| Liberation of Paris | |||||||
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| Part of Operation Overlord | |||||||
Parisians line the Champs Élysées as French 2e DB tanks and half tracks pass before the Arc de Triomphe on 26 August |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| French Resistance Free French Forces United States |
Germany Milice |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Philippe Leclerc Henri Rol-Tanguy Jacques Chaban-Delmas Raymond O. Barton |
Dietrich von Choltitz | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 2nd French Armoured Division, French Forces of the Interior, 4th U.S. Infantry Division |
5,000 Inside Paris, 15,000 In outskirts | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| French Resistance: Between 800 and 1,000 dead[1] Free French Forces: 130 dead 319 wounded[2] United States: Unknown [3] |
3,200 dead 12,800 prisoners[1] |
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The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on 25 August. It could be regarded by some as the last battle in the Battle for Normandy, though that really ended with the crushing of the Wehrmacht forces between the U.S. Army under Lt. General George S. Patton, Jr., and the British Army under Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery in the Falaise gap in western France around the same time. The Liberation of Paris could be regarded as the transitional conclusion of the Allied invasion breakout in Operation Overlord into a broad-fronted general offensive, though this is a minority opinion.
The capital region of France had been governed by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Second Compiègne Armistice in June 1940, when the German Army occupied northern and westmost France, and when the puppet regime of Vichy France was established in the town of Vichy in central France.
The Liberation of Paris started with an uprising by the French Resistance against the German garrison. On August 24th, the French Forces of the Interior (Forces françaises de l'intérieur, FFI) received reinforcements from the Free French Army of Liberation and from the U.S. Third Army under General Patton.
This battle marked the liberation of Paris by the U.S. Army and the exile of the Vichy government to Sigmaringen in Germany. However, there was still much heavy fighting to be done before France was liberated, including the Operation Anvil Dragoon amphibious landings in southmost France in September (near Marseilles), along the German-held seaports of western France (such as at Brest and Dunkirk), in Alsace Lorraine in eastmost France, and in northeastern France, such as along the Rhine River. The Wehrmacht fought doggedly in these areas for the rest of 1944.
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Allied strategy emphasized destroying German forces retreating towards the Rhine, when the French Resistance (FFI) under Henri Rol-Tanguy staged an uprising in the French capital. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Western Europe, did not consider Paris to be a primary objective. Instead, the U.S. Army and the British Army hoped to make it all the way to Berlin before the Soviet Army did, and hence put an end to World War II in Europe, before moving on to the Pacific to finish off the Japanese Empire.[4]
Moreover, General Eisenhower thought that it was too early for a battle in Paris. He wanted to prevent another battle like the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of Leningrad, and he knew that Adolf Hitler had given orders to raze Paris. This city was considered to be of too great value culturally and historically to risk destruction in a battle. In a siege, it was estimated that 4,000 short tons (3,600 t) of food per day would be needed to supply the population of Paris, plus huge efforts would be required to restore its water supply, transportation system, electric power supplies, et cetera. Such tasks would require much time and large numbers of Allied soldiers and military engineers.[4]
However, General Charles de Gaulle of the partially-resurrected French Army threatened to order the French 2nd Armored Division (2ème DB) into Paris.
Paris was the prize in a contest for power within the French Resistance. The city was the hub of national administration and politics, the center of the railroad system the highway system of Central France. Paris seemed to be the only place from which France could be governed. The overiding aim of the Resistance was to get rid of the Germans and to bound men of conflicting philosophies, interests, and political persuasions together. De Gaulle had organized the Free French Army outside of France to support his provisional government, but inside France, a large and vociferous contingent of the left wing (politically) challenged de Gaulle's leadership.
On 24 August, delayed by poor decision-making, combat and poor roads, the Free French General Leclerc, commander of the 2nd Armored Division, disobeyed his directly superior American field commander, Major General Leonard T. Gerow, and he sent a vanguard (the colonne Dronne) to Paris, with the message that the entire division would be there on the following day. The 9th Armored Company, composed mainly of veterans of the Spanish Civil War, equipped with American M4 Sherman tanks, M2 half-tracks, and General Motors Company trucks from the United States was commanded by Captain Raymond Dronne. He became one of the first uniformed Allied officers to enter Paris in 1944.
As late as 11 August, nine French Jews were arrested by the French police in Paris. On 16 August, collaboration newspapers were still published and, although food was in short supply, sidewalk cafés were crowded.[5]
In contrast, by 18 August more than half the railroad workers were on strike and the city was at a standstill. Virtually all the policemen had disappeared from the streets. Several anti-German demonstrations took place, and armed Resistance members appeared openly. The German reaction was less than forthright; prompting small, local Resistance groups, without central direction or discipline, to take possession the next day of police stations, town halls, national ministries, newspaper buildings and the Hôtel de Ville.
There were perhaps 20,000 Resistance members in Paris, but few were armed. Nevertheless, they destroyed road signs, punctured the tires of German vehicles, cut communication lines, bombed gasoline depots and attacked isolated pockets of German soldiers. But being inadequately armed, members of the Resistance feared open warfare. To avoid it, Resistance leaders persuaded Raoul Nordling, the Swedish consul-general in Paris, to negotiate with the German military governor of Groß-Paris and commander of the Paris garrison, general Dietrich von Choltitz. On the evening of 19 August, the two men arranged a truce, at first for a few hours; it was then extended indefinitely.
The arrangement was somewhat nebulous. Choltitz agreed to recognize certain parts of Paris as belonging to the Resistance. The Resistance, meanwhile, consented to leave particular areas of Paris free to German troops. But no boundaries were drawn, and neither the Germans nor the French were clear about their respective areas. The armistice expired on the 24th.[6]
On 15 August, in Pantin (the northeastern suburb of Paris from which the Germans had entered the capital in June 1940), 2,200 men and 400 women — all political prisoners — were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp on the last convoy to Germany.[7][8]
That same day, the employees of the Paris Métro, the Gendarmerie and police went on strike, followed by postal workers on 16 August. They were joined by workers across the city causing a general strike to break out on 18 August, the day on which all Parisians were ordered to mobilize by the French Forces of the Interior.
On 16 August, 35 young FFI members were betrayed by an agent of the Gestapo. They went to a rendezvous in the Bois de Boulogne, near the waterfall, and there they were executed by the Germans. They were machine gunned down and then finished off with hand grenades.[9]
On 17 August, concerned that explosives were being placed at strategic points around the city by the Germans, Pierre Taittinger, the chairman of the municipal council, met Choltitz .[10] On being told that Choltitz intended to slow the Allied advance as much as possible, Taittinger and Nordling attempted to persuade Choltitz not to destroy Paris.[11]
On 19 August, columns of German tanks, half-tracks and trucks towing trailers and cars loaded with troops and material, moved down the Champs Élysées. The rumor of the Allies' advance toward Paris was growing.
The streets were deserted following the German retreat; suddenly the first skirmishes between French irregulars and the German occupiers commenced. Spontaneously, other people went out in to the streets, some FFI members posted propaganda posters on walls. These posters focused on a general mobilization order, arguing that "the war continues", and calling on the Parisian police, the Republican Guard, the Gendarmerie, the Gardes Mobiles, the G.M.R. (Groupe Mobile de Réserve, the police units replacing the army), the gaolkeepers, the patriotic French, "all men from 18 to 50 able to carry a weapon" to join "the struggle against the invader". Other posters were assuring "victory is near" and a "chastisement for the traitors", i.e., the Vichy loyalists. The posters were signed by the "Parisian Committee of the Liberation" in agreement with the Provisional Government of the French Republic and under the orders of "Regional Chief Colonel Rol", Henri Rol-Tanguy, commander of the French Forces of the Interior in the Île de France region.
As the battle raged, some small mobile units of the Red Cross moved in the city to assist French and German wounded. Later that day, three French résistants were executed by the Germans.
That same day in Pantin, a barge filled with mines exploded and destroyed the Great Windmills.[8]
On 20 August, barricades began to appear and resistants organized themselves to sustain a siege. Trucks were positioned, trees cut down and trenches dug in the pavement to free paving stones for consolidating the barricades. These materials were transported by men, women, children and old people using wooden carts. Fuel trucks were attacked and captured, other civilian vehicles like the Citroën Traction Avant sedan captured, painted with camouflage and marked with the FFI emblem. The Resistance would use them to transport ammunition and orders from one barricade to another.
Fort de Romainville, a Nazi prison in the outskirts of Paris, was liberated. From October 1940, the Fort held only female prisoners (resistants and hostages), who were jailed, executed or redirected to the camps. At liberation in August 1944, many abandoned corpses were found in the Fort's yard.
A temporary ceasefire between von Choltitz and a part of the French Resistance was brokered by Raoul Nordling, the Swedish consul-general in Paris. Both sides needed time; the Germans wanted to strengthen their weak garrison with front-line troops, Resistance leaders wanted to strengthen their positions in anticipation of a battle (the resistance lacked ammunition for any prolonged fight).
The German garrison held most of the main monuments and some strongpoints, the Resistance most of the city. The Germans lacked numbers to go on the offensive, the Resistance lacked heavy weapons to attack these strongpoints.
Skirmishes reached their height of intensity on the 22nd when some German units tried to leave their strongpoints. At 09:00 on 23 August, under von Choltitz' orders, the Germans set fire to the Grand Palais, an FFI stronghold, and tanks fired at the barricades in the streets. Hitler gave the order to inflict maximum damage on the city.[12]
It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 resistance fighters were killed during the battle for Paris, another 1,500 were wounded.[13]
On the following morning, an enormous crowd of joyous Parisians welcomed the arrival of the 2nd French Armored Division, which swept the western part of Paris, including the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Élysées, while the Americans cleared the eastern part. German resistance had evaporated during the previous night. Two thousand men remained in the Bois de Boulogne, 700 more were in the Jardin du Luxembourg. But most had fled or simply awaited capture.[14]
The battle had cost the Free French 2nd Armored Division 71 killed, 225 wounded, 35 tanks, six self-propelled guns, and 111 vehicles, "a rather high ratio of losses for an armoured division" according to historian Jacques Mordal.[15]
Due to American pressure for a white-only liberation force, black French troops were excluded from the triumphal return to Paris on the 25th.[16]
Despite repeated orders from Adolf Hitler that the French capital "must not fall into the enemy's hand except lying in complete debris" to be accomplished by bombing it and blowing up its bridges,[17] von Choltitz, as commander of the German garrison and military governor of Paris, surrendered on 25 August at the Hôtel Meurice, the newly established headquarters of General Leclerc. Von Choltitz was kept prisoner until April 1947. In his memoir ... Brennt Paris? ("Is Paris Burning?"), first published in 1950, von Choltitz describes himself as the saviour of Paris.
There is controversy about von Choltitz's actual role during the battle, since he is regarded in very different ways in France and Germany. In Germany, he is regarded as a humanist and a hero who saved Paris from urban warfare and destruction. In 1964, Dietrich von Choltitz explained in an interview taped in his Baden Baden home, why he had refused to obey Hitler: "If for the first time I had disobeyed, it was because I knew that Hitler was insane" ("Si pour la première fois j'ai désobéi, c'est parce que je savais qu'Hitler était fou")". According to a 2004 interview which his son Timo gave to the French public channel France 2, von Choltitz disobeyed Hitler and personally allowed the Allies to take the city safely and rapidly, preventing the French Resistance from engaging in urban warfare that would have destroyed parts of the ciy. He knew the war was lost and decided alone to save the capital.[18]
However, in France this version is seen as a "falsification of history" since von Choltitz is regarded as a Nazi officer faithful to Hitler. He was involved in many controversial actions:
During the battle for Paris, he:
In a 2004 interview, Resistance veteran Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont described von Choltitz as a man who "for as long as he could, killed French people and, when he ceased to kill them, it was because he was not able to do so any longer". Kriegel-Valrimont argues "not only do we owe him nothing, but this a shameless falsification of History, to award him any merit."[18] The Libération de Paris documentary film secretly shot during the battle by the Résistance brings evidence of bitter urban warfare that contradicts the von Choltitz father and son version. Despite this, the Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre novel Is Paris Burning? and its film adaptation of the same name (1966) emphasize von Choltitz as the saviour of the city.
A third source, the transcripts of telephone conversations between von Choltitz and his superiors, found later in the Fribourg archives and their analysis by German historians, support Kriegel-Valrimont's theory.[11]
Also, Pierre Taittinger and Raoul Nordling both claim it was they who convinced von Choltitz not to destroy Paris as ordered by Hitler.[11] The first published a book in 1984 describing this episode, ...et Paris ne fut pas détruit (... and Paris Was Not Destroyed), which earned him a prize from the Académie Française.
German losses are estimated at about 3,200 killed and 12,800 prisoners of war.
On the same day, Charles de Gaulle, president of the Provisional Government of the French Republic moved back into the War Ministry on the rue Saint-Dominique. He then made a rousing speech to the crowd from the Hôtel de Ville.
| “ | Why do you wish us to hide the emotion which seizes us all, men and women, who are here, at home, in Paris that stood up to liberate itself and that succeeded in doing this with its own hands?
No! We will not hide this deep and sacred emotion. These are minutes which go beyond each of our poor lives. Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the help of all France, of the France that fights, of the only France, of the real France, of the eternal France! Well! Since the enemy which held Paris has capitulated into our hands, France returns to Paris, to her home. She returns bloody, but quite resolute. She returns there enlightened by the immense lesson, but more certain than ever of her duties and of her rights. I speak of her duties first, and I will sum them all up by saying that for now, it is a matter of the duties of war. The enemy is staggering, but he is not beaten yet. He remains on our soil. It will not even be enough that we have, with the help of our dear and admirable Allies, chased him from our home for us to consider ourselves satisfied after what has happened. We want to enter his territory as is fitting, as victors. This is why the French vanguard has entered Paris with guns blazing. This is why the great French army from Italy has landed in the south and is advancing rapidly up the Rhône valley. This is why our brave and dear Forces of the interior will arm themselves with modern weapons. It is for this revenge, this vengeance and justice, that we will keep fighting until the final day, until the day of total and complete victory. This duty of war, all the men who are here and all those who hear us in France know that it demands national unity. We, who have lived the greatest hours of our History, we have nothing else to wish than to show ourselves, up to the end, worthy of France. Long live France! |
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The speech was followed a day later by a victory parade down the Champs-Élysées when some German snipers were still active. According to a famous anecdote, while de Gaulle was marching down the Champs Élysées and entered the Place de la Concorde, snipers in the Hôtel de Crillon area shot at the crowd. Someone in the crowd shouted "this is the Fifth Column!" leading to a misunderstanding, as a 2nd Armored Division tank gunner fired at the Hôtel's actual fifth column (which, after repairs, is a slightly different color.)
A combined Franco-American military parade was organised on the 29th after the arrival of the U.S. Army's 28th Infantry Division. Joyous crowds greeted the Armée de la Libération and the Americans as liberators, as their vehicles drove down the city streets.
From the French point of view, the liberation of Paris by the French themselves rather than by the Allies saved France from a new constitution being imposed by the Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories (AMGOT) like those established in Germany and Japan in 1945.[19]
The AMGOT administration for France was planned by the American Chief of Staff, but de Gaulle's opposition to Eisenhower's strategy, namely moving to the east as soon as possible, passing Paris by in order to reach Berlin before Joseph Stalin's Red Army, led to the 2nd Armored Division's breakout toward Paris and the liberation of the French capital.[20] An indication of the French AMGOT's high status was the new French currency, called "Flag Money" (monnaie drapeau), for it featured the French flag on its back. The notes had been printed in the United States and were distributed as a replacement for Vichy currency which had been used until June 1944, up to and including the successful Operation Overlord in Normandy. However, after the liberation of Paris, this short-lived currency was forbidden by GPRF President Charles de Gaulle, who claimed the US dollar standard notes were fakes.
Another important factor was the popular uprising in Paris, which allowed the Parisians to liberate themselves from the Germans and gave the newly established Free French government and its president Charles de Gaulle enough prestige and authority to establish the Provisional Government of the French Republic. This replaced the fallen Vichy State (1940–1944) and united the politically divided French Resistance, drawing Gaullists, nationalists, communists and anarchists, into a new "national unanimity" government established on 9 September 1944.[19]
In his speech, de Gaulle insisted on the role played by the French and on the necessity for the French people to do their "duty of war" in the Allies' last campaigns to complete the liberation of France and to advance into the Benelux countries and Germany. De Gaulle wanted France to be among "the victors" in order to evade the AMGOT threat. Two days later, on 28 August, the FFI, called "the combatants without uniform", were incorporated in the New French Army (nouvelle armée française) which was fully equipped with U.S. equipment (such as uniforms, helmets, weapons and vehicles), and still used until after the Algerian War in the 1960s.
A point of strong disagreement between de Gaulle and the Big Three, (Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill), was that the President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF), established on 3 June 1944, was not recognized as the legitimate representative of France. Even though de Gaulle had been recognized as the leader of Free France by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill back in 28 June 1940, his GPRF presidency had not resulted from democratic elections. However, three months after the liberation of Paris and one month after the new "unanimity government", the Big Three recognized the GPRF on 23 October 1944.[21][22]
In his liberation of Paris speech, de Gaulle argued "It will not be enough that, with the help of our dear and admirable Allies, we have got rid of him [the Germans] from our home for us to be satisfied after what happened. We want to enter his territory as it should be, as victors", clearly showing his ambition that France be considered one of the World War II victors just like the Big Three. This perspective was not shared by the western Allies, as was demonstrated in the German Instrument of Surrender's First Act.[23] The French occupation zones in Germany and in West Berlin cemented this ambition, leading to some frustration, which became part of the deeper Western betrayal sentiment. This sentiment was felt by other European Allies, especially Poland, whose proposition that they be part of the occupation of Germany was rejected by the Soviets; the latter taking the view that they had liberated the Poles from the Nazis which thus put them under the influence of the USSR.
Several Vichy loyalists involved in the Milice (a paramilitary militia)—which was established by Sturmbannführer Joseph Darnand who hunted the Resistance with the Gestapo—were made prisoners in a post-liberation purge known as the Épuration légale (Legal purge). However, some were executed without trial. The women accused of "horizontal collaboration" because of their sexual relationships with Germans during the occupation, were arrested, had their heads shaved, then exhibited and were sometimes mauled by crowds.
On 17 August, Pierre Laval was taken to Belfort by the Germans. On 20 August, under German military escort, Marshal Philippe Pétain was forcibly moved to Belfort, and on 7 September to Sigmaringen, a French enclave in Germany, where 1,000 of his followers (including Louis-Ferdinand Céline) joined him. There they established the government of Sigmaringen, challenging the legitimacy of de Gaulle's Provisional Government of the French Republic. As a sign of protest over his forced move, Pétain refused to take office, and was eventually replaced by Fernand de Brinon. The Vichy government in exile ended in April 1945.
Leclerc, whose 2nd Armored Division was held in high regard by the French people, led the Far East Expeditionary Forces (FEFEO) that sailed to French Indochina then occupied by the Japanese in 1945.
FEFEO recruiting posters depicted a Sherman tank painted with the cross of Lorraine with the caption "Yesterday Strasbourg, tomorrow Saigon, join in!" as a reference to the liberation of Paris by Leclerc's armored division and the role this formation subsequently played in the liberation of Strasbourg. The war effort for the liberation of French Indochina through the FEFEO was presented as propaganda by the continuation of the liberation of France and part of the same "duty of war".
While Vichy France collaborated with Japan in French Indochina after the 1940 invasion and later established a Japanese embassy in Sigmaringen,[24] de Gaulle had declared war on Japan on 8 December 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor and created local anti-Japanese resistance units called Corps Léger d'Intervention (CLI) in 1943. On 2 September 1945, General Leclerc signed the armistice with Japan on behalf of the Provisional Government of the French Republic onboard the U.S. battleship USS Missouri.
The 60th anniversary in 2004 was notable for two military parades reminiscent of the 26 August and 29 August 1944 parades and featuring armoured vehicles from the era. One parade represented the French, one the Americans, while people danced in the streets to live music outside the Hôtel de Ville.
On 16 May 2007, following his election as President of the Fifth French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy organized an homage to the 35 French Resistance martyrs executed by the Germans on 16 August 1944 during the liberation. French historian Max Gallo narrated the events that occurred in the Bois de Boulogne woods, and a Parisian schoolgirl read young French resistant Guy Môquet's (17) final letter. During his speech, Sarkozy announced this letter would now be read in all French schools to remember the resistance spirit.[25][26] Following the speech, the chorale of the French Republican Guard closed the homage ceremony by singing the French Resistance's anthem Le Chant des Partisans ("the partisans' song"). Following this occasion, the new President traveled to Berlin to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel as a symbol of the Franco-German reconciliation.
La Libération de Paris ("the liberation of Paris"), whose original title was l'insurrection Nationale inséparable de la Libération Nationale ("the national insurrection inseparable from the national liberation"), was a short documentary film secretly shot over 16–27 August by the French Resistance. It was released in French theatres on 1 September.
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