Liberation of Paris : How Eisenhower, De Gaulle, and Von Choltitz Saved the City of Light (9781501164941)

by Smith, Jean Edward

  Perhaps the only downside in Paris was the treatment of Jews and Freemasons on orders that came directly from the Vichy government. Freemasons, whom most French clerics considered henchmen of the devil, but who were in many respects the backbone of the Third Republic, were hit on August 13, 1940, when Vichy dismantled their lodges and banned all members from public functions. Then, on October 3, Vichy promulgated a Statute on Jews—the first anti-Semitic measure of the Pétain regime. Under the act, Jews were excluded from the civil service, the judiciary, the armed forces, the press, and the teaching profession. Anti-Semitism was not new to France, but it became one of the hallmarks of the Vichy regime. The Statute on Jews illustrated the Vichy government’s willingness to act on its own authority without German pressure and was an ominous sign for the future.13

  At the time, Charles de Gaulle was unknown by most Parisians. A colonel on active duty when the war began, he did well in combat, was promoted to brigadier general, and when Reynaud became prime minister was made undersecretary of the Ministry of National Defense. De Gaulle had written extensively on armored warfare, had become a friend of Reynaud during the prewar period, and his appointment gave Reynaud a vantage point from which to influence the military. Neither Pétain nor Weygand was pleased with the appointment. “He’s an infant,” Weygand told Reynaud. “He is more a journalist than an officer.” Pétain’s judgment was harsher. “He’s an arrogant man, an ingrate, and surly,” said the marshal. “He has few friends in the Army… for he gives the impression he is looking down on everybody.”14 When defeat came, de Gaulle flew to London with British general Edward Spears, met with Churchill, and on June 18 delivered a stirring address over BBC to the French population. “Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance must not and shall not die.”15 Very few in France heard de Gaulle speak. The fact that he was speaking from London did not help. The BBC did not record it, and de Gaulle remained in the wilderness as far as the citizens of Paris were concerned.

  Pétain and Hitler

  French cooperation with Germany continued. In late October first Laval, then Pétain, met with Hitler at Montoire in southern France as the Führer went to visit Generalissimo Francisco Franco in Spain. Speaking afterward at the Matignon Palace in Paris, under a French flag, Laval said, “In all domains, and especially in the economic and colonial spheres, we have discussed and we will continue to examine in what practical form our collaboration can serve the interests of France, Germany, and Europe.”

  Pétain famously said, “I enter into the way of collaboration. In the near future, the weight of suffering of our country could be lightened, the fate of our prisoners ameliorated, occupation costs reduced, the demarcation line made more flexible, and the administration and supply of our territory easier.”16

  Parisians adjusted surprisingly well to the occupation. Many became active collaborators. The Germans were in charge, and everyday Parisians made the best of it. As the writer Alan Riding has pointed out, “For some cabaret managers, it was as if la belle époque were back.”17 To the surprise of many, Hitler announced that the ashes of Napoléon I’s son, the Duc de Reichstadt, would be returned from Vienna and buried at Les Invalides on December 15, 1940, the hundredth anniversary of Napoléon’s burial there.

  Change came slowly. Rationing was introduced in Paris in the autumn of 1940, and gasoline was in short supply. By the spring of 1941 it looked as if the war was going to last considerably longer than most Parisians had anticipated. Under Churchill’s leadership the British were still fighting. Hitler had canceled the invasion of Great Britain, and the lengthy German air attacks on that country had proved fruitless. Germany had not gained air superiority. Then on June 22, 1941, the situation changed dramatically. Without prior warning, the German army invaded the Soviet Union. In Paris, French Communists changed sides overnight, becoming enemies of the occupation. In many respects, the resistance to Hitler by a significant number of Parisians dates to this event.

  Parisians became even more uncomfortable in December 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States immediately afterward, and the United States responded by declaring war on December 11. In November 1942, American troops landed in the French colonies of Morocco and Algeria in North Africa. The German government responded by occupying all of France. The situation changed further on January 30, 1943, when the German Sixth Army under Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrendered at Stalingrad. The Germans lost more than 200,000 men. For Parisians it looked as though the tide had turned. That seemed to be confirmed, on May 13, 1943, when Anglo-American forces accepted the German surrender in North Africa, where Germany lost another 290,000 men. The Wehrmacht now looked vulnerable.

  When Hitler moved into Vichy territory in December 1942 following the Allied invasion of North Africa, he chose to retain the Pétain regime. “French sovereignty will be maintained,” said Hitler, “but only in so far as it serves our interests.”18 By continuing to maintain the French State, Germany would be able to obtain whatever it wanted, and use the state apparatus as it wished. Hitler also told Pétain that he wanted Laval to remain as the head of government.19 Under Hitler’s orders the 100,000-man French army was disarmed and demobilized. Laval responded in January 1943 by establishing the French Militia (la Milice), a police force of volunteers whose task it would be to maintain order.

  In Paris life went on, but the occupation was now becoming onerous. The most despicable aspect of it was the treatment of the Jews, which was getting worse. When the war began in 1939, there were about 300,000 Jews living in France, with roughly 60 percent in Paris. Since 1791, when the National Assembly had granted Jews full civil rights, Paris had been a “new Jerusalem,” and many European Jews sought refuge there. In 1936, France chose a Jew, Léon Blum, to be prime minister, the first European state ever to do so. But on May 14, 1941, the Paris police conducted their first roundup of Jews, sending almost four thousand to internment camps.20 Roundups continued throughout 1941 and 1942, and by the end of 1942, almost forty thousand Jews had been deported.

  The Germans joined the persecution, commanded by SS Standartenführer Helmut Knochen, and on May 29, 1942, issued an order requiring Jewish citizens above the age of six to wear a yellow Star of David. A few weeks later Jews were excluded from public places (cafés, theaters, libraries, swimming pools, and parks) and prohibited from shopping until the afternoon, when there was hardly anything left in the food stores. The standartenführer SS and Gestapo looted Jewish property, taking artwork and furnishings from apartments formerly occupied by Parisian Jews. When the occupation ended, eighty thousand Jews had been sent to concentration camps, and of those twenty-four thousand were of French nationality, the other fifty-six thousand being more recent arrivals. Only 3 percent returned alive. Bad as that may seem, it was considerably better than what happened in Belgium and Holland. And it was better because of the help provided by many French, to shield their Jewish neighbors.21

  Daily life in Paris became more difficult for everyone, unless you had money or were a collaborationist. The Germans had turned Paris into a place of recreation for soldiers on leave. German officers felt at home in the Tour d’Argent and other gastronomic temples, all of which provided special menus in German. French companions were plentiful, but they were mostly collaborationists, cultural icons, or the upper crust of French society. After the war, and looking back at the occupation, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “I wonder if I shall be understood if I say that it [the occupation] was both intolerable and at the same time we put up with it very well.”22

  Cultural life in Paris continued undisturbed. Classical German music led the way. Parisians had always been fond of German music, and compositions by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner continued to be constantly performed, often by German orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic. The young conductor Herbert von Karajan, of the Berlin Staatsoper (State Opera), became a favorite of Parisians and led the Staatsoper in numerous concerts i
n Paris.23

  French filmmaking also prospered. Between June 1940 and the liberation in August 1944, the film industry produced a record 220 films. German censorship, aside from banning British and American films, was minimal, and the Germans encouraged French filmmakers to produce quality entertainment. By 1943, movie attendance in Paris was 40 percent higher than in 1938—the last year before the war—and Parisians flocked to the cinema to escape the drudgery of everyday life.24

  For French writers, the occupation also provided a unique opportunity. Many became ardent collaborationists; others went underground. The written word, unlike the theater or music, is in black-and-white, and the author can be judged accordingly. It would be fair to say that for the first two years of the occupation, French writers generally cooperated with the occupiers. But when it became clear that the Germans were losing, writers became more critical. German policy was set by Goebbels and his propaganda ministry, and most of the effort was directed at silencing Jewish writers or anti-German books.

  Social relations between Germans and Parisians were encouraged. German soldiers and French women hit it off amazingly well. By mid-1943, more than eighty thousand French women claimed benefits for their offspring from the German authorities. Those women who had affairs with Germans spanned the social ladder, and many Parisians of high social standing took up with German suitors. The famous actress Arletty and the designer Coco Chanel lived with German officers at the Ritz. “My heart is French but my ass is international,” said Arletty after the war.25

  But the tide was turning in 1943. American and British troops captured Sicily in July, and in the east the Soviet army was advancing. In Paris, sympathy for the occupation was diminishing rapidly. And the support for Pétain and the Vichy regime was eroding even faster. For Parisians, the high points of the occupation were the years 1940 and 1941, when German victory in Europe seemed inevitable. But as the military situation changed, so too did French attitudes toward the occupation.

  Unlike London or Berlin, Paris had not been bombed, and the city remained intact. That was a blessing, but the Germans were exploiting the French economy, and the costs were hitting home. French agricultural products had been taken increasingly to feed Germany, and the German war machine was fueled by French industry. By 1943, well over half of French agricultural production was going to German cities. This created serious shortages in Paris, where almost all food was rationed. In addition, almost a million young Frenchmen had been sent to Germany to work in industry, and the war prisoners still held by the Germans added to the total.

  The occupation had come full circle. What began in 1940 as an acceptance and even celebration of German victory had by the beginning of 1944 become a desperate undertaking. Collaborationists were beginning to look for cover, and the Resistance, which was negligible in 1940, was becoming a factor to be reckoned with. As Yves Bouthillier, who served as Pétain’s finance minister, wrote, “Public opinion, initially so favorable, even enthusiastic, became doubtful, suspicious, distrustful, and eventually, little by little, hostile. The divorce began slowly around the middle of 1941, at first it was imperceptible, a hair-line crack, but from 1942 onwards it became even wider and more obvious.”26 When 1944 began, most Parisians realized that Germany was losing the war, and that set off a tide of reaction.

  I. According to General Günther Blumentritt, chief of operations for Army Group A, the move through the Ardennes “was not really an operation but an approach march…. We met only slight resistance in Belgian Luxembourg…. It was weak opposition and easily brushed aside.” B. H. Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk (New York: William Morrow, 1948), 106.

  II. According to Article III, “The French Government is permitted to select the seat of its government in unoccupied territory, or, if it wishes, in Paris. In this case, the German government guarantees the French Government and its central authorities every necessary alleviation so that they will be in a position to conduct the administration of unoccupied territories from Paris.” Armistice Agreement, June 22, 1940, U.S. Department of State, Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1956), 671–676.

  III. On July 19, 1940, Army Group commanders Rundstedt, Bock, and Leeb were promoted by Hitler to the rank of field marshal. Wilhelm von Leeb had commanded Army Group C during the invasion.

   II

  De Gaulle and the Resistance

  “Paris must be liberated by French troops.”

  —DE GAULLE TO EISENHOWER, DECEMBER 30, 1943

  An even more dramatic change in Paris by 1944 reflected the growing enthusiasm for the leadership of Charles de Gaulle. At the beginning of the German blitzkrieg on May 10, 1940, de Gaulle was a colonel commanding a tank regiment in Alsace. Less than two weeks later he was promoted to brigadier general on the battlefield, and on June 6 was appointed by Prime Minister Paul Reynaud to be undersecretary of state for national defense in the French cabinet. He and Reynaud were old acquaintances, and the prime minister believed de Gaulle would provide valuable support in the cabinet. Ten days later, as military defeat became evident, de Gaulle was instructed by Reynaud to go to London and request Churchill’s assistance to help move the French government to North Africa, from which the war could continue.

  De Gaulle arrived in London on the morning of Sunday, June 16. Meeting with French ambassador Charles Corbin and Jean Monnet, a prominent French businessman, before seeing Churchill, he was told of a plan they had been working on with the British Foreign Office to unite France and Great Britain into one country—a “Declaration of Union.” There would be a common constitution, one government, common citizenship, and a complete linking of their respective destinies. Churchill was aware of the plan, but he had not yet discussed it with the British cabinet. Would de Gaulle press him to do so? they asked.

  De Gaulle was enthusiastic about the plan. He recognized that it could not be brought into effect overnight, but thought it would give Reynaud valuable support to continue the war. He agreed to raise the matter with Churchill when they met for lunch later that day. When de Gaulle restated the proposal, Churchill said that Lord Halifax, the British foreign minister, had told him of the plan. “But it is an enormous mouthful.”1 De Gaulle agreed, but said to announce it would greatly benefit the Reynaud government and help keep France in the war. Churchill understood and said he would present it to his cabinet that afternoon. De Gaulle accompanied him to 10 Downing Street, where he waited in an office adjoining the Cabinet Room.

  While the cabinet meeting was going on, de Gaulle phoned Reynaud to tell him what was happening. Reynaud said he thought it was “the only possible solution for the future, but it must be done very quickly, above all quickly.”2 The British cabinet meeting lasted almost two hours, during which various ministers came out to ask de Gaulle to clarify something. Then a beaming Churchill led the cabinet into the room where de Gaulle was waiting. “We are agreed,” said the prime minister. De Gaulle immediately called Reynaud with the news. Churchill then took the phone and told Reynaud, “De Gaulle is right…. You must hold out…. We will see you tomorrow! At Concarneau.”3 Reynaud was overwhelmed by the British offer and said he would present it to his cabinet, which was to meet shortly.

  It was at that meeting of the French cabinet late on June 16 that Reynaud lost his support. When he presented the proposal for an Anglo-French Union, the cabinet response was overwhelmingly negative. “A marriage with a corpse,” said Marshal Pétain. “Better to be a Nazi province,” said another. “At least we know what that means.”4 Only Georges Mandel, the minister of the interior, spoke in favor. Instead of supporting Reynaud’s proposal for union with Britain, the cabinet went on to endorse a suggestion made by Camille Chautemps, a former prime minister, that Hitler should be asked for surrender terms and that they should be considered. At that point Reynaud adjourned the meeting, and then submitted his resignation to President Albert Lebrun.

  The Reynaud government was finished. De Gaulle, en ro
ute back from London in a plane provided by Churchill, was told when he landed of Reynaud’s defeat. The news that President Lebrun had appointed Pétain to be prime minister came shortly afterward. De Gaulle was stunned. He was no longer in the government, and Pétain as prime minister meant that French surrender was imminent.

  De Gaulle went to see Reynaud immediately. “I found him with no illusions about what the consequences would be of the Marshal’s taking power,” said de Gaulle.5 Reynaud said he intended to remain in France, although no longer in office. De Gaulle said he would return to England the next morning and continue the fight. “I didn’t want to stay in Bordeaux with Pétain and Weygand.”6 Reynaud encouraged de Gaulle and gave him a hundred thousand francs from secret funds to which he still had access. De Gaulle then asked Reynaud’s aide to have diplomatic passports sent to his wife and children so they could join him. Jean Laurent, who was on Reynaud’s staff, gave de Gaulle the keys to an apartment he had in London and told him he could stay there as long as he wished. Shortly after nine the next morning, de Gaulle took off for England on the same plane that had brought him to France the night before. He had no government position and no idea of what might lie ahead, but he did not believe the war was over.

  “I was starting from scratch,” said de Gaulle. “But this very destitution showed me my line of conduct. It was by adopting without compromise the cause of national recovery that I could acquire authority…. It was by acting as the inflexible champion of the nation and of the state that it would be possible for me to gather the consent, even the enthusiasm, of the French and to win from foreigners respect and consideration…. In short, limited and alone though I was, and precisely because I was so, I had to climb to the heights and then never to come down.”7