Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

  33 Parodi’s pseudonyms included ‘Cérat’, ‘Quartus’ and ‘Belladone’. There is no biography of Parodi. Apart from Parodi’s own brief published accounts, the main source for his life at this period is an unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Studer, 2003).

  34 The three other members of the CPL were from non-communist Resistance organisations (Libération-Nord, Ceux de la Résistance and l’Organisation Civile et Militaire).

  35 AN 72AJ/235/II/178-9.

  36 AN 72AJ/235/II/190-1.

  37 Denis (1963), p. 95. Somewhat prosaically for a meeting of people planning to seize power, the meeting began with ‘corrections to the minutes’ as each committee member sought to ensure that their precise positions were preserved for posterity. For example, the representative of the Libération-Nord Resistance group insisted that the minute of the previous meeting that read ‘The representative of Libération would have preferred that we did not associate all the Germans with these crimes’ should be replaced by ‘The representative of Libération would have preferred that we did not associate all of the German people with these crimes’ (Denis, 1963, p. 220). Much of what followed was taken up with reproaches and counter-reproaches about various minor political and organisational issues, generally along a line that divided the Communist Party and the Front National from the others. The key point of debate was whether the new Prefect of the Seine département (which included Paris) should have been appointed by the Free French, rather than by the CPL. This thorny organisational issue, which combined both local and global politics, was eventually resolved with great diplomacy at the following meeting when the newly appointed Prefect, Marcel Flouret, made clear that he considered himself to be merely the acting Prefect until the dispute was settled after the liberation (Denis, 1963, p. 225). See Denis (1963), pp. 66–70 for an exhaustive account.

  38 AN 72AJ/235/II/212.

  39 Wieviorka (1994), p. 143.

  40 Many of the coded cables sent from London to Algiers can be found in AN 72AJ/235/I and are of passing interest, if perplexing to all but amateur code-breakers. The ledger containing references to all the telegrams received by the Ministry of the Interior in Algiers can be found at AN 72AJ/236/I/7. For example, on 10 August 1944, the Ministry received nineteen messages from Secnord (the northern zone secretariat), dated from 31 July to 4 August; the next day another eighteen messages from this period arrived. One message from Paris, sent on 3 August, arrived on the 15th, while one message sent on 8 August finally trundled into Algiers on 25 August, as Paris was being liberated. Details of the three Parisian radio sets – Pleyel Violet, Montparnasse Black and Apollo Black – and their three equivalents in the suburbs, together with information about how the radios were used, are given in Collins & Lapierre (1965), pp. 94–5, although they provide no sources.

  41 AN 72AJ/235/II/245. Parodi was still complaining about communications being down on 14 August, in the hearing of Victor Veau. BAM VV, 14.8.

  42 Jackson (2001), p. 561. Studer (2003) demonstrates that Parodi never received this message, and that Parodi learned of it only after the war.

  43 Rol-Tanguy & Bourderon (1994), p. 162.

  44 de Gaulle (1970), pp. 437–8. The broadcast caused a great deal of consternation among the Free French in London and, even more so, at the highest level of Allied command – SHAEF was horrified by the section dealing with the workplaces and immediately made it known that it was completely opposed to the call for a general strike (Crémieux-Brilhac, 2010, p. 294).

  45 AN 72AJ/234/VI/23.

  46 Chaban’s visit to London was approved by Algiers at the end of July, and communicated to Paris on 27 July 1944, before the communications breakdown (AN 72AJ/235/III/491). Chaban-Delmas (1975), p. 102 describes the trip in frustratingly brief detail, without giving any explanation of why a visit was necessary rather than correspondence. In a 1964 radio interview, Chaban-Delmas said: ‘Faced with the evident insufficiency of our means of communication . . . I left for London at the end of July.’ (Crémieux, 1971, p. 13.) Note that Chaban-Delmas situates his visit a week earlier than it in fact took place. See also the interview with Chaban-Delmas in Ragueneau & Florentin (1994), p. 187.

  47 Verity (2000), p. 209; AN 72AJ/235/III/491.

  48 AN 72AJ/235/II/250. This unnumbered cable is not dated, nor is there a record of who sent it to whom. It arrived in Algiers on 15 August 1944; assuming it took the same time to go through the meanders of the Free French communication system as other messages, it was probably sent from Paris about a week earlier.

  49 Ciechanowski (1974), p. 266.

  50 Davies (2004).

  51 See for example the diary entry for 5 August in Cazaux (1975), p. 110, and the articles in The Times from 2, 4, and 7–9 August 1944.

  52 Wieviorka (1994), p. 143.

  53 Bobkowski (1991), p. 600.

  54 Alary et al. (2006), p. 536.

  55 The report, drawn up by Dr Jean-Marie Musy, is reproduced in Taittinger (1948), pp. 118–26.

  56 It is often stated that Picasso painted these pictures in the apartment of his lover, Marie-Therèse Walter, on the boulevard Henri IV (e.g. Daix, 1994, p. 273). However, there is no direct evidence for this, and the reason generally given – he wanted to be with Walter and their daughter, Maya, during the fighting – is based on a misreading of the chronology: there was no fighting in Paris when the tomato-plant canvases were painted. Less than three weeks later, visitors to Picasso’s studio remarked on the tomato plant on the window-sill and made the link with the paintings: ‘There were a number of drawings of the pot of growing tomatoes which stood in the window, and at least two paintings clung round those same tomatoes as a central theme’ (Pudney, 1944a). Of course, Picasso could have had tomato plants in both places, or he might have just moved the plant.

  57 For images of these nine pictures see Zervos (1963) or the Online Picasso Project (picasso.shsu.edu). The paintings were all 72 x 93 cm. Most of these paintings are in private collections and have not been seen in public for decades. In 2006 the 10 August painting sold at Sotheby’s for nearly $14 million.

  58 Cazaux (1975), p. 113.

  59 Von Choltitz (1969), p. 210. Technically, the two men did not have equivalent positions. Von Boineburg had been the military commander of Greater Paris, whereas von Choltitz was the commander of the Wehrmacht in Greater Paris. Von Choltitz’s title gave him command over all German troops, which von Boineberg did not have and found frustrating (B-015, p. 6). Robert Wallraf, the quartermaster of the German troops who were stationed in the Senate building, later wrote his memoirs, Paris en danger de mort. Souvenirs. These are cited by Bourget (1984), who unfortunately gives no source for this document. Wallraf reports the discussions between von Boineburg and von Choltitz in some detail, allegedly on the basis of information provided by von Boineburg. Unable to consult the original source, and uncertain as to how Wallraf obtained his information or even when his memoirs were written, I have limited my citations of Wallraf to events he observed directly. Despite von Boineburg’s involvement in the 20 July plot, he was not troubled at the time by Berlin, and when he was eventually summoned by a military tribunal investigating the collapse of the Paris garrison, his appearance was delayed until he was overrun by the Americans. Milton Shulman, who was a Canadian intelligence officer and interviewed von Boineburg immediately after the war, wrote that the German ‘must have been born with a horseshoe in his mouth and four-leaf clovers clutched in each tiny paw’ (Shulman, 1986, p. 189).

  60 AN 72AJ/61/II/8.

  61 Mesnil-Amar (2009), p. 73.

  62 Cazaux (1975), p. 125.

  63 The German general later described this as ‘a show parade’ (von Choltitz, 1969, p. 212).

  64 Bourget (1984), pp. 211–212. It has been said that it took place on 14 August (Müller, 1994, p. 103); however, the account of L’Oeuvre and Cazaux’s diary make it clear that this was not the case. Collins & Lapierre (1965) cite the account of a participant, Sergeant Werner Nix (p. 57). Strikingly, of all the Parisian diar
ies I have consulted, only Cazaux makes any reference to this event – if it was intended to inspire fear in people, it failed singularly.

  65 After the war, Colonel Kurt Hesse, who commanded Feldkommandatur (military administrative headquarters) Paris at Saint-Cloud in summer 1944, interviewed all the key members of the German command in Paris for the Historical Division of the US Army. Hesse concluded that Vierow ‘was excellently familiar with the conditions in the Western and Southern area of Paris . . . and . . . had taken up with great energy the strengthening of the defence of Paris in the sector assigned to him, had to give up his place as senior officer although he was willing to unconditionally put himself under the command of General von Choltitz.’ B-611, p. 14.

  66 B-611, p. 13.

  67 Zaloga (2008), p. 27.

  68 Their deployment in the valleys to the south-west of Paris provoked the concern of the Free French Military Delegation, who sent an urgent message warning the Allies about this development (AN 72AJ/235/II/252).

  69 B-611, p. 17. One notable addition in May had been the arrival of a battalion of translators who were stationed at Saint-Cloud, but it was reported that they ‘did not show much fighting spirit’.

  70 B-015.

  71 B-015, p. 4.

  72 Cobb (2009a).

  73 B-611, p. 2.

  74 B-611, p. 3.

  75 B-728, p. 7. This was by Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Emmerich.

  76 AN 72AJ/62/III/4. For a flavour of Boisdon’s subsequent career (he was an MP after the war), see Thomas (2003).

  77 Cazaux (1975), p. 120.

  78 Tuffrau (2002), p. 72.

  79 Tillon (1977), pp. 388–9.

  80 Rol-Tanguy & Bourderon (1994), p. 166. Tillon’s letter did contain an oblique instruction – Rol was to put forward proposals for FFI action ‘after having discussed with our friends’. This was presumably a reference to either the Communist Party (PCF) or the communist leadership of the FTP, but in both cases there is no evidence that Rol ever had such discussions, and he subsequently consistently rejected any suggestion that he had done so (see for example Bourderon, 2004, pp. 354–60).

  81 This point is made sharply by Rol in a commentary section of his collection of 100 documents relating to the liberation of Paris (Rol-Tanguy & Bourderon, 1994, p. 175). Tillon’s 10 August document does not appear among them; it is not even mentioned by Communist Party leader Jacques Duclos in his memoirs (Duclos, 1970). One possible explanation is that Tillon was expelled from the Communist Party in 1953 and, in some respects, his dissidence began in August 1944. Only the first two, relatively anodyne, paragraphs are quoted by Tillon’s ex-comrade, Albert Ouzoulias (Ouzoulias, 1972, pp. 422–3).

  CHAPTER 3

  1 Boegner (1992), p. 277.

  2 According to police figures, by 09:15 1,200 workers were on strike, and by 09:45 a further 600 had downed tools. Chevandier (2002); Carrière (1994).

  3 La Vérité 18 August 1944, in Anonymous (1978). The brief report is headed ‘Jeudi 9 août’; as Chevandier (2002), p. 210, n. 115 points out, this should read ‘Jeudi 10 août’.

  4 Carrière (1994), p. 22.

  5 The CGT had produced an illegal leaflet which had been given out a few days earlier, reminding workers about their arrested comrades and giving a rousing call to action: ‘To respond to the Nazi threats, set up patriotic militias, involving all workers who want to see their country liberated. Sabotage, sabotage anything that could be useful to the Huns who are starving the people; stop the movement of military supply trains. Forward for action, for a strike, for a national uprising that will liberate France’ (Roulet, 2004, p. 22). Before the strike began, on 4 August, Captain Robert Vitasse, of the SPIRITUALIST circuit set up by the SOE, organised an attack on the Villeneuve-Saint-Georges marshalling yards. Vitasse and his men blew up the water towers and a 35-ton crane, and drove a 48-ton locomotive into the turntable, blocking the locomotive roundhouse for nearly a week – L’Humanité 10 August 1994; Cumont (1991), pp. 70–5. Cumont reproduces notes made shortly after the attack; the date 3–4 August has been replaced by 4–5 August.

  6 Carrière (1994), p. 22.

  7 ‘Rapport de Véry’ 14 August 1944, in Cogniot et al. (1974), pp. 80–2. Véry’s real name was Maurice Sentuc.

  8 Durand (1968), p. 546; Carrière (1994), p. 23.

  9 Cazaux (1975), p. 122.

  10 Details in this paragraph taken from La Vérité 18 August 1944 (Anonymous, 1978); Carrière (1994); Chevandier (2002), p. 211; AN 72AJ/74/III/10; AN 72AJ/61/I/9. This last report dates the hostage-taking at Noisy to 10 August, which I have assumed to be a mistake. On 11 August, Yves Cazaux wrote in his diary that a number of railway workers were executed at Noisy-le-Sec (Cazaux, 1975, p. 124). I have found no other mention of this. Carrière (1994) p. 23 suggests that there may have been some kind of complicity between management and the strikers, in order to protect the hostages; he argues that SNCF reports may have underplayed the strength of the strike in order not to antagonise the Germans.

  11 Patin (1994), p. 28.

  12 Cogniot et al. (1974), p. 81.

  13 Cogniot et al. (1974), p. 83.

  14 Chevandier (2002), p. 212.

  15 Laval’s letter read: ‘After three days of strike action in the Paris region, the situation shows that the railway workers truly want to go back to work, but they are literally terrorised by elements of the Resistance and in particular by the communists. The government considers that the return of the 52 prisoners would be a powerful argument in favour of a return to work in the workshops and depots.’ Bachelier (1996), section 7-3-8.

  16 Bachelier (1996), section 7-3-8. The chronology of events is not entirely clear; it may have been that the hostages were freed before the government sent its letter, following the intervention of the Minister of Transport.

  17 Chevandier (2002), p. 213.

  18 Chevandier (2002), pp. 213–214.

  19 Pierquin (1983), p. 130.

  20 SKF was able to make money out of both sides in the war – the company produced 60 per cent of the ball-bearings used by the German military machine, and over 30 per cent of British ball-bearings (Golson, 2012).

  21 Desfeuilles (1945); Nordling (2002). The name of the prisoner was Jacques Merleau-Ponty; he was married to one of Nordling’s nieces (Nordling, 2002, p. 83, n. 11). The issue of the prisoners had already been raised with Nordling, in a discussion with Parodi’s emissary, the 44-year-old banker Count Alexandre de Saint-Phalle. A week earlier Emmanuel d’Astier in Algiers had sent a message to Parodi, calling for the creation of armed groups that could attack the main French prisons and free the Resistance prisoners (AN 72AJ/235/III/494). Parodi replied saying he would do all he could, but he needed arms; he also expressed his habitual fears about the dangers of reprisals were the Resistance to take action (AN 72AJ/235/II/224). This version of events, in which discussions with the Resistance first alerted Nordling to the potential threat to prisoners, is not given by Nordling in his near-contemporaneous account (Desfeuilles, 1945) or his later memoirs (Nordling, 2002). However, it is supported by a message from Parodi to London sent on 14 August 1944 (AN 72AJ/235/II/284) and by the description of the First Secretary of the Swiss legation in Paris, René Naville, who was involved in Nordling’s work and published a series of articles in the Journal de Genève in 1950 (Naville, 1950a–f). Various aspects of Nordling’s memoirs appear to be confused – there are repeated contradictions in the details of what happened between his 1945 version, his undated memoirs (published in 2002), and the recollections of René Naville. For example, in 1945, less than a year after the events, Nordling stated that the Caen massacre had taken place at the beginning of August, and its proximity played an important role in his motivations (Desfeuilles, 1945, p. 6). In fact it took place on D-Day, two months earlier (Quellien, 2005).

  22 Molden (1979), pp. 121 and 123. According to Molden, Posch-Pastor was ‘an elegant young man . . . He wore a moustache and had an amiable and very Austrian air. There was a hint of arrogance
around the mouth, perhaps, but the eyes had a smile in them.’ Fritz Molden was an Austrian anti-fascist who later worked for OSS, and became friends with Posch-Pastor in Paris in 1942. Posch-Pastor’s full name was Erich Posch-Pastor von Camperfeld. Collins & Lapierre (1965) report that of the hundreds of participants that they contacted, only Posch-Pastor refused to comment on his role in the events of August 1944. It has been suggested that he deserted from the German Army in July 1944 (Collins & Lapierre, 1965, p. 190). De Gaulle described ‘Poch-Pastor’ [sic] as ‘von Choltitz’s aide and an Allied agent’ (de Gaulle, 1956, p. 303), but von Choltitz insisted that he only ever met ‘von Posch-Pastor’ [sic] twice, each time in the company of Nordling (von Choltitz, 1969, p. 232). Collins & Lapierre (1965), p. 190 and Vaughan (2004), pp. 102–5, state that Posch-Pastor was a member of the GOELETTE circuit, under the name Etienne Paul Provost (or ‘Pruvost’ according to Vaughan), and helped transmit plans of V1 launching sites via Dr Sumner Jackson, a doctor at the American Hospital in Neuilly (Vaughan, 2004, pp. 104–105). GOELETTE was controlled by Free French intelligence (BCRA), not by MI6, so Posch-Pastor may have been involved in several layers of clandestine activity (AN 72AJ/71/VI/2a, p. 33).

  23 There is a photograph of Bender in Collins & Lapierre (1965) (his first name is variously spelt Emil or Emile).

  24 Nordling (2002), pp. 87–9. Nordling states that he also met with the Swiss Legate in Paris, René Naville, during this period. According to Naville (1950a), they did not meet until 13 August.

  25 The first time Nordling raised the issue on the telephone, he was fobbed off by an aide, who said the embassy had no power in the matter, and that the question would have to be referred to Berlin, where Himmler would have the final say. A discouraged Nordling handed over a letter to Abetz outlining the diplomatic consequences for Germany’s reputation were the prisoners to be treated badly. This was hardly the kind of thing to worry a Nazi, but it was probably all the neutral diplomat could do.