Liberation of Paris

The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) was a military combat that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been ruled by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Second Compiègne Armistice on 22 June 1940, after which the Wehrmacht occupied northern and western France.

The liberation began when the French Forces of the Interior—the military structure of the French Resistance—staged an uprising against the German garrison upon the approach of the US Third Army, led by General George Patton. On the night of 24 August, elements of General Philippe Leclerc's 2nd French Armoured Division (the Régiment de marche du Tchad, a mechanised infantry unit led by Captain Raymond Dronne and composed primarily of exiled Spanish republicans), made its way into Paris and arrived at the Hôtel de Ville shortly before midnight. The next morning, 25 August, the bulk of the 2nd Armored Division and US 4th Infantry Division entered the city. Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German garrison and the military governor of Paris, surrendered to the French at the Hôtel Meurice, the newly established French headquarters, while General Charles de Gaulle arrived to assume control of the city as head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic.

Background

Further information: Operation Overlord

Although the Allied strategy emphasized destroying German forces retreating towards the Rhine, the French Resistance (French Forces of the Interior), led by Henri Rol-Tanguy, staged an uprising in Paris.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force of the European theatre of World War II, did not consider the liberation of Paris to be a primary objective. The goal of the U.S. and British Army was to reach Berlin before the Soviet Army, and therefore end World War II in Europe, which would allow the Allies to concentrate all their efforts on the Pacific front.

General Eisenhower stated that it was too early for an assault on Paris. He was aware that Adolf Hitler had ordered the German military to completely destroy Paris should the Allies attack. Paris was considered to have too great a value, culturally and historically, to risk its destruction. General Eisenhower was keen to avoid a drawn-out battle of attrition, such as the Battle of Stalingrad or the Siege of Leningrad. It was also estimated that, in the event of a siege, 4,000 short tons (3,600 t) of food per day, as well as significant amounts of building materials, manpower, and engineering skill, would be required to feed the population after the liberation of Paris. Basic utilities would have to be restored, and transportation systems rebuilt. All of these supplies were desperately needed in other areas of the war effort.

General Charles de Gaulle of the partially resurrected French Army threatened to order the French 2nd Armored Division (2e DB) to attack Paris.

General strike (15–19 August 1944)

A truck painted with the marks of the FFI and the V for Victory

On 15 August, in Pantin, the northeastern suburb of Paris from which the Germans had entered the capital in June 1940, 1,654 men (among them 168 Allied airmen captured after their aircraft had been shot down), and 546 women, all political prisoners, were sent to the concentration camps of Buchenwald (men) and Ravensbrück (women), on what was to be the last convoy to Germany.

That same day, employees of the Paris Métro, the Gendarmerie, and police went on strike; postal workers followed the next day. They were soon joined by workers across the city, causing a general strike to break out on 18 August.

On 16 August, 35 young FFI members were betrayed by an agent of the Gestapo. They had gone to a secret meeting near the grande cascade in the Bois de Boulogne. There, they were executed by German machine-guns and then finished off with hand grenades.

On 17 August, concerned that the Germans were placing explosives at strategic points around the city, Pierre Taittinger, the chairman of the municipal council, met Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris. When Choltitz told them that he intended to slow the Allied advance as much as possible, Taittinger and Raoul Nordling attempted to persuade Choltitz not to destroy Paris.

FFI uprising (19–23 August 1944)

Further information: French Forces of the Interior

FFI uprising on 19 August. One skirmisher is wearing an Adrian helmet

All over France, from the BBC and the Radiodiffusion nationale, (which had been in the hands of the Vichy propaganda minister, Philippe Henriot, since November 1942 until de Gaulle took it over in the Ordonnance he signed in Algiers on 4 April 1944), the population knew of the Allies' advance toward Paris after the end of the battle of Normandy.

On 19 August, continuing their retreat in direction of the east started at the beginning of August, columns of German tanks, half-tracks, trailers towed by trucks, and cars loaded with troops and material moved down the Champs Élysées. Posters calling citizens to arm had previously been pasted on walls by FFI members. These posters called for a general mobilization of the Parisians, arguing that "the war continues"; they called on the Parisian police, the Republican Guard, the Gendarmerie, the Garde Mobile, the Groupe mobile de réserve (the police units replacing the army), and patriotic Frenchmen ("all men from 18 to 50 able to carry a weapon") to join "the struggle against the invader". Other posters assured that "victory is near" and promised "chastisement for the traitors", i.e. Vichy loyalists, and collaborators. 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), the commander of the French Forces of the Interior in the Île de France region.

Then, the first skirmishes between the French and the German occupiers began. Parisians went out into the streets spontaneously,

During the battle, small mobile units of the Red Cross moved into the city to assist the French and Germans who were 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.

A captured tank fires against a sniper's position

On 20 August, as barricades began to appear, Resistance fighters organized themselves to sustain a siege. Trucks were positioned, trees cut down, and trenches were dug in the pavement to free paving stones for consolidating the barricades. These materials were transported by men, women, and children using wooden carts. Fuel trucks were attacked and captured. Civilian vehicles, such as a Citroën Traction Avant sedan, were commandeered, 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 on the outskirts of Paris, was liberated. Since October 1940, the fort had held only female résistants and hostages, who were jailed, executed, or redirected to the concentration camps in Germany. During the liberation in August 1944, many abandoned corpses were found in the fort's yard.

A temporary ceasefire between the Germans and a part of the French Resistance was negotiated 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, while the Resistance lacked ammunition for any prolonged fight.

The German garrison held most of the main monuments and other strategic positions, while the Resistance held most of the city. The Germans did not have enough troops to go on the offensive, and the Resistance lacked heavy weapons to attack German strongholds.

Skirmishes reached their peak on 22 August, when some German units tried to leave their fortifications. At 09:00 on 23 August, under von Choltitz' orders, the Germans opened fire on the Grand Palais, an FFI stronghold, and German tanks fired at the barricades in the streets. Hitler gave the order to inflict maximum damage on the city.

It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 Resistance fighters were killed during the battle for Paris, and another 1,500 wounded.

Entrance of the Free French 2nd Armored Division and US 4th Infantry Division (24–25 August)

Further information: 2nd Armored Division (France)

On 24 August, delayed by combat and poor roads, Free French General Leclerc, commander of the 2nd French Armoured Division, disobeyed his direct superior, American field commander Major General Leonard T. Gerow, and sent a vanguard (the colonne Dronne) to Paris, with the message that the entire division would be there the following day. The 9th Armored Company, composed mainly of veterans of the Spanish Civil War, were equipped with American M4 Sherman tanks, M2 half-tracks, and General Motors Company trucks from the United States. They were commanded by Captain Raymond Dronne. In 1944, he became the first uniformed Allied officer to enter Paris.

Near the end of the battle, Resistance groups brought Allied airmen and other troops hidden in suburban towns, such as Montlhéry, into central Paris. Here, they witnessed the ragged end of the capital's occupation, de Gaulle's triumphal arrival, and the claim of "One France" liberated by the Free French and the Resistance.

The Free French 2nd Armoured Division suffered 71 killed and 225 wounded. Material losses included 35 tanks, six self-propelled guns, and 111 vehicles, "a rather high ratio of losses for an armoured division", according to historian Jacques Mordal.

German surrender (25 August)

German high-ranking officers at the Hôtel Majestic, headquarters for the Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich, the German High Military Command in France. They requested to be made prisoners only by the military and surrendered to Battalion Chief Jacques Massu of the 2e DB.

Despite repeated orders from Adolf Hitler that the French capital "must not fall into the enemy's hand except lying in complete debris", which was to be accomplished by bombing it and blowing up its bridges, 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 why he had refused to obey Hitler in an interview taped in his Baden-Baden home: "If for the first time I had disobeyed, it was because I knew that Hitler was insane". 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 city. He knew the war was lost and decided to save the capital.

However, this version is seen as a "falsification of history" by others, who regard von Choltitz as a Nazi officer faithful to Hitler. In a 2004 interview, militant communist and Resistance fighter 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." The transcripts of telephone conversations between von Choltitz and his superiors, which were found in the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg im Breisgau (Baden-Württemberg), and analysed by German historians, support Kriegel-Valrimont's theory. Also, Pierre Taittinger and Raoul Nordling claim it was they who convinced von Choltitz not to destroy Paris as Hitler had ordered. In 1958, Taittinger published ...et Paris ne fut pas détruit (... and Paris Was Not Destroyed) describing the event, and was awarded the Broquette-Gonin Prize from the Académie Française.

German losses are estimated at about 3,200 killed and 12,800 taken as prisoners of war.

De Gaulle's speech (25 August)

American soldiers look at the French tricolour flying from the Eiffel Tower

An AFPU photographer kisses a small child before cheering crowds in Paris, 26 August 1944

On 25 August, the same day that the Germans surrendered, Charles de Gaulle, President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, moved back into the War Ministry on the Rue Saint-Dominique. He 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!

Victory parades (26 and 29 August)

The 28th Infantry Division on the Champs Élysées in the "Victory Day" parade on 29 August 1944.

The day after de Gaulle's speech, Leclerc's French 2nd Armoured Division paraded down the Champs-Élysées. German snipers were still active, and ones from rooftops in the Hôtel de Crillon area shot at the crowd while de Gaulle marched down the Champs Élysées and entered the Place de la Concorde.

General de Gaulle and his entourage proudly stroll down the Champs Élysées to Notre Dame Cathedral for a Te Deum ceremony following the city's liberation on 25 August 1944.

On 29 August, the U.S. Army's 28th Infantry Division, who had assembled in the Bois de Boulogne the previous night, paraded 24-abreast up the Avenue Hoche to the Arc de Triomphe, then down the Champs Élysées. Joyous crowds greeted the Americans as the entire division, men and vehicles, marched through Paris "on its way to assigned attack positions northeast of the French capital."

French historiography, given credence by most historians, had always avoided addressing the issue of participation by Spanish Republican exiles from the Spanish Civil War. However, in 2004, the City of Paris paid public homage to their participation with the placement of a plaque in their memory. The plaque is on a wall along the River Seine at the Quai Henri IV, and was dedicated by Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, on 24 August 2004. Present were Javier Rojo, President of the Senate of Spain, and a delegation of Spanish politicians, who also later paid tribute to the Spanish survivors of the Liberation of Paris.

Aftermath

War situation

Although Paris was liberated, there was still heavy fighting in the rest of France. Large portions of the country were still occupied after the successful Operation Dragoon in southern France, which extended into the south-western region of the Vosges Mountains from 15 August to 14 September 1944. Fighting went on in Alsace and Lorraine in eastern France during the last months of 1944 until the early months of 1945.

AMGOT

Further information: Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories

General Omar Bradley, Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Marie-Pierre Kœnig and Air Marshal Arthur Tedder

From the French point of view, the liberation of Paris by the French themselves rather than by the Allies saved France from having a new constitution being imposed by the Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories (AMGOT), like those established in Germany and Japan in 1945.

The AMGOT administration for France was planned by the American Chief of Staff. However, de Gaulle's opposition to Eisenhower's strategy, which was namely moving to the east as soon as possible, bypassing Paris 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. An indication of the French AMGOT's high status was the new French currency, called "Flag Money" (monnaie drapeau), because 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 that the US dollar standard notes were fake.

National unity

Further information: French Resistance

The uprising in Paris gave the newly established Free French government and its president, Charles de Gaulle, enough prestige and authority to establish a provisional 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.

In his speech, de Gaulle emphasized the role that the French had in the liberation, and the necessity for the French people to do their "duty of war" by advancing 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 into the New French Army (nouvelle armée française). The New French Army was fully equipped with U.S. equipment, such as uniforms, helmets, weapons and vehicles, and they continued to be used until after the Algerian War in the 1960s.

World War II victor

Further information: German Instrument of Surrender

Allied Occupation Zones in Germany in 1946 after territorial annexations in the East

A strong point of 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 on 28 June 1940, he had not become president of the GPRF through democratic elections. However, two months after the liberation of Paris, and one month after the new "unanimity government", the Big Three recognized the GPRF on 23 October 1944.

In his liberation of Paris speech, de Gaulle argued that: "It will not be enough that, with the help of our dear and admirable Allies, we have got rid of him, the enemy, from our home for us to be satisfied after what happened. We want to enter his territory as it should be, as victors." This clearly showed his will for France to 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. The French occupation zones in Germany and in West Berlin cemented de Gaulle's determination, leading to some frustration of other European nations, deepening the Western betrayal sentiment. This sentiment was shared by other European Allies, especially Poland, whose proposition that they be part of the occupation of Germany was rejected by the Soviets. The Soviets took the view that they had liberated the Poles from the Nazis, which thus put the Poles under the influence of the USSR.

Legal purge

Further information: Épuration légale

Several alleged Vichy loyalists involved in the Milice, a paramilitary militia established by Sturmbannführer Joseph Darnand that hunted the Resistance along with the Gestapo, were made prisoners in a post-liberation purge known as the Épuration légale (Legal purge). Some were executed without trial. Women accused of "horizontal collaboration" because of alleged sexual relationships with Germans were arrested and had their heads shaved, were publicly exhibited and some were allowed to be mauled by mobs.

On 17 August, the Germans took Pierre Laval to Belfort. On 20 August, under German military escort, Marshal Philippe Pétain was forcibly moved to Belfort, and to the Sigmaringen enclave in Germany on 7 September; there, 1,000 of his followers (including Louis-Ferdinand Céline) joined him. 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.

"Yesterday Strasbourg, tomorrow Saigon..."

Further information: Japanese Instrument of Surrender

Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division arms featuring the cross of Lorraine.

In 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, which was then occupied by the Japanese.

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 FEFEO's effort to liberate French Indochina was presented as propaganda, since it continued the liberation of France and was part of the "duty of war".

While Vichy France collaborated with Japan in French Indochina after the 1940 invasion, and later established a Japanese embassy in Sigmaringen, de Gaulle had declared war on Japan on 8 December 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor; in 1943, he created local anti-Japanese resistance units called Corps Léger d'Intervention (CLI). On 2 September 1945, on board the U.S. battleship USS Missouri, General Leclerc signed an armistice with Japan on behalf of the Provisional Government of the French Republic.

60th and 70th anniversaries of the liberation

On 25 August 2004, two military parades reminiscent of the parades of 26 and 29 August 1944, one in commemoration of the French 2nd Armoured Division, the other of the US 4th Infantry, and featuring armoured vehicles from the era, were held on the 60th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris. Under the hospice of the Senate, a jazz concert and popular dancing took place in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

On 25 August 2014, plaques were put Boulevard Saint-Michel and neighboring streets, in the vicinity of the Luxembourg Palace, seat of the French Senate, where combatants had been killed in August 1944. There was dancing in the street in every neighborhood of the French capital and Place de la Bastille, as well as a Son et Lumière spectacle and dancing on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville in the evening.

Homage to the liberation martyrs

The wall of the 35 martyrs, Bois de Boulogne

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. French historian Max Gallo narrated the events that took place in the woods of Bois de Boulogne, and a Parisian schoolgirl read 17-year-old French resistant Guy Môquet's final letter. During his speech, Sarkozy announced that this letter would be read in all French schools to remember the resistance spirit. After 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

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 30 minute documentary film secretly shot from 16 to 27 August by the French Resistance. It was released in French theatres on 1 September.

In popular culture

Postcards

Postcard text: "Ludendorf (sic) Bridge Captured Mar. 7, 1945 Here the Watch on the Rhine Fell Asleep: Americans Seized This Bridge Intact, Neutralizing Germany's (…)"

On 8 September 1945, the U.S. Post Office issued a three-cent stamp commemorating the liberation of Paris from the Germans. First day covers were illustrated with images of the Ludendorff Bridge illustrating its capture. Other countries have issued stamps commemorating the bridge's capture, including Nicaragua, Guyana, Micronesia, and Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Filmography

• La Libération de Paris (1944)
• Is Paris Burning? (1966)
• Diplomacy (2014)

See also

• Anthony Faramus
• Camp Gurs
• Camp de Rivesaltes
• Concentration camps in France
• Drancy internment camp

• Fort de Romainville
• Mémorial du maréchal Leclerc de Hauteclocque et de la Libération de Paris
• Military history of France during World War II
• Paris in World War II
• Warsaw Uprising

External links

• Liberation of Paris – Official French website (in English)
• Battle for Paris: August 16–26, Documentary shot by the French Resistance, 1 September 1944
• De Gaulle's speech from the Hôtel de Ville – Charles de Gaulle foundation
• De Gaulle's speech in retrospect – BBC News
• Paris Liberated: Rare, Unpublished – slideshow by Life
• Primout, Gilles. "19–25 août 1944... La Libération de Paris " (in French)  – provides archival documents and a detailed timeline
• Liberation of Paris animated battle map by Michael Elkins