Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

  As Sainteny left Paris, Chaban was in Le Mans, preparing to return to the capital with bad news. On his way back from London, he had been taken to meet General Gerow, one of Patton’s immediate subordinates, just behind the front line of the Allied advance. Gerow told Chaban in no uncertain terms that the Allies had no immediate plans to liberate Paris. Instead, they were going to go around it. The military logic was impeccable – indeed, the Germans were not expecting an all-out assault, but rather some kind of slow siege following encirclement.18 From a strictly military point of view, the city of Paris had no strategic value, and the 20,000 German soldiers garrisoned there represented no particular threat to the massive Allied armies. However, if the city were to become an Allied responsibility, that could have major consequences for the war. As General Omar Bradley put it some years later: ‘I feared that the liberation of Paris might cause our supply line to snap. Each ton that went into that city meant one less for the Front, and G-5 of Army Group had estimated the Parisians would require an initial 4,000 tons per day. If Paris could pull in its belt and live with the Germans a little longer, each 4,000 tons we saved would mean gasoline enough for a three days’ motor march toward the German border.’19

  Chaban had spent much of his time in London preoccupied by the situation in Warsaw, where the Polish uprising was struggling against massive German forces. He decided that if the Allies would not change their plans and head for Paris quickly, he would have to ensure that the Resistance did not take action until the time was right. Early in the morning, Chaban got on a bicycle and left Allied headquarters at Connerré, just to the north-east of Le Mans. He would have to pedal nearly 200 kilometres to Paris. As ‘cover’, his luggage rack carried a tennis racket and a pannier containing a chicken and a cauliflower – just the kind of thing your average man would be taking through enemy lines. As an exhausted Chaban pedalled into the capital, very late in the evening, the thunderstorm that had been threatening all day finally broke, soaking him thoroughly.

  Earlier in the day, the three members of COMAC, the military leadership of the Resistance, decided to call on the population to rebel against the crumbling edifice of occupation. In the COMAC meeting, General Ely, Chaban’s deputy, reiterated the traditional fear of the Free French: premature action could lead to a massacre. Every day this argument was repeated, and every day it had the same motivation: genuine concern for the civilian population but, more fundamentally, a fear that a popular uprising could lead to a rather different outcome from that desired by Algiers. Whatever the case, the Free French felt that the Parisians ought simply to wait to be liberated, either by the Allies or by the Free French.

  But in this latest round of the dispute, things shifted as General Ely told the meeting that when he had led the Resistance in Grenoble, he had found that the best reaction to German reprisals was an even more vigorous counter-response. Ely had inadvertently accepted the notion that the Resistance could fight and win, and not merely be passive. Valrimont added to the combative atmosphere by asking London to broadcast a text which indicated that COMAC would not be intimidated by the inhumane treatment of French prisoners by the Germans, and that the Resistance would meet ferocity with ferocity and could even surpass the enemy in barbarity.20

  For the moment this was mere talk. The Resistance had nowhere near enough weapons to make the kind of aggressive response advocated by Ely and Valrimont. Indeed, earlier that morning, a group of Front National fighters had attempted to take over the Santé prison; they had failed simply because the commanding officer of the guards had brandished a pistol.21 Nevertheless, the Parisian population outnumbered the German garrison by 200 to 1, and there were now as many striking policemen as there were German soldiers. It was not absurd to suggest that the tables could be turned, in particular if there were weapons to arm those who wanted to fight. In this context, Ely eventually agreed that COMAC should send a message to General Koenig calling for weapons to be sent urgently to the Paris region before the presence of German troops near the drop sites to the east of the capital made it impossible. Ely may have regretted his earlier enthusiasm for the idea that the Resistance should fight. The fact that it took some argument for him to agree to contact Koenig showed once again the ingrained Free French hostility to independent action by the Resistance.

  *

  Late in the evening, Field Marshal von Kluge had a long conversation with his chief of staff, General Blumentritt. Blumentritt begged von Kluge to convince Berlin to allow the German Western Front commanders to deal with the Allied offensive in any way they saw fit, including retreat: ‘The whole apparatus of control is breaking down. Now that the enemy is getting nearer – their probing operations have got as far as Rambouillet – it might become one of great urgency. The communications system will break down all over our area. We must have a free hand, for at Chartres and at Rambouillet strong enemy forces are pressing on and reconnaissance tanks have been reported outside Versailles.’22 But von Kluge did not ask Berlin for ‘a free hand’ or anything like it. The best he did was to order the Panzer Lehr Division, which had been able to escape from the Falaise pocket two days earlier, to withdraw from the front in order to recover and prepare for a future offensive.23 Part of the division crossed the Seine near Fontainebleau, forming a potential defence to the south of Paris, while another group drove through Paris towards the north-east suburbs, where about 1000 fighting men, 20 tanks, four artillery batteries, an anti-aircraft battery, 100 half-tracks and 100 other vehicles were gathered.24 These were forces that von Choltitz could call upon, if necessary – he had just doubled the number of tanks he had available.

  In Berlin, the reality of the Allied offensive in the south of France slowly seeped over Hitler and the High Command, but the outcome was yet another display of incoherence at the very top. In the afternoon, all non-operational units in the south of France were ordered to withdraw to the east of a line running more or less north–south from Orléans to Montpellier. However, within a few hours the Führer finally conceded that the Allied invasion forces represented a substantial threat, and the order was changed, and all units in the south, with the exception of those in Toulon and Marseilles, were ordered to withdraw to the area of Dijon. The Germans were effectively abandoning all but the north-east quarter of France, leaving Paris on the front line.

  Inside the capital, the Germans were preparing for a siege. As the evacuation of non-combatant personnel proceeded, von Choltitz finally decided to evacuate the administration in two phases, leaving behind only essential forces to defend the city. In the meantime, all Germans living in hotels or requisitioned accommodation were ordered to gather at the Hôtel Majestic, headquarters of the military administration, which had its defences reinforced.25 Similar moves were taking place around the Senate building, where the Germans placed motorised guns, protected by anti-tank defences and barbed-wire entanglements.

  Von Choltitz also had to decide how to deal with growing unrest from the Resistance. Over the previous couple of days, posters produced by the Front National had appeared all over the city calling for a ‘general mobilisation’ of all officers and instructing all able-bodied Parisians to join either the FFI or the patriotic militias.26 The response of the German commander was frankly bizarre: instead of telling his men to rip down the posters or paint over them, he apparently ordered his printers to reproduce the poster, but with a red strip printed diagonally across the middle of the poster, which read ‘We are warning you! Think of the fate of Paris’ and was signed ‘Der Wehrmachtbefehlshaber von Paris’ (The Army Commander of Paris). Who pasted up this modified poster is uncertain – it may even have been German troops. Von Choltitz obviously thought this was a great move, as he boasted about it the next day to Field Marshal Model.27 However, although the modified poster was presumably intended to be threatening, it mainly seems to have aroused perplexity.28 It could be taken to suggest that the struggle between the Resistance and the Germans might be fought with paper and glue, rather than bullets. And wi
thout any clear menace, it could also be dismissed as an empty threat.29

  With all these signs of retreat and vacillation at the top, at least one German official showed signs of cracking. A leading SS general contacted the Free French in Paris and offered ‘a service’ of unknown nature, in return for various guarantees. Parodi rejected this proposal, the details of which are still obscure, and was backed by both COMAC and Algiers.30 Hoping to encourage precisely these kind of doubts among rank-and-file German soldiers, the OSS section in Le Mans prepared leaflets, purporting to be signed by Rommel, which said that the German cause was lost and which advised soldiers to surrender. Copies of the leaflets were taken into Paris by ‘an agent’, and 9th Tactical Air Command agreed they would also drop the leaflets onto enemy troops.31 However, despite the low morale of many German troops, there were no reports of mass surrenders.

  *

  All over Paris, there was traffic madness as Germans and collaborators fled, using whatever means of transport they could commandeer. On the boulevard Saint-Germain, Odette Lainville saw German soldiers requisitioning anything on wheels, stopping the vehicle then telling the driver where to drive it. The pavements were clogged with streams of pedestrians, while the Germans pursued their endless evacuation – hundreds of vehicles rumbled continuously towards the east and apparent safety.32 On the boulevard Raspail, Andrzej Bobkowski stared in amazement as he saw soldiers loading up a lorry: ‘I couldn’t take my eyes off the scene; they were running around in shirt-sleeves, panting, covered in sweat, and they are loading up . . . bedside tables. What the devil will they do with them all? And then I whispered to myself: “They are fleeing.” I was so excited.’33

  After seeing the unusual sight of a German policeman directing the traffic at the place de l’Opéra, Madame Lainville wrote in her diary: ‘Where are we? In Hunland? No: the gentle sky of France is still there above me, above Paris, and the breeze that blows smells of hope.’34 As a sign of that hope, Odette bought two small brooches that had been quickly put together by some enterprising folk and which bore three flags – French, British and American. Even in the midst of turmoil and uncertainty, there was still a quick franc to be made. ‘I bought one for each of the girls,’ Odette wrote in her diary, ‘but advised them not to wear them until the Allies arrive.’35

  Many of the Germans were pleased to be leaving Paris. Young Micheline Bood walked past a garage where members of the German transport police were based. The men were completely drunk, very happy, and had been giving away coal to passing Parisians. In her diary, Micheline described the chaotic mess of luggage, cars, lorries and buses that filled the streets, and rejoiced at what it meant: ‘For four years, we have been waiting for this moment! . . . If we had known it would take four years to come, would we have had the courage to live and to wait? We are all exhausted. But can we be sure that the French people won’t forget the shootings of innocent people, the mass arrests, the children burnt with their mothers in churches, the theft, the pillage, the banditry of the Nazi clique? I hope that after all that, we won’t say, “They were all right, really!”’36 Sometimes, the departure was precipitous: Dr Reichl of the Paris command was dining with his French secretary; towards the end of the meal she went to the toilet, but when she returned she found he had left, having been ordered to pack his bags and leave.37

  As the German occupation of Paris began to collapse, Laval had to finally face reality: his time in government was coming to an end. He summoned his press secretary, Alex Delpeyrou, and had a frank conversation with him. Delpeyrou told him: ‘Tomorrow you will be the most unpopular man in France.’ Laval took the punch, but then began ranting about how Stalin was preparing to crush the whole of Europe, and that France would face years of misery. He concluded with a typical piece of self-justification – ‘The Occupier did not allow me to have my own political positions!’ For Laval, everything was the fault of the fascists like Déat, Doriot and the others who, he claimed, had caused more harm to France than the Resistance; he was blameless, his hands had been tied and everyone else was responsible.

  Presumably not for the first time, Delpeyrou swallowed this guff and could not hold back his tears as the two men shook hands for the last time.38 Afterwards, Laval recorded a radio broadcast to the French people giving his analysis of the political and military situation. According to his close colleague, Georges Brécard, Laval seemed as though he was paralysed, his voice dull and low. When he eventually finished, after a number of retakes, ‘he stood up without a word and walked into his office with his shoulders hunched and his back bent, as if he foresaw his fate.’39

  Laval’s world really began to disintegrate later that evening, when the scheming around Herriot finally fell apart. At around 23:00, as Laval was eating with his family and a colleague, the telephone rang. There was a silence while Laval listened to the voice at the other end of the line, then he said: ‘That’s shameful. I’m coming over.’ He hung up, turned to his wife and said: ‘The Gestapo is at the Hôtel de Ville. They have just arrested Herriot. Abetz gave me his word that Herriot would remain free. I’m going over. I have to be there.’40

  In the Hôtel de Ville the situation was tense. A German SS officer had turned up at the door of Herriot’s apartment stating that he was going to arrest the French politician, but the guards – put there to prevent the Resistance from kidnapping Herriot – refused to let the German in. There was a stand-off while Herriot shouted: ‘I always said you people were pigs . . . You don’t keep your word . . . I will not leave like this!’41 As soon as Laval arrived, he had Ambassador Abetz dragged from his bed and driven over to the Hôtel de Ville to sort things out.42 Abetz explained that the orders had come from Germany, and that while he had supported Laval’s initiative, Himmler was less impressed and had ordered Abetz to abort the whole operation. After several hours of negotiation, and more shouting by Herriot, there was a compromise of sorts: Herriot’s arrest was postponed until the following day.43

  Although many collaborators were preparing to flee with their masters, the weekly anti-Semitic rag Je Suis Partout reappeared for the first time since it had been banned weeks earlier for criticising Laval.44 The collaborationist journalists rejected any suggestion that they would be following the Germans and packing their bags – ‘I have not left Paris and I have no intention of leaving,’ boasted one. The newspaper proclaimed: ‘The next issue of Je Suis Partout will be published on Friday 25 August.’ There was no ‘next issue’.45

  *

  In the morning, in a narrow street just behind the Arc de Triomphe, a group of fifteen young résistants gathered together.46 They were members of two groups – the Jeunes Combattants Chrétiens (JCC – Young Christian Fighters) and the right-wing Organisation Civile et Militaire (OCM). Like all the Resistance groups, they were frustrated by the lack of arms, but a few days earlier they had learnt through a priest, Abbé Borme, that a member of the British Intelligence Service (‘Captain Jack’) was able to supply them with weapons. Abbé Borme had given the same tip to three other Resistance groups: another OCM section, led by Guy Hémery, and two regional Resistance groups from Chelles, fifteen kilometres to the east of Paris – one FTP, led by 22-year-old Jacques Schlosser, and the other FFI, led by Jean Favé and the 28-year-old Dr Henri Blanchet. All five groups were going to share the treasure.

  The pick-up had initially been planned for 15 August, but it had to be postponed until the following day. On the second attempt, things began to go wrong from the outset. The OCM were to provide a lorry that would take the young résistants to a garage near Porte Maillot, on the north-western edge of the city, and the weapons would then be transported to a safe house in the eastern suburbs. But the OCM lorry had a puncture, so JCC leader Michelle Boursier, a law student, was sent on her bicycle to Porte Maillot to let Captain Jack know of the delay. The Intelligence Service agent, who was tall and thin with clear blue eyes behind a large pair of glasses, spoke with a slight foreign accent. He reassured Michelle that they would still be ab
le to transport the weapons, gesturing to three lorries parked nearby. Relieved, Michelle pedalled back with the good news, and the rest of the group quickly made their way to Porte Maillot. When they got there, the captain told them to get into the lorries, which started up and then drove for five minutes before stopping unexpectedly. There was a pause, then there were shouts in German: ‘Raus! Raus!’ (‘Out!’) A few of the résistants were armed, and there was a brief firefight before the young French men and women bowed to the inevitable. They were caught in a terrible trap.

  The Germans herded the résistants back into the lorries and drove them off to the Gestapo headquarters on the rue des Saussaies, which was in turmoil as the Germans prepared to evacuate. Suzanne Chocarne, who lived opposite, saw ‘two lines of cars and lorries parked on the pavements. In the tight space in the middle of the road there is a traffic jam of vehicles going in the opposite direction . . . everywhere there is hoarse and angry shouting.’47 Micheline Bood, who lived nearby, went down to the Gestapo headquarters out of curiosity. The Germans, like their Milice henchmen, were in a state of frenzy, carting off goods such as champagne and stockings, while at the same time trying to control the traffic and avoid being left behind. She saw a pink-shirted French milicien grab a protesting Frenchman by the scruff of the neck and frogmarch him into the Gestapo offices. After a minute the man in the pink shirt came out and crowed: ‘He had a revolver. He has been shot.’48

  The résistants caught in the Captain Jack trap were taken through this maelstrom of noise and intimidation into the courtyard of the Gestapo building, where they were interrogated one by one, and made to stand until late into the evening. Michelle Boursier was treated differently – she was beaten, hauled up to the fifth floor and locked in a cell before eventually being released with no explanation. The courtyard was empty. ‘What have you done with my comrades?’ Michelle asked a German guard. ‘We’re keeping them,’ was the reply.49