Eleven Days in August

by Matthew Cobb

  52 Conte (1984).

  53 AN 72AJ/42/IV/3, pp. 25–6.

  54 L’Humanité 22 August 1944.

  55 AN 72AJ/61/I/17, pp. 27–8; Blumenson (1961), p. 603. According to Mary Laura Kludy, Virginia Military Institute (VMI) Archives and Records Management Assistant, there is no trace of this in any of General Kibler’s papers at the VMI.

  56 A French translation of this order is given in Dansette (1946), p. 509. A few hours later de Gaulle sent Leclerc a letter supporting Leclerc’s decision to send the de Guillebon column, and reporting that Eisenhower had promised that the 2e DB would be sent to Paris (Dansette, 1946, p. 510).

  57 Blumenson (1961), p. 607.

  58 Pogue (1954), pp. 240–1. Pogue’s account is confused; the content of Eisenhower’s note shows it must have been written after Bradley and Siebert saw Gallois. According to Pogue, the note was scribbled on a letter de Gaulle had sent Eisenhower the previous day following their stormy discussion on 20 August (see chapter 9).

  59 Blumenson (1961), p. 606.

  60 Jacobs (n.d.), pp. 27–8, quoting a Memorandum of Information from the Commanding General, 12th Army Group. Blumenson (1961), p. 607, cites parts of this as a memo from Bradley to General Hodges, dictated on 22 August. A full French translation of this document, dated 23 August, can be found in Dansette (1946), pp. 510–511. The memo orders the dispatch of the 2nd Armoured Division (Leclerc), a US infantry division from V Corps, a reconnaissance group and ‘T’ force (see chapter 12).

  61 Jacobs (n.d.), pp. 27–8. The memo states that the Resistance envoy had said that the cease-fire was due to expire on Wednesday afternoon; Eisenhower therefore ordered that ‘no advance must be made into Paris until after the expiration of the Armistice’. As it happens, the only Allied force in a position to reach the capital immediately after this time was the de Guillebon column, the location of which was unknown to Allied command. None of this is described in Eisenhower’s memoirs (Eisenhower, 1948). Blumenson (1961) suggests that in order to ensure that the Allies arrived at the same time as the Germans withdrew and the cease-fire expired, ‘an intelligence officer of the “‘Economic Branch’ of the US Service” was dispatched to confirm with Choltitz the “arrangement” that was to save the city from damage’ (p. 604). This is yet another version of the rumour that the US were negotiating with von Choltitz, which swirled round Paris from mid-August onwards. However, there is no contemporary evidence that there was such an envoy, or that he negotiated with the German commander.

  62 Bergot (1980), p. 107.

  63 AN 72AJ/61/I/17, pp. 29–31. According to Gallois, in their brief conversation Bradley said that an important decision had been taken, and three men would have to carry the responsibility for it: Bradley, who had made the decision; Leclerc, who had to carry it out; and Gallois, who had supplied the information upon which the decision was based. None of this seems to have left any impression on Bradley. In his account of the liberation of Paris, published seven years later, Bradley does not mention Gallois at all, and instead suggests the key role was played by Rolf Nordling’s mission (see below), despite the fact that the decision to turn to Paris had been taken before Nordling and his colleagues had left Paris (Bradley, 1951, pp. 390–2). Blumenson (1961) (chapter 29, note 53) notes this ‘incorrect time sequence’ in Bradley’s account. Furthermore, in Bradley’s version of events, the decision to liberate Paris was taken by him alone; Eisenhower is not even mentioned. Kaspi (1994) argues that the decision to move on Paris had already been taken by Eisenhower before Gallois was able to discuss with Bradley and his staff and that, as a result, Gallois’ mission was irrelevant. However, as shown above, this was not the case. Following his discussion with de Gaulle, Eisenhower realised that it might be necessary to turn to Paris earlier than necessary; his meeting with Bradley (who was armed with the information from Gallois) convinced him of this.

  64 Bergot (1980), p. 107; Dronne (1970), p. 266.

  65 Lankford (1991), p. 167.

  66 Lankford (1991), p. 167.

  67 Lankford (1991), p. 167.

  68 Fournier & Eymard (2009), pp. 30–1.

  69 Dubois (1944), p. 69.

  70 Galtier-Boissière (1944), p. 268.

  71 Hazard (1998), p. 393.

  72 Naville (1950d).

  73 Guéhenno (2002), p. 436.

  74 Tuffrau (2002), p. 91.

  75 Galtier-Boissière (1944), p. 270.

  76 de Saint-Pierre (1945), p. 69.

  77 Cazaux (1975), p. 173.

  78 AN 72AJ/42/IV/3, pp. 24–5.

  79 de Saint-Pierre (1945), p. 67.

  80 Bood (1974), p. 328.

  81 Bood (1974), p. 328.

  82 Groult & Groult (1965), p. 302.

  83 Gratias (1945).

  84 Barr (1946), p. 242; Daix (1994), p. 273.

  85 von Choltitz (1949), 13 October 1949; von Choltitz (1969), pp. 244–5.

  86 Nordling (2002), p. 137.

  87 Nordling (2002), pp. 137–8 and 143–4. Nordling writes of ‘Doctor Arnoux who, for certain reasons, could get his companions rapidly through Allied lines’ (p. 143). He describes ‘Arnoux’ as ‘a well-known French doctor . . . who as a Health Service inspector could move about quite freely’ (p. 133). Like Collins & Lapierre (1965), p. 189, I have taken this to be Colonel Arnould (‘Ollivier’), who was not a physician and who was travelling with the Red Cross papers supplied by Victor Veau and Pasteur Vallery-Radot (see chapter 10). It seems probable that Nordling either did not realise he had been duped, or later confused ‘Arnoux’ with Dr Monod, who initially accompanied Gallois and did indeed work for the health service (see chapter 9). Jean Laurent’s link with Marie-Madeleine Fourcade and Nordling is described in Fourcade (1972), vol. 2, p. 286. Laurent lent de Gaulle the keys to his London apartment in June 1940, the day before de Gaulle left France. But Laurent would not accompany the General across the Channel and this still rankled the Free French leader (as too, no doubt, did Laurent’s contacts with the MI6-run ALLIANCE circuit). De Gaulle describes the arrival of the delegation, although he omits the name of Arnould/Ollivier; he may not have seen him (de Gaulle, 1956, p. 303).

  88 Cazaux (1975), p. 174.

  89 Various websites (e.g. Wikipedia) suggest that on 22 August, Pierre Favreau, a physician who worked for the Parisian fire service (Sapeurs-Pompiers), also went through the German lines to contact the Allies. I have found no supporting evidence for this claim; in particular, there is no mention of this in the detailed account of the resistance activity of the Parisian Sapeurs-Pompiers (Christienne & Plancard, n.d.).

  90 Dubois (1944), p. 74. One of the mythical events that shroud the liberation of Paris supposedly took place this night. According to Collins & Lapierre (1965), p. 183, General Koenig ordered weapons to be parachuted into Paris that night under the name of ‘Operation Beggar’, but cancelled the mission at the last minute. This claim has no sources. It seems probable that this story is based on a garbled version of a message from Koenig to de Gaulle, sent late in the evening of 22 August, in which Koenig transmitted a demand from the FFI for a supply drop in Paris, including anti-tank weapons; Koenig did not comment on this request (for the text of this message, see de Gaulle, 1956, pp. 705–706). There is a great deal that is unbelievable about the story as told by Collins & Lapierre, not least the idea that the Free French were able to order any arms drops anywhere – that was the sole prerogative of the British and the Americans. According to Collins & Lapierre, the mission was due to be carried out by the ‘Carpetbagger Squadron’, and Koenig’s contact was the commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Sullivan. I have found no evidence for this. There is no trace of this or any similar operation, planned or carried out, in the collection of memories of members of the 801st/492nd Bombardment Group (the ‘Carpetbaggers’) (Fish, 1990). In 1967, General Koenig was questioned about this incident by the historian Adrien Dansette. On the basis of his own knowledge and that of his staff officer, General Lajeune, Koenig stated that ‘there were no parachute drops plan
ned for Paris at this time, nor, of course, were any carried out’ (AN 72AJ/61/II/2, p. 4). That would appear to close the matter.

  91 Cazaux (1975), pp. 174–5.

  92 BAM VV, 22.8.

  93 The Free French Delegation was still worried about the safety of the radio team as they could theoretically be located and attacked by the Germans. See the account of sound engineer Pierre Schaeffer in Campaux (1945), pp. 137–40. For the position of the Provisional Secretary-General for Information see AN 72AJ/61/II/3, and Courtin (1994), p. 37.

  94 Crénesse (1944), p. 17.

  95 Crénesse (1944), p. 17.

  96 Dubois (1944), p. 73.

  CHAPTER 12

  1 Tuffrau (2002), pp. 97–8.

  2 Virtually every diary I have consulted mentions this event. While these extraordinary noises were waking people, the Saint-Michel barricade was attacked by a group of SS soldiers. In the pitch black there was chaotic hand-to-hand fighting, grenades were thrown and it was not clear who was the enemy. Eventually the FFI fighters were able to repel the Germans, killing at least four with bursts of machine-gun fire (Barat, 1945, pp. 78–80; Massiet, 1945, pp. 169–70). Dufresne was wounded by grenade shrapnel during this incident; Barat led the FFI counter-attack.

  3 Tuffrau (2002), p. 9; Vilain (1945), p. 16; Bood (1974), p. 329.

  4 D’Astier (1965), p. 204; Chamberlain & Doyle (1999).

  5 AN 72AJ/62/1/10, p. 3. Footage of the fire can be seen at 12:30 in La Libération de Paris (1944).

  6 Martens & Nagel (2006), p. 523. One of Dreizner’s photographs of the fire at the Grand Palais is reproduced in this source.

  7 Roy (1944) pp. 34–5; AN 72AJ/62/1/10, p. 3.

  8 Dubois (1944), p. 77.

  9 Touche (1946), p. 97.

  10 Dubois (1944), p. 77.

  11 Bood (1974), pp. 329–30. Not everyone had such affection for the building. The satirist Galtier-Boissière reassured a friend distraught at the architectural vandalism: ‘It’s no great loss’, he said (Galtier-Boissière, 1944, p. 272).

  12 On 29 August 1944, von Choltitz was secretly recorded saying: ‘Adolf Hitler also wrote in his order concerning Paris that I must understand that I also had to defend the launching ramps of the reprisal [V] weapons.’ NA GRGG 183, p. 10.

  13 A facsimile of this document is reproduced at www.choltitz.de/bilderseiten/redentexte/truemmerfeldbefehl.htm [accessed November 2011] with a reference of OKW/WFSt/Up (H) Nr. 772989/44 (23.8.1944, 11.00 Uhr). There is a surprising lack of clarity over the exact content of this order, and even the dates on which it was transmitted and received. An ENIGMA decrypt is summarised in Hinsley (1988), pp. 371–2, note †, and is described as ‘an order by Hitler at 0900 on 23 August’. A French translation of the order is given in Jasper (1995), p. 338, but no source is given (Jasper cites Schramm (1982), but the order is not mentioned there); Jasper states the order was received on 22 August. Warlimont (1964), p. 636, n. 9 reproduces the final two sentences of the order, claims to have seen an archival source (not given) and records it as having been sent on 23 August. Speidel, who was Chief of Staff of Army Group B, also states that the order was sent on 23 August (Speidel, 1971, p. 143), although he reproduces a clause that is not given in the facsimile: the bridges were to be destroyed ‘even if residential areas and artistic monuments are destroyed thereby’. According to von Choltitz the order was received on 22 August (von Choltitz, 1949; von Choltitz, 1969, p. 239). Von Choltitz (1969) gives a different, less conditional, version of the final sentence, and also adds a further phrase, which is not present in any other source (italics indicate the new material): ‘Paris is to be transformed into a pile of rubble. The Commanding General must defend the city to the last man and, if necessary, will die in the ruins.’ To add to the confusion, Müller (1994), p. 107, states that the order was received on 22 August but was dated 21 August; however, his only source is von Choltitz (1969). Given the date on the facsimile, the decrypt cited by Hinsley (1988) and the recollections of Warlimont and Speidel, I conclude that the order was transmitted and received on 23 August.

  14 NA GRGG 183, p. 6. Although the order was addressed to Model as the German Commander in the West, von Choltitz received a copy. See von Choltitz (1969), p. 241 and Speidel (1971), p. 143 for some of the details of how the message got to Paris.

  15 von Choltitz (1969), p. 239; Jay (n.d.), p. 72. Jay also says that the order was received on 23 August. This discussion would have taken place in the late afternoon, by which time the fire at the Grand Palais had been put out. Had the discussion taken place a few hours earlier, the black smoke pouring from the shattered roof of the Grand Palais would literally have cast von Choltitz and Jay’s conversation in a different light.

  16 von Choltitz (1969), pp. 240–1; Speidel (1971), pp. 143–4. This version of the conversation is different from that von Choltitz gave less than a week later in a secretly recorded conversation with General von Thoma when he was a POW, although both versions reveal a caustic von Choltitz and a complicit Speidel. According to von Choltitz’s earlier recollection, the conversation went thus:

  I have no guns, I have no HE [high explosives?], I have only that poisoned arrow, rifle ‘98’, and yesterday morning at the changing of the guard I saw one MG [machine gun?] still firing, but how I am to set fire to the Louvre with that, or raze the Chambre des Deputés to the ground, I don’t know . . . I said: ‘Speidel, you have got a “Feldmarschall” here, what does he say to it?’ ‘Nothing at all, he can’t say anything either.’ . . . I said: ‘Speidel, you give me five thousand men scattered over a city of five million inhabitants, defended by knife rests. As for food – I have ten cases of tinned pork.’ (NA GRGG 183, p. 7.)

  17 von Choltitz (1969), p. 240.

  18 AN 72AJ/62/II/4. This copy is marked ‘Champs Elysées, 26 août 1944’; this must refer to when it was found. A copy of the leaflet is also reproduced in Renoult & West (2009), p. 127, where it is dated 23 August. According to Thornton (1963), p. 175, this leaflet was dropped on the capital by a German plane on the night of 22–23 August. Thornton supplies a full translation.

  19 Naville (1950e). According to Nordling (who was not present), von Choltitz complained to Nordling’s colleague, Forssius, that the French were breaking his windows by firing at the Hôtel Meurice, before concluding, philosophically: ‘Paris is like a beautiful woman: if she slaps you, you don’t respond’ (Nordling, 2002, pp. 141–2). Naville, who was involved in these discussions with von Choltitz, makes no reference to any such comment.

  20 BAM VV, 23.8.

  21 AN 72AJ/42/IV/3, pp. 26–7.

  22 BAM VV, 23.8.

  23 Campaux (1945), pp. 246–7.

  24 Naville (1950e).

  25 Patin (1994), pp. 73–7.

  26 Brasillach (1955), pp. 288–9.

  27 Auroy (2008), pp. 328–9; Cazaux (1975), p. 178.

  28 Toesca (1975), p. 331.

  29 AN 72AJ/61/I/14, pp. 4–5.

  30 AN 72AJ/62/III/4, pp. 40–1.

  31 Bourget (1984), pp. 352–3.

  32 There is no space to detail all the fighting that took place; Massiet (1945) pp. 175–9 summarises much of the action.

  33 Photographs of the train at Menilmontant can be seen in Barozzi (1980), pp. 80–1. There is a plaque to mark the event at the junction of the rue de Ménilmontant and the rue Sorbier, where the road passes over the now-disused sunken railway.

  34 Riffaud (1994), pp. 138–9. In this source, Riffaud does not give a date for the attack. For her eye-witness account see Vingt ans en août 1944 (2004) on the DVD Héros de la Résistance. Noguères & Degliame-Fouché (1981), p. 533 state that it took place on 24 August; the plaque that commemorates the event on the bridge over the railway lines says it took place on 22 August; Bourget (1984), p. 354, dates the event as 23 August, upon the basis of another account by Riffaud and, above all, the messages sent to the Préfecture de Police. The exact number of prisoners, the content of the train, and even the number of trains, also differ from account to accoun
t.

  35 Massiet (1945) p. 174. This was one of over sixty messages sent by the FFI, if the numbering system is to be believed.

  36 Touche (1946), p. 99. During the fighting in the 17th arrondissement, Henri Molinier, who was in charge of his Trotskyist group’s military activities, was killed by a German shell (Craipeau, 1978, p. 40).

  37 AN 72AJ/61/I/14, pp. 4–5; AN 72AJ/62/III/3, p. 2; Vilain (1945), p. 18; Touche (1946), pp. 99–100.

  38 Pictures of the tank and a description of the attack can be seen in Fournier & Eymard (2009), p. 21.

  39 AN 72AJ/62/I/15, p. 3.

  40 Cazaux (1975), p. 178.

  41 Vilain (1945), pp. 18–19.

  42 L’Humanité 23 August 1944. There were also plenty of Parisians who would not live. On the extremely narrow rue de Beauce, just south of the Mairie of the 3rd Arrondissement, 21-year-old Antoine Luitaud, a good-looking young man with horn-rim glasses and slicked-back hair, ran into a bar to hide from a German patrol. The Germans machine-gunned the room and Antoine was shot dead, a bullet through the eye (Castetbon, 2004, pp. 148–53). There is a plaque on the wall where the café used to be, 9 rue de Beauce. FTP fighter Henri Périer who was forty-two years old was in a car with a group of comrades, on the rue Nationale, near the overground Métro in the 13th arrondissement. Their car was attacked by German soldiers and Henri was killed. It was several days before his family – his son, his daughter and his wife – learnt that he was dead (Castetbon, 2004, pp. 180–5). Although there is a plaque on the wall at 182 rue Nationale, the neighbourhood has been completely transformed since the war, with the exception of the overground Métro lines.

  43 Both statements are in Dupuy (1945), pp. 33–4.

  44 Courtin (1994), p. 39.

  45 Grunberg (2002), pp. 347–8.

  46 Brasillach (1955), p. 290; Brassié (1987), p. 304.

  47 For Picasso’s sketch, the whereabouts of which are unknown, see Zervos (1963), p. 22. There are two versions of Poussin’s painting. The original is now in the National Gallery in London and appears to be the version Picasso used. A copy (also by Poussin) was in the Louvre (Penrose, 1962, p. 313) before being lent to the Musée des Beaux Arts in Rheims from 1949 until 1961. According to Françoise Bouré of the Musée des Beaux Arts, it is now back in Paris. The London version can be seen at www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/nicolas-poussin-the-triumph-of-pan [accessed July 2012].