Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

  Then it was de Gaulle’s turn to speak. Microphones were thrust in front of him, and with Bidault and Parodi standing by his side, de Gaulle launched into one of the most significant speeches of his life. It was improvised, spoken in a voice that was so familiar to everyone who heard, whether they were present in the room or hunched round their radio set.49 While Maranne and Bidault had both been generous about de Gaulle, the General did not return the compliment. There was not one mention of the Resistance, nor was there any recognition of the terrible sacrifices that had been made over the last four years. In the opening section of his speech, which has become part of French culture, de Gaulle made a moving and telling description of his view of the liberation of the capital: ‘Paris! Paris humiliated! Paris broken! Paris martyrised! But now Paris liberated! Liberated by herself, by her own people with the help of the armies of France, with the support and aid of France as a whole, of fighting France, of the only France, of the true France, of eternal France.’50 Although de Gaulle went on to underline the need for national unity in pursuit of the war, and the importance of universal suffrage as a way of uniting the nation, it was his mystical invocation of ‘eternal France’ that predominated.51 And who had represented ‘the true France’ for all those years? The question did not need to be asked.

  After another burst of the ‘Marseillaise’, Bidault asked de Gaulle privately whether he would now declare the Republic. De Gaulle’s reply was glacial, and summed up his whole political thinking: ‘The Republic has never ceased to exist . . . Vichy was always, and remains, null and void. I am President of the government of the Republic. Why should I proclaim it?’52 And with that de Gaulle went into the offices of the Prefect of the Seine, overlooking the packed square in front of the Hôtel de Ville. When he appeared at an open window, there was a huge shout from the crowd. Before anyone could stop him, he leapt onto the window-sill and, holding precariously onto the window frame, waved to the thousands of people below.53 After soaking up the adulation, de Gaulle climbed back through the window and returned to the Ministry of War, where he spent the night before what was to be the most momentous day of his life.

  As soon as de Gaulle had left the building, the CNR met.54 The Resistance leaders were aghast.55 They expected that the political roles they had been developing in the years of clandestinity would finally be recognised, but de Gaulle had shown he was intent on creating a different reality, one in which he – not the Resistance – represented the continuity of ‘France’. Far from being simply a military leader and a figurehead for Resistance, de Gaulle was determined to play a major role in the politics of post-war France. Outmanoeuvred and deflated, the best the CNR could do was to instruct Bidault to express their disappointment to de Gaulle and to ask him to reconsider his decision not to declare the Republic. But de Gaulle was not a man who changed his mind, and it was even less likely than usual that he would do so on this occasion.56 For all their years of underground experience and despite their political intelligence, the CNR had been bested by a man they had dismissed as a mere general.

  While the members of the CNR were politicking in the Hôtel de Ville, the soldiers retired for a victors’ banquet at Les Invalides. General Koenig and General Leclerc invited Colonel de Boissieu and Colonel de Langlade of the 2e DB, along with Chaban, Lizé of the FFI and some of Koenig’s staff, to a meal served by smartly dressed waiters and obsequious ushers, who presumably had been equally subservient to their collaborationist masters. The soldiers wore their dirty battle fatigues, except for Chaban, who cut an odd figure in his pristine uniform. He also stood out because of his youth – de Langlade was stunned when he heard the smart young man addressed as ‘General’. But here, too, there was politicking. During the meal, Chaban recounted the insurrection, lingering over the details of the cease-fire and the role of the Communist Party. At the end, Koenig said: ‘We have narrowly avoided another Paris Commune.’57 For some leaders of the Free French, the meaning of the liberation of Paris was clear: a decisive political victory had been won.

  *

  Most people in Paris that evening did not care about politics. They were simply elated to be free. As dusk fell and the stars came out in the clear sky, Victor Veau went to the place de l’Etoile: ‘What an amazing scene – I am glad to have seen it before I die. . . . A huge, joyous crowd surrounds thousands of tanks and other vehicles. People are shouting and clapping. The soldiers – all French – invite people onto their tanks and explain how they work.’58 The place de l’Opéra was still a heaving mass of joyful bodies, full of people shouting their joy. Caught in the maelstrom were Colonel Bruce of OSS and Ernest Hemingway, trying to make their way to Hemingway’s pre-war watering-hole at the Café de la Paix. As Bruce recorded in his diary, they could not get through, so ‘after kissing several thousand men, woman and babies, and losing a carbine by theft’ they ‘escaped to the Ritz’, which was deserted, and where they and their men were served fifty martinis and ‘a superb dinner’.59

  Odette Lainville sat at her desk and wrote a poem which concluded:

  Oh, those soldiers, tanned and bronzed by battle!

  Oh, those laughing eyes of our boys!

  Oh, those French soldiers . . . French . . . Can it be true?

  Then so many Americans, like happy children.

  And our dear British boys . . . my heart almost fails me . . .

  – And Paris, our own dear Paris, swept clean of Germans!60

  There were magical moments. At 19:00, two tiny Free French Piper aircraft audaciously touched down on the avenue de la Grande Armée, which extends north-west from the place de l’Etoile towards the suburbs.61 Amazed and enchanted, the crowds gathered round the fragile machines that had suddenly come down to the ground.

  On the Left Bank, Daniel Boisdon felt a great sense of satisfaction as the light slowly faded on an extraordinary day:

  To the west, at the end of the boulevard Saint-Germain, the sun, which had already set, painted the clouds pink in a pale blue sky. A great calm fell on the destruction, the felled trees, the ripped-up paving stones, the broken glass, the barricades still bristling with rifles and machine guns. The streets were full of people out strolling. There was no overwhelming excitement . . . Every now and again, a group of noisy young people passed by. In the lorries of the Leclerc Division, stationed along the sides of the road, the men talked quietly or slept, exhausted. As I returned home, there was a small procession. It was headed by hospital staff, wearing white coats and waving Red Cross flags as if they were in a battle, then there were the local firemen, and two or three thousand people passed by, arm-in-arm, right across the boulevard, singing the ‘Marseillaise’.62

  *

  It was not all joy and celebration. In the newly liberated Ministry of Health by the Arc de Triomphe, Bernard Pierquin threw himself to the floor as machine-gun fire shattered the windows. The shots were fired from some of the 2e DB tanks stationed nearby, following rumours that there were snipers in the building. Although Bernard was unhurt, three people in the building were severely wounded.63 On the other side of the river a group of American soldiers – including one woman – were visiting the 6th arrondissement police station, just behind the church at Saint-Germain. There was a burst of machine-gun fire and at least two people on the rue Bonaparte fell dead. The killers – Germans or members of the Milice – were never found.64

  There were yet more incidents of head-shaving, as ordinary citizens turned on women suspected of ‘horizontal collaboration’ with the Germans. While it was generally men who did the shaving, in the southern suburb of Orly a group of women demanded that ‘the Germans’ girlfriends’ should have their heads shaved – six ‘culprits’ were found and punished.65 In her diary, Flora Groult showed some sympathy with the victims:

  Women who have ‘sinned’ with the Germans are having their heads shaved, their foreheads marked with swastikas and being paraded through the streets naked to the waist . . . Our neighbour has been enlisted for this business and he came home l
ast night as proud as a hero. I do not think I would have the strength to be the instrument of destiny and the razor of punishment. ‘La chair est triste, hélas!’ [The flesh is sad, alas!] when it makes you pay so cruelly for your pleasure. I hope I do not meet any of the women. I could neither hate them nor be sorry for them.66

  Railway engineer Pierre Patin was at an impromptu street party in the 18th arrondissement, where hundreds of people were dancing to the music of a clarinet and an accordion. Three slightly drunken men turned up, manhandling a terrified woman, whom they claimed had slept with Germans. She should be shot, they said. Patin, who was wearing his FFI armband, convinced the men to hand her over to the local FFI, and ensured that she would soon be released. That night, as he lay in bed with the sound of music and revelry coming through his windows, he reflected that although he might not have killed anybody during the insurrection, he had perhaps saved someone’s life, which was probably better.67

  In his attic hideaway near the Senate building, collaborationist author Robert Brasillach felt less positive about things, realising that ‘it was the end’. He heard the sound of gunfire die away, and one of his neighbours announced loudly in the courtyard that the Germans were surrendering. Finally, he heard the strains of the ‘Marseillaise’. Scornful of the struggle to drive the Germans out of Paris, Brasillach juggled with his feelings but soon resorted to his default emotion – self-pity:

  I was now totally isolated from other people. I found their joy to be naïve, stained with lies . . . And yet, these naïve people were happy, and they were my people. I was not involved in their joy as I should have been . . . Why should I not also go down into the street, why should I not also fly a flag? I should have been happy like the passer-by who kissed a soldier of the Leclerc Division, dressed in an American uniform, or who acclaimed the first tanks. But I remained there, alone and unjustly punished.68

  At 20:00, Field Marshal Model, who still did not know that von Choltitz had surrendered, noted the failure of the small relief column that had advanced from Le Bourget. To regain the initiative, he ordered that on 27 August a new attempt to reach the centre of Paris should be made using new forces massed on the eastern side of the city.69 Model even planned a propaganda march of German troops through Paris ‘just to show the French that we still have some Divisions left’.70 Recognising that it would be hard to hold the region around the capital, the German commander also made further preparations to strengthen the line east of Paris, instructing the 5th Panzer Army to disengage from the Allied bridgehead at Mantes and set up a new defensive line from the Oise river to the capital, following the overnight withdrawal of the 6th Parachute Division.71 However, as Colonel Frank of the 5th Panzer later admitted, ‘this represented hardly more than a screen of outposts’.72 More decisively, Model ordered ‘all available Luftwaffe forces’ to prepare for a night attack to the south of Paris, to take place the following evening.73

  While Model continued to fight, von Choltitz prepared for a life in captivity. Taken into custody by the Americans (Gallois reported they were ‘very interested’ in the German general), von Choltitz was questioned the next day by Colonel Dickson.74 The German officer claimed that the arrival of the Allies ‘saved Paris from going up in smoke’ and that ‘the internecine war between the French surpassed all his expectations . . . he was damn glad to get rid of the job of policing both Paris and the Frenchmen, both of which he apparently detests’. Dickson concluded that that German commander ‘realised quite a while ago that the job of trying to defend the city was hopeless and that he had taken no great steps to try to do so’.75 Within a couple of days, von Choltitz was settled in the prison camp at Trent Park on the outskirts of London, where his garrulous and boastful conversations with the other prisoners were secretly recorded, providing the Allies with valuable insights into German morale.76

  *

  At 22:00, the US Army T-Force convoy finally arrived in Paris after a long drive through the southern suburbs.77 Its role was to immediately secure any potential intelligence sources, including documents and individuals. After setting up base in the Petit Palais, next to the burnt-out hulk of the Grand Palais, T-Force sent out its first search teams shortly after midnight. Although they had a measure of success in securing some buildings, it soon became apparent to the T-Force commanders that ‘the local Police Station would be a good source of information’.78 The crack Allied counter-intelligence group had no idea about the situation in Paris. They had assumed they would be in complete control of the city, and that they alone knew who and what needed to be secured. It turned out that the French were doing quite well on their own, and T-Force found that most of their targets were already under French control. Over the next two days, T-Force arrested a mere eleven people out of their 514 ‘personality targets’.79

  *

  The victorious soldiers of the Leclerc Division spent the night camped in the Jardin des Plantes in the centre of Paris, along with the Rochambelle ambulance group.80 People chatted to them through the park gates, and later on in the evening there was an improvised ball on the rue Geoffroy-St-Hilaire, which runs down the side of the Jardin, and the soldiers joined in.81 That was not all they got up to. Suzanne Torrès recalled: ‘From all around there were stifled sighs and ticklish giggles. Many Parisian women were too charitable to let our lads spend their first night in the capital alone.’82 For others, however, life went on as though nothing had happened. Marc Boegner wrote in his diary: ‘General de Gaulle is at the Hôtel de Ville. In the building opposite, the old lady who lives on the first floor is playing her usual evening game of patience.’83

  But for one person, life began again. Late in the evening, Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar finally learnt that her husband André had escaped from the train taking him to Germany. He was in Fontenay-sous-Bois, five kilometres east of Paris, waiting to walk the final stage; three other escapees had already managed to get back home to Paris that night. ‘I run, I have wings. I believe!’ an overjoyed Jacqueline wrote in her diary at midnight. ‘They will be here tomorrow.’84

  André was safe, and would soon be with his family again, but the two dozen people who did not jump from the Drancy train met a very different fate. That evening, as Paris was dancing and celebrating, the last convoy from Drancy pulled into Weimar station. The men were sent on to Buchenwald; the five women went to Birkenau. Fewer than half of the prisoners survived the next nine months of horror, before the final collapse of the Nazi regime and the liberation of the camps.85

  17

  Saturday 26 August: Celebration

  On the Blue Network radio station, US reporter Herbert Clarke describes the amazing atmosphere in the capital: ‘I can’t stay at my typewriter, I can’t stay off my balcony away from the spectacle of all the delight that’s outside. Words can’t describe Paris today. You need music for it. Some tune that is a cross between the spine-tingling “Marseillaise” and the rollicking roll of “Turkey in the Straw”, and the rhythm of the Brazilian samba.’1

  It was cold and misty again as day broke. Paris was hungover.2 A tousle-headed, bleary eyed woman emerged from the turret of a Leclerc Division tank; the place de la Concorde was littered with debris and still smelt of burning metal and rubber, while on the Left Bank the streets were covered with shattered masonry, splintered glass, broken branches and the wreckage of German vehicles. Gradually, the day took shape. Odette Lainville cycled down to Montparnasse to find her nephew Bob and his comrades, and was given an amazing gift – a cup of real coffee. The Ritz hotel had no coffee, so Colonel David Bruce of OSS had to make do with a bottle of Chablis to accompany his breakfast omelette. At Pré-Saint-Gervais, just outside the north-eastern walls of the capital, sixty-five young pupils from the boys’ school, accompanied by five teachers, began to march towards the centre of Paris, waving French and Allied flags and singing as they went.3 They were just some of the hundreds of thousands of people who began to pour into the city centre for the hastily organised victory parade that was to mark the liberat
ion of the city, and which de Gaulle had decreed the previous evening. As the morning wore on, the mood of the city became ‘relaxed but vibrant, slightly tipsy, happy and still feverish’, as Paul Tuffrau put it in his diary.4 News of the parade was spread by word of mouth, by the Resistance radio station and by the Resistance press, which was unanimous in its enthusiasm. Even L’Humanité trumpeted on its front page in massive capital letters: ‘AT 15:00, FROM THE ARC DE TRIOMPHE TO NOTRE DAME, THE PEOPLE WILL UNANIMOUSLY ACCLAIM GENERAL DE GAULLE’.5

  The parade very nearly had to be cancelled due to a furious row between the Free French and the Americans. De Gaulle understandably felt that the 2e DB should be at the heart of the parade, and invited General Gerow and his staff, along with two dozen representatives of the US Army, to join in.6 Gerow was not impressed. The American general considered himself to be in command of the city; he was also, as everyone accepted, Leclerc’s commanding officer. That morning, Gerow sent Leclerc a furious note: ‘You are operating under my direct command and will not accept orders from any other source. I understand you have been directed by General de Gaulle to parade your troops this afternoon at 1400 hours. You will disregard those orders and continue on the present mission assigned you of clearing up all resistance in Paris and environs within your zone of action.’7 After some squabbling – de Gaulle allegedly said to the Americans: ‘I have given you Leclerc; surely I can have him back for a moment?’ – it was agreed that while some sections of the Leclerc Division would go on the parade, the rest would move northwards towards Aubervilliers and Saint-Denis to deal with the German forces there.8 Paris might be liberated, but it was by no means secure, and the Germans remained a formidable and determined enemy. Although a handful of American and British officers took part in the parade, the bulk of the American troops were nowhere to be seen. The parade was very much a French event, and deliberately so. De Gaulle wanted to use the parade to demonstrate and cement his importance and to show that French unity and power had been restored. In this he succeeded completely.9