Ritz, 158.
143 ordered a round of seventy-three martinis: Ibid., 148.
143 “It was incredible, incredible”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
143 Alan Moorehead and Ted Gilling: Watts, The Ritz, 148.
143 Most of the German soldiers who were left: Demonpion, Arletty, 269.
144 “Why should we hide the emotion”: “Charles de Gaulle’s speech at the City Hall of Paris: August 25, 1944,” www.everything2.com/title/Charles+de+Gaulle%2527s+speech+at+the+City+Hall+of+Paris%253A+August+25%252C+1944, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/25/newsid_3520000/3520894.stm.
144 a post-liberation predicament: Steegmuller, Cocteau, 444.
145 “It’s a fine summer night”: A. E. Hotchner, “The Ritz, Then and Now,” New York Times, January 31, 1982, www.nytimes.com/1982/01/31/travel/the-ritz-then-and-now.html.
145 “Sartre joined the resistance”: Riding, And the Show Went On, 309.
146 tricolor and the Stars and Stripes: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, 145.
146 The rue Cambon bar was the chosen watering hole: Roulet, The Ritz, 124.
146 “Marshall and I went down”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
146 “None of us will ever write a line”: Ibid.
147 “Millions to defend France”: Watts, The Ritz, 119–20.
147 “Hemingway’s army”: Here and following from Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 188.
148 Among them were Bob Capa’s friend Charlie Wertenbaker: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
148 “So many people in the streets, holding hands”: Ibid.
149 “I knew I should have walked to Notre Dame”: Welsh, How It Was, 107.
150 “Look,” Simone put it: Follain, “Hemingway Staged Own ‘Liberation.’ ”
12: Those Dame Reporters
151 “I’ve noticed that bombs”: Vaughn, Sleeping with the Enemy, 100.
152 “Have been to all the old places”: Letter, August 27, 1944, Ernest Hemingway to “Small Friend,” manuscript, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston.
153 The French Forces had their pick of a correspondent: Helen Kirkpatrick Milbank, obituary, Independent, January 8, 1998, www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-helen-kirkpatrick-milbank–1137424.html.
153 “was a loose cannon”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
153 “Daughter, sit still and drink this good brandy”: Nancy Caldwell Sorel, The Women Who Wrote the War (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 259.
154 “It’s Hemingway! It’s Hemingway”: Taylor, “Liberating France Hemingway’s Way.”
155 One of the women there with them at Vittel: Records of Vittel internees from the archives of Mémorial de la Shoah Musée, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, especially 411 AP/5; other figures who appear in this book in passing who were also interned at Vittel include Laura Mae Corrigan and Drue Tartière. See also Charles Glass, Americans in Paris: Life & Death Under Nazi Occupation (New York: Penguin, 2010), 253ff. Efforts to cross-reference Sylvia Beach’s allusion to another woman named Sylvia, who lived at the Ritz, was nicknamed the “giraffe,” and was married to a French military officer with Vittel records, have been unsuccessful.
155 Picasso, of course: James Button, “Shooting Picasso,” Age, February 18, 2006, www.theage.com.au/news/arts/shooting-picasso/2006/02/17/1140151813201.html.
156 “the only reporter, and only photographer”: Burke, Lee Miller, 223–24.
156 America’s first use of napalm bombs: My thanks to Alan Marty and Xavier Demange for information on this point.
156 “I won’t be the first woman journalist in Paris”: Burke, Lee Miller, 228.
156 after stopping at the Palais Roya
l to visit Jean Cocteau: Ibid., 230.
156 “This is the first allied soldier I’ve seen, and it’s you!”: Ibid., 231.
157 celebrated the liberation of the city: Ibid.
157 “Dora, for me”: Picasso to André Malraux, in André Malraux, Picasso’s Mask (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1976), 138.
157 Vogue quickly gave its correspondent: Burke, Lee Miller, 232.
157 “almost all located between”: Dominique Veillon, Fashion Under the Occupation, trans. Miriam Kochan (New York: Berg, 2002), viii. Other information on nearby businesses during the occupation drawn from Annuaire almanac du commerce (Paris: Didot Bottin, 1942); and Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce de Paris, Année 1941 (Paris: Hôtel de la Chambre de Commerce, 1941). Information on locations in Paris and street views from archival materials in La Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris, mainly the file series labeled NA IV, NA Album 4, Photo Divers, VII, 119, NA Divers XIV, NA Divers XXXI, 10, NA Divers XIV, NA Divers VI, and NA Album 40.
158 “I walked around”: Welsh, How It Was, 109–10.
159 “with complications”: Ibid., 110.
159 “lane of enchantment”: Ibid.
159 “moving mass of people”: Ibid., 111.
160 “It seemed to come from behind”: Sorel, The Women Who Wrote the War, 259.
161 “a clearly planned attempt”: Helen Kirkpatrick, Chicago Daily News, August 27, 1944.
161 “A beautiful, lone woman”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 145.
161 Her mind on other things, Mary: Welsh, How It Was, 112.
162 “Have a little of this nourishing champagne”: Ibid.
13: The Last Trains from Paris
164 young French lieutenant named Alexandre Rosenberg: Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War (New York: Vintage, 1995), 292.
165 “I am writing this in a train”: Steegmuller, Cocteau, 447.
167 It is impossible that they did not also know: Materials in the Rosenberg Family Archives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, compellingly document the extent of the family’s connections in the modern art world; see www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/paulrosenberg.
169 with the now pro-fascist writer Paul Morand: Steegmuller, Cocteau, 443.
170 Paul Rosenberg’s gallery collections: Rosenberg Family Archives, Museum of Modern Art, indicate holdings by all these artists in the records; see www.moma.org/learn/resources/archives/EAD/PaulRosenbergf.
170 The exhibition catalog: Exposition Arno Breker: á l’Orangerie: 15 Mai–31 Juillet (Paris: n.p., 1942).
171 modern works of art found their way: On the Swiss art market, see Paul Rosenberg, “French Artists and the War,” Art in Australia 4, no. 4 (December–February 1941–42); and Jonathan Petropoulos, “Co-Opting Nazi Germany: Neutrality in Europe During World War II,” Dimensions: A Journal of Holocaust Studies 11, no. 1 (1997), http://archive.adl.org/Braun/dim_14_1_neutrality_europe.asp.
14: Coco’s War and Other Dirty Linen
175 “The food was done”: Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, 189.
176 “most unforgettable day plus seven was the bluest”: Ibid.
176 “The city had gone crazy with rejoicing”: Welsh, How It Was, 109.
176 “American officers having lunch with whores”: Beevor, “An Ugly Carnival.”
176 Venereal diseases, the pamphlet warned: Beevor, Paris, 123.
177 Even the prostitutes recalled: Matthew Moore, “French Brothels ‘Flourished During the Nazi Occupation,’ ” Telegraph, Mary 1, 2009, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/5256504/French-brothels-flourished-during-the-Nazi-occupation.html.
177 “The great joy that one should feel”: Frederic Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 230.
178 photographs of Marlene Dietrich: Burke, Lee Miller, 235. The sources are conflicting on these dates: Lee Miller left Paris in mid-September and Marlene Dietrich arrived at nearly the same time, so the dates of the crossover must have been short; ibid., 228.
178 “The wife of Steve Passeur”: Veillon, Fashion Under the Occupation, 118.
178 “daughter of Pierre Laval, Josée de Chambrun”: Ibid., 118. The identification as George Dubonnet is likely an error. There were two branches of the Dubonnet family in Paris and at the hotel during the occupation. One family—Ruth and André Dubonnet—were fascist sympathizers who spent the occupation in the capital. The other was the family of Paul and Jean Dubonnet, who are listed, with small daughter (Anne) and their Scottish nanny, Catherine Cameron (b. 1895), briefly on the Hôtel Ritz registers early in the war during 1941. My thanks to Anne Dubonnet Shiao for her extensive interview and to Alan Marty for some of the additional information related to this subject.
179 Coco Chanel had closed her atelier in 1940: Picardie, Coco Chanel, 246.
179 Coco Chanel had spent much of the war: Bruno Abescat and Yves Stavridès, “Derrière l’Empire Chanel . . . la Fabuleuse Histoire des Wertheimer,” L’Express, April 7, 2005, 16–30; July 11, 2005, 84–88; July 18, 2005, 82–86; July 25, 2005, 76–80; August 1, 2005, 74–78; August 8, 2005, 80–84, part 1, 29.
180 “watched an open lorry drive past”: Beevor, “An Ugly Carnival.”
180 German men, some estimates suggest, fathered: Ibid.
180 “It is cruel and unnecessary”: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, 142.
181 Armed men had hauled him off: Demonpion, Arletty, 266.
181 “five horrifying days”: Paul Webster, “The Vichy Policy on Jewish Deportation,” February 17, 2011, BBC History, www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/jewish_deportation01.shtml; Adrian Gilbert, “Vél d’Hiv, Paris 1942: ‘These Black Hours Will Stain Our History Forever,’ ” Guardian, July 22, 2011, www.guardian.co.uk/sarahs-key/vel-dhiv-paris–1942-world-war-two-adrian-gilbert.
181 “The truth,” historians remind us: Jon Henley, “Letters from Drancy,” Guardian, July 18, 2002, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/18/worlddispatch.jonhenley.
182 “I refuse the package”: Arletty, La Défense, 159.
183 Germaine Lubin: Ibid. Here and following quotes from ibid., 158–69.
183 They came for Jean Cocteau: His arrest was on November 23, 1944. He was ultimately acquitted.
185 “all available evidence”: Quoted in Vaughn, Sleeping with the Enemy, 149.
185 “she paid the hotel to build a low flight”: Madsen, Chanel, 159.
185 He and Coco probably first met: Ibid., 230.
186 “She never appeared anywhere”: Marx, Queen of the Ritz, 174.
186 Some still say that she was a spy for the Nazi powers: For example, Vaughn, Sleeping with the Enemy.
187 He was a known German operative and possibly: Picardie, Coco Chanel, 241.
187 Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage was: See Laurence Pellegrini, “La séduction comme couverture: L’agent secret Hans-Gunther von Dincklage en France,” www.dokumente-documents.info/uploads/tx_ewsdokumente/Seiten_74-76_Pellegrini_Dincklage.pdf.
188 In fact, Coco reputedly knew: Vaughn, Sleeping with the Enemy, 98.
188 Even from their island retreat: Bloch, The Duke of Windsor’s War, 355.
189 According to Hans von Dincklage: Vaughn, Sleeping with the Enemy, 164.
189 Admiral Canaris had run von Dincklage: Ibid., 75, 178; see also Picardie, Coco Chanel, 240ff.
190 she gave a young German-speaking American soldier: Madsen, Chanel, 264–65; quoted in Mazzeo, The Secret of Chanel No. 5, 158.
190 “By one of those majestically simple”: Madsen, Chanel, 263; quoted in Mazzeo, The Secret of Chanel No. 5, 161.
190 Serge Lifar: Vaughn, Sleeping with the Enemy, 182.
190 she quipped sarcastically: Madsen, Chanel, 262; quoted in Mazzeo, The Secret of Chanel No. 5, 159.
191 “assuring her of support and friendship”: Roulet, The Ritz, 115.
191 The files in the
French justice department: Vaughn, Sleeping with the Enemy, 193.
191 the Americans and British alike: Churchill Archives, University of Cambridge, CHAR 20/198A.
15: The Blonde Bombshell and the Nuclear Scientists
195 “Might not a bomb”: Winston Churchill, “Shall We All Commit Suicide,” Pall Mall, September 1924; reprinted in Winston Churchill, Thoughts and Adventures (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1932), 250.
195 Marie-Louise Ritz: Marx, Queen of the Ritz, 195.
197 Fred Wardenburg never planned: My thanks to Sylvia Crouter for sharing details on this family history and for sharing a family essay on the topic by Andrew Tolan, April 10, 2000, “ALSOS: Defusing the Nazi Bomb Program,” unpublished manuscript. As Andrew Tolan notes, the other relevant sources, to which I am indebted in my research, include Samuel A. Goudsmit, ALSOS, intro. David Cassidy (New York: Henry Schuman, 1947); Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told (New York: Harper, 1962); and Robert Thomas, “Frederic Wardenburg 3d Dies, War Hero and Executive, 92,” New York Times, August 17, 1997, A8, www.nytimes.com/1997/08/17/us/frederic-a-c-wardenburg-3d-92-war-hero.html?_r=1.
197 “In no other type of warfare”: “Report of the Committee on Political and Social Problems: Manhattan Project, ‘Metallurgical Laboratory,’ University of Chicago, June 11, 1945” (Franck Report), U.S. National Archives, Washington, D.C., Record Group 77, Manhattan Engineer District Records, Harrison-Bundy File, folder 76, www.dannen.com/decision/franck.html.
199 “the pope of my personal church”: Welsh, How It Was, 127.
199 “Papa,” she would tell him: Ibid.
200 venomous, nasty little “cobra”: Moorehead, Martha Gellhorn, 296.
200 “sick with rage”: Ibid., 290.
200 “There was always the impression”: Donald Spoto, Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000), 197.
201 Early in the war the Germans: Goudsmit, ALSOS, xiv, xvii, 5.
201 He used his scientific know-how: Ibid., 10, 35.
202 Wolfgang Gentner: According to Goudsmit, ALSOS, 35, Gentner was in Paris from 1940 until mid-1942; he was replaced by Wolfgang Riezler.