Albeit writing twenty years apart, both Adrien Dansette and Raymond Dronne produced very similar accounts of the afternoon’s events. The interrogation began in a roguish tone, but turned nasty once Parodi announced that he was the “Head of the Resistance”.
“You are terrorists, spies, best to shoot you,” came the menacing reply.
Parodi, Pré and Laffond watched their papers being sorted into official Gestapo envelopes while their hands were cuffed behind their backs. Armed soldiers bundled them into the car for a journey across the Bois de Boulogne, over the Pont de Saint-Cloud, ending up outside a large, bourgeois house signposted “Military Tribunal”.160
“Ach, schön! ” (“Wonderful!”) exclaimed the officer who welcomed them.
“What’s your resistance name?” asked another Gestapo officer.
“Cerat,” replied Parodi.
“Cerat! ” exclaimed the German. “Now tell me your real name.”
Telephones had been ringing across Paris since Parodi’s arrest. They were seen entering 64 Avenue Henri-Martin by Madamoiselle Jaqueline de Champeau, who happened to be Émile Laffond’s fiancée. She telephoned Philippe Clément who alerted Alexandre de Saint-Phalle, who telephoned Nordling, who telephoned the Hôtel Meurice. The Meurice called the military tribunal, where the interrogation was halted. Their handcuffs removed, Parodi, Pré and Laffond were bundled back into the cars and returned to the Meurice where they began two hours earlier.161
Von Choltitz received them in his office, sitting behind the flat-top bureau with officers at smaller desks on each side. Von Choltitz claimed to know little about the Resistance, but he knew that if he washed his hands of them, the Gestapo would shoot them before dusk.162
“Do you take my soldiers for Boy Scouts?” asked von Choltitz, pointing at their compromising documents which were now piled on his desk.163
Nordling wrote that it was due to a gloating German telephoning his consulate, rather than Saint-Phalle, that he learnt of Parodi’s arrest. Accompanied by Bender, he hastened to the Meurice and breezed up the stairs.164
Entering von Choltitz’s office, Nordling immediately recognised Parodi and his companions. He was relieved to see Erich von Posch-Pastor acting as interpreter.
“Are these messieurs the ‘gentlemen’ with whom you suggested I should negotiate the other day?” asked von Choltitz.165
Nordling acknowledged that they were.
“You are well aware, Monsieur Consul Général,” interjected Parodi, “that I am the only Minister representing the French Government in Paris.”166
“We have taken these three men,” said von Choltitz, “Here is their paperwork. Do you know whether they are terrorists or messieurs?”
“I don’t know their names, but I have met them,” replied Nordling. “These are the men with whom you can discuss the truce.”
“I am,” admitted Parodi, “the only Minister of the Algiers government working here.”
“They were arrested before the truce could be applied through being announced by [loudspeaker] cars,” von Choltitz told Nordling. “They represent the highest risk to the German authorities by virtue of the papers relating to the resistance and espionage which they were carrying with them. They ought to be shot outside immediately.”
An officer produced a draft affiche found among Parodi’s papers and read out the headline, “The German Army abandons Paris …”
“This has nothing to do with the truce,” said von Choltitz.
“That proclamation was written before the truce,” replied Parodi, who sat between Pré and Laffond opposite von Choltitz.
“I struggle to accept your explanation,” said von Choltitz.
“I am a minister of the French government,” replied Parodi, “and I can’t accept that you should doubt my word.”
“Your ministerial ranking does not hold any value for us,” said von Choltitz. “We don’t know General de Gaulle. There are, however, Communists among you.”
“The Communists are part of the Resistance,” said Parodi coolly. “We have all formed a bloc.”167
“I have no wish to see this incident take a tragic turn,” said von Choltitz. “The essential thing is to preserve Paris. Its fate is in your hands. If the truce is not respected, the insurrection will be crushed.”
Parodi recognised very well that, had he been captured a day earlier, he would have been shot at one of the Gestapo’s well-used execution sites. But now the situation was different.168
Struggling with angina and the irritation of using a slow interpretor, von Choltitz asked, “I want to know if you’re going to respect this truce. Are you capable of communicating your orders to your men? Will they obey you?”169
“You must understand,” said Parodi in a fearless voice, “that a population in arms is not controllable in the same way as regular troops, especially in the banlieues. You are a general commanding an army. You give orders. You are obeyed. I lead a number of groups of differing political hues. I do not control them all. The Resistance is spontaneous.”170
Von Choltitz listened. Parodi then asked, “Will you respect the Resistance’s occupation of the ministries? Will you leave our newspapers alone?”
“Your occupation of ministerial buildings is political,” replied von Choltitz. “Your newspapers are also political. It is essential to maintain the suspension of hostilities. I will give the order not to fire at buildings. But you must not fire at my troops, and no more barricades.”
“If you want such incidents to cease,” replied Parodi, “your troops should keep to designated areas and stop patrolling.”
“I have to place men at barriers,” said von Choltitz, “so that they can indicate the routes to be taken, avoiding the centre where possible. Inevitably some vehicles will pass through the centre. Then you shoot at them. You must accept that there are soldiers in Paris. If authority is going to be maintained there have to be patrols.”
“The authority of the Germans—not the authority of the French?”
“For order to be maintained,” von Choltitz replied, “you must prevent anything that provokes disorder. Your police can keep their Tricolores, but get back to work.”171
Nordling interjected an observation. “It can’t be easy for Parisians to respect the truce if they have nothing to put in their mouths.”
“We have the means to produce what they need to eat,” said von Choltitz. “When the electricity is cut, it will all go off anyway,” he remarked.
Parodi stood impassively while Posch-Pastor translated.
“Parisians have been hungry for four years,” replied Parodi brusquely. “They can endure another four days.”172
“Don’t you want to avoid riots and famine?” asked von Choltitz.
“I can only undertake that the truce will be respected,” said Parodi. “Paris is not worried about riots and famine.”173
Von Choltitz told Nordling that he would place food supplies under the authority of the Swedish and Swiss consulates for public distribution. “But these supplies must not fall into the hands of the Resistance,” he insisted, trying to lower tensions while holding to his position.174
“Monsieur le Consul,” von Choltitz told Nordling, “these three men no longer concern me. Take them under your protection. The fate of Paris has been decided.”
With that Parodi, Pré and Laffond were safe.
“Are you an officer?” von Choltitz asked.
“Officer of reserve,” replied Parodi.
“From one officer to another,” said von Choltitz offering his hand.175
But Parodi refused the gesture.
“A French minister,” said Parodi stiffly, “cannot, in the present circumstances, shake the hand of a German general.”
Nordling sensed German hackles rising. A security officer advised that Parodi, Pré and Laffond should be held as hostages, but von Choltitz had made his decision.176
“I’ve been courteous all along,” said von Choltitz. “I am handing these men over to y
ou along with their papers. You will decide if international law allows you to release them.”
Under the protection of Nordling, Parodi, Pré and Laffond were led to the main foyer by Bobby Bender. Seeing them reappear, the SD officer who arrested them stood incredulous. “What!” he exclaimed to an orderly. “That was the best arrest of my career. It’s absolutely crazy to release those men!” As they exited the front door, Bender heard him mutter, “I’ll see to them!”177
Outside Bender noticed a large, black Packard, its engine idling. A trilby-wearing plain-clothes Gestapo man sat beside the driver, cradling a submachine-gun. The Frenchmen got into Nordling’s Citroen.
“I’ll follow but don’t wait if I get held up,” said Bender.
Nordling nodded.
As Nordling’s car pulled away towards the Rue de Rivoli’s security barrier, the Packard followed, but Bender’s torpedo Citroen cut in between them, screeched to a halt and stalled, preventing the Packard from passing. Hearing Bender’s screeching brakes, von Choltitz went to his window just as his guards allowed Nordling’s car onto the Place de la Concorde, its Swedish pennant fluttering in the sunshine, while at the checkpoint the Gestapo gunman gesticulated angrily at Bender.178
In his car Nordling returned Parodi’s papers, but Parodi bade the Swede keep some for form’s sake. Then Nordling dropped them at the corner of the Rue d’Anjou and Rue Saint-Lazare.
Parodi subsequently admitted to Francis Crémieux that von Choltitz was nowhere near as harsh as he could have been. French historian Pierre Bourget wrote, “Choltitz affected to be a ‘harsh’ general for the sake of appearances. But, in reality, he showed that he was relatively conciliatory, particularly when dealing with Nordling.”179
GIVEN THE ILL-ASSORTED VEHICLES pressed into service as loudspeaker cars to announce the truce, it was not always easy to tell which cars were official. Implacably, Rol-Tanguy pronounced that “white flags are for troops who are surrendering”. If, Rol-Tanguy insisted, anyone asked for a truce, it would be the Germans, and his troops would be informed in due course by senior résistants. When, at 4.45pm, Raymond Massiet found Rol-Tanguy, still at Rue Schoelcher, to lay to rest the rumour that Rol-Tanguy had agreed to the ceasefire, Rol-Tanguy said he had received “no official superior order”. At that particular moment the only man capable of giving an authoritative order, Alexandre Parodi, was being passed between German offices following his arrest. Unaware of this, Massiet passed Rol-Tanguy’s information to Colonel Lizé who, at 5.40pm, published a fresh order, “The orders recently transmitted by superior authorities impose on all fighting troops the imperative mission to continue combat according to previous instructions. All orders contrary to this do not emanate from military authorities, who have not been advised, and are therefore without value.”180
At about the same time Rol-Tanguy ordered that all loudspeaker cars found announcing the truce should be seized. Not even Charles Luizet was immune from having his car stopped, but neither Rol-Tanguy’s nor Lizé’s powers entitled them to interfere with the Delegation.181
THAT THE SS AND SD CARED NOTHING for Nordling’s truce was demonstrated by their seizure of the Rue de Lyon police station. Once taken prisoner, Commissioners Silvestri, Dubret and their Gardiens stood little chance. While they stood against a wall, their station was searched, yielding one FFI armband and three standard issue Lebel revolvers. For this, they were taken to Vincennes. “It’s too late today,” said an SS NCO. “We’ll shoot them in the morning.” After a sleepless night followed by the gunfire of dawn executions, Silvestri and his men were lead into the courtyard and lined up facing eleven freshly shot corpses. There was, however, no firing squad. Instead a lorry reversed up with its tailgate dropped to reveal a tripod mounted MG42 machine-gun with a belt of ammunition fed to the breach. Rather than executing them immediately, the SS forced Silvestri’s men to carry the eleven corpses to a patch of open ground. As they lifted the corpses, Silvestri’s men recognised them as fellow policemen. After a couple of hundred metres they laid down the bodies and were given shovels and picks with which to dig a burial pit while SS men kicked them around.182
Despite their situation, Commissioner Dubret kept their spirits up. So the SS picked on him. When the ditch was dug, they made Dubret stand in it.
“Well, who’s going to perform the last rites?” Dubret joked.
The SS then turned on Silvestri. Though never a résistant, to save the younger men’s lives, Silvestri claimed responsibility for the FFI brassard found at their police station. The SS made him lift a large stone with his arms stretched out in front of him and run with it while they kicked him. For further amusement, Silvestri was forced to carry a large beam while being mocked as Christ carrying his cross. Being middle-aged, wearing full uniform, Silvestri soon became exhausted.
Eventually, Silvestri was stood at the edge of the fresh mass grave. Knowing what was about to happen, he tried to smarten himself. Standing to attention, he shouted “Vive la France!” Machine-gun bullets ripped into his chest and he fell into the pit.
The other policemen also expected to die. But instead the SS NCO decided to make them fill in the grave. Dronne’s information is that these SS came from the notorious 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich which had pitched up in Paris having lost their officers. This division had committed the massacre at Oradour Sur Glane, and the NCO who fed his cruelty on Silvestri’s Gardiens bragged that he had nailed an infant to Oradour’s church door with a bayonet. Perhaps the unexpected arrival of a Wehrmacht officer made him reconsider his conduct. But three recently executed FFIs were placed alongside Silvestri before the grave was filled in.183
REJOINING LES BADAUDS around mid-afternoon, Jean Galtier-Boissière found solid sand-bag defences a metre high around the Place Saint-Michel with FFIs in organised sections behind them. Les badauds autres huddled in doorways and pretty girls flaunted FFI armbands. When a whistle blew loudly, everyone turned. A German lorry was advancing along the Boulevard Saint-Michel. All but les risques tout scurried for shelter. Pausing at the barricade checkpoint, its crew faced gesticulative FFIs whose chief parleyed with the driver and the armed soldier beside him. Though inaudible to Galtier-Boissière, the FFIs must have been persuasive. The co-driver jumped out, surrendered his Schmeisser to one FFI, his pistol to another, gave his ammunition belt to a third, and put his hands up. The rest surrendered except the one on the roof. But a young FFI pointed out the guns trained on him and talked him down. Next came a lorry carrying female auxiliaries wearing looted furs and handbags. Similarly intimidated, they surrendered amicably. The FFIs gathered around their captives, asking if they were glad their war was over. Then they were marched towards the Préfecture while FFIs shared out their weapons and juggled with potato-masher hand-grenades.184
When a third lorry appeared at the end of the road, it reversed towards the Luxembourg and tried another route. With the excitement over, Galtier-Boissière continued towards the news kiosk on the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Germain. The seller had vanished and two day-old journals—collabo rags Revolution Nationale and Au Pilori—lay unsold. Leaving some coins, Galtier-Boissière grabbed a few. As he browsed, his veteran’s eye noticed something bloody on the sidewalk: human brains.185
WHEN COLONEL DAVID BRUCE REACHED RAMBOUILLET, neither the Resistance nor Hemingway’s group had entered its famous château, the French president’s country home. Situated on the town’s west side with its parkland, elaborate bassins and long, north-facing avenue, this impressive castle had witnessed many great moments in French history.
Hemingway’s CP was two rooms inside the bijou Hôtel du Grand Veneur, located on the bending road towards Épernon, southwest of Rambouillet. Its well-stocked kitchens enabled Hemingway’s party to live well, and Bruce’s group were “enchanted to see him”.186
“Agents and patrols kept rushing in with reports, some of them contradictory,” wrote Bruce, “but all indicating that the Germans were laying mines down the road towards us about eight miles
away, with a force of approximately 150 men. As there were no American troops in Rambouillet, Hemingway and the French were more or less convinced the Germans would retake the town tonight. We grilled the only Boche prisoner we could find. He either knew nothing or was a good actor, so we turned him back to the French, whom he was firmly convinced intended to execute him.”187
David Bruce automatically became the senior American officer in Rambouillet. Situation reports went to Irwin’s US 5th Infantry Division along with further requests for weapons and ammo. But all its nearest regiment could spare was boxes of captured German grenades. The Resistance in Maintenon promised, however, to send thirty men as reinforcements. Meanwhile Bruce wrote, “Agents were nipping in and out and everyone, including a stray American woman resident in France, was buttonholing me, asking questions and giving the answers at the same time. Newspaper correspondents had sprouted out of the ground, and the world and his wife were eating and uncorking champagne.”188
Although Bruce’s force numbered merely thirty Americans, ten FFI and fourteen gendarmes, large numbers of journalists now converged on Rambouillet. They knew liberating Paris was the campaign’s big event and were already spreading the word that the honour of entering the city was reserved for the 2e DB. Even if America’s greatest war correspondent, Ernie Pyle, had not arrived yet, he soon would.
Since the Geneva Convention clearly states that, like medical personnel, journalists are hors de combat, Hemingway’s pride in his group of irregulars provoked angry questions from some reporters. This provoked the bully in Hemingway’s nature, which he reserved for those he regarded as lesser mortals. Recognising that he had crossed the line towards being a combatant, Hemingway persuaded David Bruce to pen a note confirming his combatant role due to the extraordinary situation at Rambouillet. But Bruce Grant, a hefty reporter representing the Chicago Daily News, said that “General Hemingway and his Maquis” were taking too much space within the now cramped Hôtel du Grand Veneur. Fisticuffs followed, but they were quickly pulled apart. Hemingway had higher concerns than professional demarcation lines. He wanted to gather all the intelligence he could to help the Allies liberate the city he loved as much as any Frenchman.189
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