Eleven Days in August
Page 43
The film-makers – many of whom were communists – deliberately chose not to make any reference to the role of the PCF or any other grouping (even the FFI are mentioned only in passing). Instead they presented a vision of the insurrection that put the city and its population at the heart of events – the city as a whole appears to have liberated itself.13 This vision of national unity – irrespective of class – and the absence of the Allies chimed completely with de Gaulle’s conception.14 In the popular imagination of France, these images – the barricade-building, the urban warfare, the joyous sun-filled parade down the Champs-Elysées – came to represent not only the liberation of Paris, but the liberation of France as a whole, even though they bore little relation to what occurred in the vast majority of towns and cities. This was not simply because of the fantastic nature of the events, and the skill of the film-makers, but because this view merged with deep historical currents in France, in which Parisian insurrections so often played a vital role.15 Those previous insurrections had shaped the psychogeography of the capital; the events of August 1944 added a new layer to the palimpsest of Paris, putting new images into the minds of the population, providing new locations to act as historical markers and indicators of past struggles.16
*
In the months and years after the liberation, there were explicit attempts to deal with the main historical controversies that remained – the role of the communists, the meaning of the cease-fire and the motivations of von Choltitz. In 1944 de Gaulle apparently thought that the communists had wanted to seize power – at least that is what he told Marc Boegner on 21 September – and during the Cold War it became widely accepted that the communists were thwarted in their ambitions by the arrival of the Allies and the 2e DB.17 Such views, widely expressed at the time on both the right and the left, were based partly on recent historical experience – the closing stages of World War I saw the Russian revolution of 1917, followed by a wave of revolutionary events in Europe, including the German revolution of 1918–19. In the case of France in 1944, neither a full-blown workers’ revolution nor a communist coup was on the cards.
Although the Communist Party undoubtedly, and legitimately, wished to increase its influence (for the next four decades it received more votes in parliamentary elections than any other party), there is no evidence that it was preparing a coup. Above all, Moscow did not support such a policy, and the French communists were entirely wedded to the policies of the Soviet Union. There are no signs that the Communist Party was truly doing any of the things necessary for a revolution or even a coup (stockpiling weapons, creating alternative forms of power, mobilising tens of thousands of people to this end). The bulk of the population had no spontaneous appetite for taking power; exhausted after four years of occupation and steeped in the idea of national liberation, not social revolution, they were more than happy to see the back of the Germans and to cheer de Gaulle. Although many people had been involved in the fighting, they had not been organised into any consistent form of what de Gaulle called a ‘parallel power’. 1944 would not be 1917.
The issue of the cease-fire, and the role of the Free French Delegation in Paris in promoting it, was raised within weeks of the liberation by the left-wing Parisian press.18 There was even an attempt by the CPL to set up a commission to investigate the cease-fire. The commission summoned Parodi and Bidault to give evidence in October 1944, but both men declined to appear. Parodi said the whole business seemed ‘extremely inopportune’ given that the war was still continuing, while Bidault pointed out that he was now Minister of Foreign Affairs answerable only to the government.19 In the end, the commission appears to have lasted only a morning, and the question was referred to the CPL Bureau where it disappeared, although it continued to resurface in magazines and on television over the subsequent decades, whenever the story of the liberation was told.20
Most strikingly, the role of von Choltitz gradually came to the fore, primarily through the efforts of von Choltitz himself. Within days of the liberation, the Allies were interrogating him in London. The official transcript records sarcastically that the one-time German commander of Paris ‘launched into a long and dramatic story about his noble efforts to save the civilian population of Paris from destruction at the hands of the Communists’.21 Von Choltitz was released from Allied custody in 1947, at least partly on the initiative of Parodi, who clearly did not bear any grudges.22 Shortly afterwards, the German officer began to present his side of events, first in a series of articles in Le Figaro in 1949 (these provoked a blistering response from the Resistance press, in particular Franc-Tireur),23 then in two sets of memoirs, published in Germany in 1950 and 1951. The focus of this flurry of activity was summarised in the title of a series of articles in Le Figaro: ‘Why I did not destroy Paris in 1944’.24 Von Choltitz’s explanation was that he wanted to preserve the city; he never mentioned that he did not have the means to destroy it.
Von Choltitz’s version got international attention with the publication in 1965 of the bestseller Is Paris Burning? by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, which in 1966 was turned into a major feature film of the same name, with an all-star cast.25 The striking title is a reference to a telegram that Hitler allegedly sent to Paris, although von Choltitz never actually saw a message containing this phrase, and did not even hear about it until ‘later’.26 In fact, there is no evidence that Hitler ever sent such a telegram – the dramatic phrase is probably an invention.27 The focus of both book and film was on von Choltitz as the ‘saviour’ of Paris who had disobeyed Hitler’s orders, and on Nordling, who had negotiated the cease-fire and persuaded the German commander not to destroy the city. As might be expected from a book written during the Cold War, the underlying message was that the cease-fire and the arrival of the Allies helped stop an imminent communist takeover.28
Von Choltitz’s role was much less dramatic than that presented in either the book or the film. Although he was apparently disillusioned by the military situation before he took up his brief two-week command of Paris, the decisive factor that determined his behaviour was the fact that the High Command did not send him the troops and materiel needed to defend the city against the massive Allied onslaught. He could have gone to a Wagnerian end, with the Hôtel Meurice crashing down around him in flames, but the attractiveness of that fate was undermined by his lack of faith in Hitler, and his conviction that the war in the west was lost, which in turn was underlined by the lack of military force available to him. Von Choltitz did not have the means to destroy Paris – the bridges were not mined, the buildings were not riddled with dynamite, and neither the Luftwaffe nor the Wehrmacht could provide the massive killer blow that Hitler required in his order of 23 August; they were overwhelmed by Allied air superiority and they were hell-bent on retreating. The air-raid of 26 August, while horribly destructive, was a mere pin-prick given the size of the city. Von Choltitz did not disobey his orders – he was completely unable to implement them. Who knows what he would have done had he been provided with the means? Von Choltitz was not the ‘saviour’ of Paris, he was merely its final, weak, German commander.29
Ultimately, the liberation of Paris was not about von Choltitz, nor about Nordling, nor even about de Gaulle. It was about the ordinary people of Paris who rose up against the Germans and made it impossible for the Allies to pursue their intended policy of skirting round the city. The population did not liberate the city single-handed, but their courage and sacrifice changed the situation, while the advance of the Allied armies not only gave the population the confidence that overwhelming force would soon be on their side, but also forced the surrender of the German garrison. In its final phase, the liberation of Paris was a joint operation between the Resistance, the Leclerc Division and the Americans. Each of those forces lost hundreds of lives, and similar numbers of Parisians were killed by stray gunfire or by German shells. The number of German dead and wounded is unknown. The exact number of people killed during the liberation of Paris is unclear, but there were
thousands of victims – mainly FFI fighters and Parisians, while the 2e DB lost more men during the fighting for Paris than in any previous phase of the war.30 Those dead – only some of whom are commemorated on the walls of the capital – were the price the city paid to be free.
There are many versions of what the liberation of Paris meant. For de Gaulle and the Free French, it was the climax of four years of lonely opposition to Vichy, finally giving them the opportunity to govern. For the collaborators, it was the end of a dream, and for some, the end of their lives. For the men and women of the Resistance, it was the culmination of all their sacrifice and courage; in a savage twist of history, their victory meant their immediate disappearance as a political force. For the Allies, who wanted to go around Paris, the relative ease with which the city fell was a pleasant surprise, and provided a powerful symbol of the imminent collapse of the Nazi regime. For the Germans who survived the fighting, it was a chance to escape the horrors of the war and to begin cleansing their lives and their country of the stain of Nazism. For the bulk of the Parisian population it was the chance to be free. For everyone, everywhere in the world, the message of the liberation of Paris contained all these things, and something more – inspiration. In 1944 the British Government French-language publication Cadran31 put it well: ‘All the war news fades when faced with the liberation of Paris. For the whole world, Paris is a symbol of civilisation and of liberty: the first echo of victory could be heard in the bells of Notre Dame . . . By liberating themselves, the Parisians showed the world that the soul of a people is invincible, stronger than the most powerful war machine.’
Bibliography
MULTIMEDIA
DVD-ROM:
La Libération de l’Ile de France (AERI, 2004).
DVD:
Documentaries
D-Day to Berlin (George Stevens, 1998).
Eté 44: La Libération (Patrick Rotman, 2004).
La Libération de Paris (Mairie de Paris, 2004).
La Mémoire Courte (Henri Torrent, 1963).
Les Témoins de la Libération de Paris (Jorge Amat, 2004).
The Eye of Vichy (Claude Chabrol, 1993).
Vingt ans en août 1944 (Jorge Amat, 2004).
Fiction
Is Paris Burning? (René Clément, 1967).
The Train (John Frankenheimer, 1964).
WEB SOURCES
La Libération de Paris (film, 1944)
archive.org/details/LaLiberationdeParis1944
Paris Xe Août 1944 (unedited film, 1944)
www.dailymotion.com/video/x8867e_paris-xie-aout-1944_webcam
BBC broadcast, 26 August 1944
tinyurl.com/cdjjtdh
Resistance radio broadcasts, 22–26 August 1944
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P6un2OzJCA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnwCdydurZE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5ul1jfO4B8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-znY-9D-Uw
www.youtube.com/watch?v=om0G2_oVbr4
Other websites
www.liberation-de-paris.gilles-primout.fr
www.gastoneve.org.uk
Links to all these sources can be found at elevendaysinaugust.com
[All URLs accessed July 2012]
ARCHIVES
US National Archives Foreign Military Studies (Microfiche Publication M1035)
A-956
‘Employment of the 6 Para Div in N. France 44’ by Major-General von Heyking (1 January 1946).
A-967
‘Northern France’ by Major-General von Boineburg (6 April 1946).
A-968
Annex to report of 18 April 1946 by Generalleutnant Elfeldt (n.d.).
US National Archives, Administrative History Collection ETOUSA
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‘Circular 131’ (29 July 1945).
After Action Report
(available at http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p4013coll8/id/2212/rec/14 [accessed July 2012])
Third US Army, 1 August 1944–9 May 1945. Vol. 1. The Operations.
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AN 72AJ/45/I/6N
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AN 72AJ/45/I/6O
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AN 72AJ/58/VIII/1
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AN 72AJ/59/IV/2
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AN 72AJ/61/I/1
‘Itinéraire du Général de Gaulle dans Paris les 25 et 26 août’ by Henri Michel (July 1964).
AN 72AJ/61/I/4b
Letter from Boucher to Comité de Libération de la Police (18 August 1944).
AN 72AJ/61/I/9
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AN 72AJ/61/I/10
‘Compte rendu de la semaine insurrectionnelle de Paris – Groupe Cartier’ (n.d.).
AN 72AJ/61/I/13
Agreement between Nordling and Major Huhm regarding prisoners (17 August 1944).
AN 72AJ/61/I/14
‘La Libération de Paris vue de la Plaine Monceau, par A. Lasalle, 32 rue de Chezelles, Paris 17e’ (n.d.).
AN 72AJ/61/I/17
‘Compte rendu de la mission du commandant Gallois (Roger Cocteau) auprès du général Bradley’ (August–September 1944).
AN 72AJ/61/I/21
‘Rapport sur les fusillés de la cascade du Bois de Boulogne’ (n.d.).
AN 72AJ/61/I/22
La Voix de Paris (19–20 August 1945).
AN 72AJ/61/II/1
Notes on the liberation by Monsieur Lecomte (n.d.).
AN 72AJ/61/II/2
Letter from General Koenig to Adrien Dansette (14 April 1967).
AN 72AJ/61/II/3
‘Compte-rendu de la réunion des Secrétaires Généraux, tenue le 22 Août 1944, à 14 heures, à l’Hôtel Matignon, sous la Présidence du Ministre Délégué Général aux Territoires Occupés’ (22 August 1944).
AN 72AJ/61/II/8
‘Erlebnisbericht über der Eückmarsch des Stabes des Chefs der Militärverwaltung aus Frankreich’ (n.d.).
AN 72AJ/61/III/1
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AN 72AJ/62/I/4, pp. 1–8
‘Récit des 20 rescapés du Fort des Vincennes du 19 au 24 août 1944’ (n.d.). août pendant notre internement au fort de Vincennes’ by Juvenal Guillet (27 August 1944).
AN 72AJ/62/I/4, pp. 9–12
‘Relation des faits qui se sont passés depuis notre arrestation le 19 août 1944, jusqu’au 24
AN 72AJ/62/I/6
‘Rapport de Monsieur Poirier 15.2.45’.
AN 72AJ/62/I/7