Eleven Days in August
Page 25
And with that General Patton opened a bottle of champagne and the two men drank and chatted for ten minutes; Gallois still did not know the American’s identity. At around 01:30, Gallois climbed into a staff car and disappeared into the night, on his way to see General Leclerc.87
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The ease with which Gallois had passed through the German lines showed the Americans that the German forces to the south and west of Paris were extremely weak. They were not the only ones to make this observation. Early in the morning Daniel Boisdon left his apartment on the boulevard Saint-Germain and pedalled off southwards, with his old army officer’s jacket in his rucksack. Hoping he would meet American soldiers, he went prepared to impress them. Boisdon had assumed that what the cease-fire had called the ‘total evacuation’ by the Germans was imminent, so he was disappointed to note that there were no signs of the Germans leaving. He rode on but could get no further south than Longjumeau, about twelve kilometres from the edge of Paris, where German sentries fired warning shots from their machine guns. When he returned home in the afternoon, he wrote in his diary: ‘This zone is still held by the Germans, perhaps not in great numbers, but they remain combative.’88 That evening a more precise analysis was made by FFI intelligence officers, who concluded: ‘The Germans are opposing the American advance with only a thin line of troops. Between this curtain and Paris there is no sign of the presence of any reserve forces.’89
Model began to carry out Hitler’s order to strengthen the defence of Paris, ordering the remnants of the 5th Panzer Army and ‘any able-bodied men’ to fall back to the Paris region to reinforce the remnants of the 1st Army.90 Within a day, all this information, and much more, was available to the Allied Supreme Command through an ULTRA decrypt: one of the decisive breakthroughs of the war was the ability of the Allies to read German messages encoded by the Enigma machines.91 As a result, the Allies knew exactly what was going on around Paris. Even without ULTRA, however, whatever Model did with his armies was more or less irrelevant, as the decisive factor on the Western Front – and, increasingly, in the whole war – was Allied air supremacy. As General von Badinsky admitted a week later: ‘The men have quite lost their nerve. I have seen myself that when an aircraft came over, our men were like frightened rabbits.’92 Although Model had only been on the Western Front for a few days, he had become acutely aware of this problem, so he sent a telex to General Jodl, Hitler’s Chief of Operations Staff, requesting the immediate introduction of a revolutionary secret weapon, the Me 262 jet fighter, in the skies over Paris.93 Model wanted the Me 262, which could far outpace anything on the Allied side, to provide covering fire for Luftwaffe bombing raids, as German planes were unable to operate in daytime without incurring heavy losses. At the same time, Model asked that the number of classic fighter aircraft in the region be increased to 700.
While awaiting a reply, Model sent a message to Berlin explaining how he was implementing Hitler’s orders for Paris. He underlined that the city would need reinforcements if they were to hold the line, and that he was exploring the possibility of a further defensive position to the north-east of the capital. This was not, he emphasised, due to any problems from the Parisians, for he and von Choltitz had taken all necessary measures to stop any trouble in the city. Model said he was confident that the Paris garrison would be able to put down any rebellion.94 Other German officers were unconvinced that simple repression was the answer: General von der Chevallerie of the 1st Army issued an order warning that the uprising in Paris could threaten German lines with attack from the rear if the population was starving; he therefore insisted that food supplies to the capital should be maintained.95 His suggestion made no difference.
Shortly before midnight, Model got his answer from Jodl. It was a ‘no’. The Me 262 was still being tested and was not yet ready for the front, and there were not enough other types of aircraft in production to increase the number of fighters in the Paris region.96 Despite this refusal to provide the men and weapons that were needed, Jodl repeated Hitler’s order to stem the Allied tide at Paris, whatever the cost.97 The reality was that Model, von Choltitz and their men were on their own.
*
That evening in Paris, as the heat of the summer day lingered on, Jean Guéhenno described what so many felt: ‘Liberty is returning. We don’t know where it is, but it is out there all around us in the night. It is coming with the armies. We feel immensely grateful. It is the most profound joy to realise that all that you have thought about people is true. We cannot break our chains alone. But all free men are marching together. They are coming.’98
11
Tuesday 22 August: Barricades
At lunchtime, the BBC broadcasts a report from French journalist Daniel Melville ‘somewhere in France’: ‘The advanced American patrols have reached the Seine. We can see the same river that runs through Paris and this renews the strength of the soldiers who have fought non-stop since the breakout at Cotentin. All our weaponry is involved in this massive race. As we pass through towns and villages, we always hear the same question: “Are the Allies in Paris?” For everyone, the coming liberation of the capital will symbolise the liberation of the whole country. This morning, a peasant said to me as he watched massive lorries full of ammunition thunder past his door: “I think the liberation of Paris will affect me even more than the liberation of my own village, because France will once again have a capital.”’1
For the previous two days, the progress of the Paris insurrection had been disturbed by the cease-fire negotiated by Raoul Nordling and the Free French Delegation. Although the CNR had agreed that the cease-fire would officially end at 16:00 that afternoon, there was a final act to be played out. In the morning, the main representatives of the Resistance met at the Préfecture de Police: the three members of COMAC were there, along with Rol for the FFI and Parodi and Chaban for the Delegation. From the outset, Chaban made clear that the Delegation had changed its position and was prepared to call for the fighting to start immediately, rather than waiting until the late afternoon. He and his colleagues now claimed that the German garrison did not in fact have a large number of tanks, that there were only about 3000 combat troops in the city, and that even though the cease-fire was supposed to run until 16:00, the time had come to start fighting again.2 Trying to reclaim the political high ground, Chaban boldly stated: ‘Up until now, I have played the role of a brake; today I have decided to fight. You must realise that I played my role deliberately and tenaciously. Today I say: we must fight.’ Jean de Vogüé of COMAC replied acerbically: ‘You say you played the role of a brake. Don’t worry, you didn’t have much effect.’3
An order was then issued, written by Rol and signed by Parodi, calling for the immediate renewal of fighting and the building of barricades. The cease-fire was well and truly over, if indeed it ever really existed.
With the whole of the Resistance and the Free French backing an immediate renewal of the fighting, Rol issued posters, declarations and instructions to the FFI and, more importantly, to the whole Parisian population. Calling on Parisians to transform their city into a ‘fortified camp’, Rol outlined the main elements of guerrilla warfare, emphasising the importance of mobility and that territory should not be held at any cost. He even explained how the city’s refuse lorries could be used to attack German blockhouses, by dumping large quantities of rubbish on them, pouring petrol on top, and setting fire to the pile.4 One FFI poster called for the Parisians to attack German soldiers and seize their arms, ending with the words: ‘Everyone get a Hun!’5 Above all, however, Rol’s vision was one of mass involvement of the population in the insurrection through organising the defence of the city in each street and each building. This would allow the best response to the main danger that remained: the firepower of the Germans’ tanks. As he explained in a poster: ‘The whole Parisian population – men, women and children – must build barricades, chop down trees on all the main thoroughfares. Build barricades on the side-roads and make chicanes. To guaran
tee your defence against enemy attack, organise yourselves by street and by building. Under these conditions, the Hun will be isolated and surrounded in a few locations, and will no longer be able to carry out reprisals. EVERYONE TO THE BARRICADES.’6 The vision that the Germans could be defeated if everyone in the city defended their neighbourhoods was not empty rhetoric; faced with a weakened enemy deploying only a few dozen armoured vehicles, hundreds of thousands of Parisians could make it come true.
In many parts of the city, the population needed no encouragement, and men, women and children cheerfully built new barricades to add to those constructed in the previous days. Under the summer sun, plane trees were felled, tarmac was rolled up and the paving stones beneath were pulled up and piled into makeshift barricades.7 Bernard Pierquin wrote in his diary: ‘There are now barricades on each main road: people cut down trees, dig up the paving stones and cover it all with old furniture and scrap metal; everybody in the neighbourhood joins in; it’s a big party. My father has taken his weapons out of their hiding place: pistols and revolvers are checked out and cleaned.’8
The Germans did little to stop the barricades being built. On rue Soufflot, which leads from the Jardin du Luxembourg up to the Panthéon, three men began to lift up the paving stones to make a new barricade; fifty metres away, at the entrance to the Jardin, the German sentries watched impassively.9 Although most of the barricades were built by ordinary Parisians, Rol also requisitioned some city council labourers to help out, in return for ‘some good red wine’.10 Immediately, the barricades became part of the urban scenery. Early in the morning, Jean Galtier-Boissière went out to walk his dog, Azor. While Azor went about his business, his owner inspected the barricade on the rue Saint-Jacques.11
Over the next three days, more than 600 barricades were erected across the capital, with the joint objective of defending Resistance strongholds and preventing German troop movements.12 Map 3 shows the barricades scattered like iron filings over the city, but focused on the main thoroughfares. Most were in the working-class areas, especially the north and the east. These were also the sites of the main routes out of the city that would be vital to fleeing German troops. There were notable gaps – only a handful of barricades were built in the rich 16th arrondissement, for example, and none at all in its wealthiest centre. Similarly, the areas around the main German strong-points – the Senate, the rue de Rivoli and the place de la République – were also empty. In the Parisian insurrections of 1830, 1848 and 1871, barricades had played a decisive military and symbolic role. The military situation in 1944 was different, but the power of the barricade as a symbol and as a reminder of the capital’s revolutionary past was in everyone’s mind.13 To the discerning eye, the distribution of the barricades across the city corresponded to the class lines that underpinned the conflict between Vichy and the Resistance, while the very presence of the barricades indicated to everyone that these were momentous, historic days.
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There was a hint that the battle with the Germans could become more violent, as the Resistance tried to procure heavy weapons. FFI fighters from the 17th arrondissement, including Georges Dukson, went to the SOMUA tank factory in the northern suburbs, found a newly produced S35 light tank, and, to the acclamation of the crowd, drove it to the Mairie of the 17th arrondissement.14 Shortly after 13:00, journalist Claude Roy accompanied Dukson and a group of FFI fighters who marched in single file behind the tank, which now had ‘FFI’ and a Gaullist cross of Lorraine crudely painted on its sides, as it went out to attack a nest of German soldiers on the boulevard des Batignolles. They were filmed by a newsreel cameraman who was one of the group of cinematographers who followed the insurrection.15 As the tank manoeuvred near the Citroën garage on the rue de Rome, Dukson was shot in the arm and hastily evacuated.16 A few minutes later, the Germans waved the white flag, and a dozen troops were captured.17
As one FFI fighter was taken away for treatment, another joined the fray: after a few days’ convalescence in Cochin hospital, Madeleine Riffaud had more or less recovered from her last-minute escape from the Pantin train, and made her way over to the 19th arrondissement, where she joined the Saint-Just company of the FTP. This was the group that had assassinated Georges Barthélemy, the collaborationist Mayor of Puteaux, six weeks earlier. Riffaud, a slight woman who was just a day short of her twentieth birthday, was promoted to the rank of company captain. The young men she commanded were unimpressed and sneered at ‘the little girl’, but she soon showed her mettle. The men of the FTP group, including André Calvès, were standing outside the post office, just down the road from the Mairie of the 19th arrondissement. The police turned up, frogmarching a milicien who, they claimed, had been firing from the rooftops and had killed a child. ‘Hey, FTP – you can kill this bastard,’ they said. Jo, one of the members of the Saint-Just company, looked at the officers and said: ‘You cops don’t take any risks, do you? You never know, the Germans might end up back in charge.’ The police did not reply. The milicien threw himself to the floor and begged Madeleine for mercy. She said that she was unable to pardon him – only his victims could that. And so the FTP put him against the post office wall and shot him to the applause of bystanders. Long afterwards, André Calvès said what had happened was ‘sad’, while Riffaud realised that she should have told the policemen – ‘You have arrested him, you should lock him up until he can be tried by a court.’ But she failed to say that, and the man was killed.18
Riffaud’s comrades might have been grudging about her command, but at least she was allowed to fight. Not everyone was so lucky. At lunchtime, Daniel Boisdon went to the Préfecture to sign up. He wore his officer’s uniform, but in order not to attract the attention of any passing Germans he also wore an overcoat, despite the summer heat. Sweating profusely, Boisdon was surprised to see quite how informal the insurrection was – many of the men in the Préfecture wore workmen’s dungarees, often without a shirt. He was shown into ‘Colonel Rol’s office’ and a man kindly took his phone number and his details and promised to get back in contact with him. They never did. A 60-year-old lawyer with an officer’s pretensions, Boisdon was not exactly what the FFI were looking for.19
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Von Choltitz later described the insurrection in Paris as ‘a war of nerves’ and contrasted the fighting in the capital, where the enemy could strike from anywhere, with the relatively ‘normal’ conditions around the city where confronting armies did battle.20 The German troops were unused to dealing with urban guerrilla warfare, and as the days wore on their morale was gradually undermined.21 Odette Lainville wrote in her diary:
The Huns, prudent, no longer move around the streets on foot or on their own, and they can no longer hang around looking at posters. They go by in groups, machine guns at the ready, keeping pace with their tanks, and you can feel death hover over their passage: you either hide without attracting attention, or you carry on as though nothing had happened, overcoming your emotion by force of will; in any case, best not to seem as though you are running away, as any sudden movement could be misinterpreted and unleash a hail of bullets.22
The reason for the Germans’ nervousness was graphically described by Monsieur Reybaz, who watched horrified from his fifth-floor window on the place Saint-Michel as the Resistance attacked a passing German lorry:
From the first floor the Resistance threw a grenade which blew three Germans to the ground; they lay dead in large pools of blood; one of them, lying on his back, showed a face that was no longer human; bits of brain and other matter had been scattered all around. Two other Germans were shot dead; the one who had been sitting next to the driver and who had been firing with a machine gun was lying to one side, his legs curled up, close to one of the wheels of the lorry. Then the tyre caught fire. The heat was too strong for people to get close and soon the man was burning like a torch.23
Troops retreating from the front and passing through Paris found the situation particularly alarming. Quartermaster Wallraf was instructed to l
eave the Senate building in the Jardin du Luxembourg and cross the Seine to inspect the Hôtel Crillon, where he was due to move his men. As he and his men drove past the Gare d’Orsay (now the Musée d’Orsay) they heard the sound of firing from the place de la Concorde and stopped. Suddenly, a German convoy came charging towards them at full speed. The leading vehicle stopped and an officer got out, shouting furiously. They had come from the front and had been quietly driving across Paris when they had been shot at from all sides. The officer was beside himself with fury at the audacity of the French; when he realised that some of his vehicles were trapped by the gunfire behind him, he ordered his soldiers to turn around and go and rescue their comrades, ignoring Wallraf’s pleas to head for the nearest strong-point: ‘To hell with your strong-point!’ he shouted, ‘I want to save my men!’24
Things were no easier for the Germans on the other side of the Seine. On the stretch of road between the place Châtelet and the pont Neuf, where all the pet shops now are, an FFI group attacked a small German convoy using grenades and Molotov cocktails, supported by machine-gun fire from the barricade that blocked the pont Neuf. The leading lorry burst into flames, blocking the passage of the two vehicles behind it; the second lorry was also destroyed, while the third was captured along with its precious cargo of two heavy machine guns.25
Hundreds of kilometres away, the German public was given a brief glimpse of the situation inside the city, although without any of the awful details. German radio journalist Toni Scheelkopf ventured into the city and broadcast this account of life in Paris back to the Fatherland:
We knew that the garrisons of the strong-points remaining behind in Paris had to fight in every part of the town in ceaseless skirmishes against the followers of de Gaulle on the one hand, and against the Bolshevist-controlled Resistance on the other. We saw barricades in the side-streets, sand-bags piled high, vehicles driven into one another, pieces of furniture heaped together to form barriers . . . somewhere a machine gun chattered from time to time . . . but we came through unchallenged to the well-defended German strong-points and reached the Champs-Elysées. Here the change which had come over this city was even more noticeable. It was a little after midday. But this street, usually crowded at this time of day with people and vehicles, was empty. On the way from the obelisk to the Arc de Triomphe we counted just over fifty people.26