Just Finished Reading: The Liberation of Paris – How Eisenhower, De Gaulle, and Von Choltitz Saved the City of Light by Jean Edward Smith (FP: 2019) [205pp] 

When the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches on 6th June 1944 the citizens of Paris celebrated. Soon, they thought, their ordeal would finally be over. Within days, they thought, they’d be free. The Resistance units especially where itching and ready, despite their lack of weapons, to act. But as days turned to weeks and still no column of Allied tanks approached celebration and hope turned to confusion and despair. The question on everyone’s lips: where are they? 

The problem was far from simple. Firstly, the German resistance to Allied advances was tougher than anyone expected. Despite the Allies having effective air supremacy, German units were generally far more experienced that their Allied opponents. Then there was the matter of logistics. With most of the ports either in enemy hands or heavily damaged it was difficult to keep Allied units fully supplied. Together with the unfamiliarity with the problems of fighting in bocage country with its sunken roads and dense hedges progress, at least at first, was painfully slow. Only with the long-awaited US breakout did things become more fluid, and the problem of Paris could even be discussed. The Free French Forces (technically) under General De Gaulle were naturally eager to liberate their capital city for a host of reasons. Their American overlords, who supplied all their equipment and who were above them in the Allied chain of command, had other ideas. It was only when it became obvious that Paris was open and would fall with the minimum of effort on the part of the Allies was its liberation even contemplated. Within the city itself tension between Resistance units and the German occupiers began to reach new heights. Under orders to destroy the city if it looked like holding it was no longer an option Von Choltitz needed to juggle his duty, fear for his family back in Germany if he didn’t comply, the need to keep the bridges intact to allow German units outside Paris to retreat in good order and his place in History if he left Paris in ruins. August 1944 was going to be a hot one. 

Yet again, I knew of the Liberation of Paris in general terms but wasn’t fully aware of the details. I didn’t know that, at least originally, the Allies (or actually the Americans) had no intention of liberating Paris but had intended to by-pass it thereby forcing the German occupiers either to flee or surrender to follow up forces. The Americans were well aware of the logistical nightmare of feeding the city which would just add to their already existing logistical problems. But I think one of the most interesting characters in the whole series of events was Von Choltitz – the German military commander of Paris and the region surrounding the city. I’m not sure if I’d heard of him before, but he seemed – at least in this narrative – to have been central to saving Paris from unforgivable destruction. Interesting, when he was finally captured by the advanced Allied units he was spat on by the French citizens (and the officer standing next to him shot and killed) yet, on his death, had a French military honour guard at his funeral. As you might imagine from the subtitle, the focus of this excellent history is on the three main players – Von Choltitz, De Gaulle and Eisenhower – with the Resistance getting a lot less attention than maybe they should have, but I’ll have more to say about that next week! Overall, I learnt a LOT from this book, and I’ll be looking out for more from this author in future. If, like me, you had a passing appreciation of the events surrounding the Liberation and wanted to know more than I can certainly recommend this to you. But what I did learn from later reading – and no doubt more reading to come – things are not always so cut and dried as they’re made out to be so it's best to get more than one opinion/perspective on a subject. More to come.