| Liberation of Paris | |||||||||
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| Part ofOperation Overlord ofWorld War II | |||||||||
 Parisians line theChamps Élysées for a parade conducted by the French2nd Armored Division on 26 August 1944. | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 France•  French Resistance United States United Kingdom |  GermanyVichy France | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Dietrich von Choltitz  | |||||||||
| Units involved | |||||||||
| FFI2nd Armored Division •  Spanish Exiles4th Infantry Division | 325th Security Division Milice | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
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TheLiberation of Paris (French:libération de Paris) was a battle that took place duringWorld War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944.Paris had been occupied byNazi Germany since the signing of theArmistice of 22 June 1940, after which theWehrmachtoccupied northern and western France.
The liberation began when theFrench Forces of the Interior—the military structure of theFrench Resistance—staged an uprising against the German garrison upon the approach of theUS Third Army, led by GeneralGeorge S. Patton. On the night of 24 August, elements of GeneralPhilippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque's2nd French Armored Division made their way into Paris and arrived at theHôtel de Ville shortly before midnight. The next morning, 25 August, the bulk of the 2nd Armored Division andUS 4th Infantry Division and other allied units entered the city.Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German garrison and the military governor of Paris, surrendered to the French at the HôtelLe Meurice, the newly established French headquarters. GeneralCharles de Gaulle of theFrench Army arrived to assume control of the city as head of theProvisional Government of the French Republic.
The Allied strategy emphasised destroying the German forces retreating towards theRhine, and theFrench Forces of the Interior (the armed force of theFrench Resistance), led byHenri Rol-Tanguy, staged an uprising in Paris.
The Battle of theFalaise Pocket (12–21 August), the final phase ofOperation Overlord, was still ongoing, and GeneralDwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of theSupreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, did not consider the liberation of Paris a primary objective. The goal of the US and ofBritish Armed Forces was to destroy the German forces and therefore to end World War II in Europe, which would allow the Allies to concentrate all of their efforts on the Pacific Front.[3]
TheFrench Resistance began to rise against the Germans in Paris on 15 August, but the Allies were still pushing the Germans toward the Rhine and did not want to get embroiled in a battle for the liberation of Paris. The Allies thought that it was too early to take Paris.[4] They were aware thatAdolf Hitler had ordered the German military to completely destroy the city in the event of an Allied attack. Paris was considered to have too great a value, culturally and historically, to risk its destruction. They were also keen to avoid a drawn-out battle of attrition like during theBattle of Stalingrad.[5] It was also estimated that in the event of a siege, 4,000short 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.[citation needed] Basic utilities would have to be restored and transportation systems rebuilt. All of those supplies were needed in other areas of the war effort.De Gaulle was concerned that military rule by Allied forces would be implemented in France with the implementation of theAllied Military Government for Occupied Territories. That administration which had been planned by the American Chiefs of Staff had been approved by US PresidentFranklin Roosevelt but had been opposed by Eisenhower.[6] Nevertheless, De Gaulle, upon learning the French Resistance had risen up against the German occupiers and unwilling to allow his countrymen to be slaughtered as was happening to thePolish Resistance during theWarsaw Uprising, petitioned for an immediate frontal assault. He threatened to detach theFrench 2nd Armored Division (2e DB) and to order it to single-handedly attack the German forces in Paris, bypassing the SHAEF chain of command in so doing, if Eisenhower delayed approval unduly.[4]
On 15 August, in the northeastern suburb ofPantin, 1,654 men (among them168 captured Allied airmen), and 546 women, all political prisoners, were sent to the concentration camps ofBuchenwald (men) andRavensbrück (women), on what was to be the last convoy to Germany. Pantin had been the area of Paris from which the Germans had entered the capital in June 1940.[7][8]
The same day, employees of theParis Métro, theGendarmerie andPolice went on strike; postal workers followed the next day. They were soon joined by workers across the city, which caused ageneral strike to break out on 18 August.
On 16 August, 35 young FFI members were betrayed by an agent of theGestapo. They had gone to a secret meeting near theGrande Cascade in theBois de Boulogne and were gunned down there.[9]
On 17 August, concerned that the Germans were placing explosives at strategic points around the city,Pierre Taittinger, the chairman of the municipal council, metDietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris.[10] When Choltitz told them that he intended to slow the Allied advance as much as possible, Taittinger and Swedish ConsulRaoul Nordling attempted to persuade Choltitz not to destroy Paris.[11]
All over France, since the end of the battle of Normandy, the population had been hearing news of the Allies' advance toward Paris from the BBC and French public broadcasterRadiodiffusion nationale (RN). From 1943,RN had been operating in Paris under the direction of the Vichy propaganda ministerPhilippe Henriot. On 4 April 1944, four months before the liberation of Paris, the Provisional Government of the French Republic had begun operating its ownRN from Algeria. The Provisional Government took over the ParisRN during the liberation on 22 August 1944.[12]
On 19 August, continuing their retreat eastwards, columns of German vehicles moved down theAvenue des Champs Élysées. Posters calling citizens to arm had previously been pasted on walls by FFI members. The posters called for a general mobilization of the Parisians; argued that "the war continues"; and called on the Parisian police, theRepublican Guard, thegendarmerie, theGarde Mobile, theGroupe 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", Vichy loyalists and collaborators. The posters were signed by the "Parisian Committee of the Liberation", in agreement with theProvisional 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 inÎle de France.
The first skirmishes between the French and the German occupiers then began and the Resistance began to take over buildings in the city, including the Préfecture de Police and theLouvre. Small mobile units of theRed Cross moved into the city to assist French and the German wounded. The same day, the Germans detonated a barge filled withmines in the northeastern suburb of Pantin, setting fire to mills that supplied Paris with flour.[8]
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. The materials were transported by men, women and children using wooden carts. Fuel trucks were attacked and captured. Civilian vehicles were commandeered, painted with camouflage, and marked with the FFI emblem. The Resistance used them to transport ammunition and orders from one barricade to another.[citation needed]
Skirmishes reached their peak on 22 August, when some German units tried to leave their fortifications. At 9:00 a.m. on 23 August, under Choltitz's orders, the Germans opened fire on theGrand 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.[13]
On 24 August, after combat and poor roads had delayed his2nd Armored Division, Free French general Leclerc disobeyed his direct superior, AmericanV Corps commanderMajor GeneralLeonard T. Gerow, and sent a vanguard to Paris with the message that the entire division would be there the following day. The 2nd Armored Division was equipped with AmericanM4 Sherman tanks, halftracks and trucks, and the vanguard that Leclerc chose was the 9th Company of theRégiment de marche du Tchad, nicknamedLa Nueve (Spanish for "the nine") because of its 160 men under French command, 146 of them were Spanish Republicans.[14] 9th Company commander CaptainRaymond Dronne became the second uniformed Allied officer to enter Paris afterAmado Granell and the first French officer to reenter the capital.[15]
The 9th Company broke into the center of Paris by thePorte d'Italie and reached theHôtel de Ville at 9:22 p.m.[16] Upon entering the town hall square, the half-track "Ebro" fired the first rounds at a large group of German fusiliers and machine guns. Civilians went out to the street and sang "La Marseillaise", including asPierre Schaeffer broadcast the news of the 2nd Armored Division's arrival on a Radiodiffusion Nationale broadcast and then played it. Schaeffer then asked any priests who were listening to ring their churches' bells, and the churches who participated includedNotre-Dame de Paris andSacré-Cœur inMontmartre – whose bells include the Savoyarde, abourdon that is France's biggest bell.[17] Dronne later went to von Choltitz's command post to request the German surrender.
The 4th US Infantry Division commanded by Raymond Barton also entered through the Porte d'Italie in the early hours of the next day. The leading American regiments covered the right flank of the French 2nd Armoured, turned east at thePlace de la Bastille, and made their way along Avenue Daumesnil, heading towards theBois de Vincennes.[18] In the afternoon the British30 Assault Unit had entered thePorte d'Orléans and then searched buildings for vital intelligence, later capturing the former Headquarters of AdmiralKarl Dönitz, theChâteau de la Muette.[19]
While awaiting the final capitulation, the 9th Company assaulted the Chamber of Deputies, the Hôtel Majestic and the Place de la Concorde.
With the battle nearing its end, resistance groups brought Allied airmen and other troops hidden in suburban towns, such asMontlhéry, into central Paris.
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Despite repeated orders from 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,[20] Choltitz, as commander of the German garrison and military governor of Paris, surrendered at 3:30 p.m. at theHôtel Meurice. He was then driven to theParis Police Prefecture, where he signed the official surrender, and then to theGare Montparnasse, where General Leclerc had established his command post, to sign the surrender of the German troops in Paris.
The same day that the Germans surrendered, de Gaulle, President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, moved back into the War Ministry on theRue Saint-Dominique and then made a speech at the Hôtel de Ville that was also broadcast. His speech proclaimed that Paris had liberated itself with help from French forces, notably downplaying the part that Barton's 4th Infantry played in the battle, and also dismissed Vichy as a false France.[21][22]
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!
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!
The day after de Gaulle's speech, he marched down theChamps-Élysées as Leclerc's French2nd Armored Division paraded behind.
De Gaulle had requested that a French unit be allowed to lead the liberation of Paris, which Allied High Command agreed to on the condition that the chosen unit not contain any black or non-white soldiers,[citation needed] as two thirds of the french liberation army were black or north-African colonial soldiers. The 2nd Armored Division was chosen for the parade because it was the only French formation which was majority white. Non-white soldiers in the division, predominantly Moroccans and Algerian, who made up around one quarter of its strength, were replaced by white soldiers from other units, supplemented by lighter-skinned soldiers from North Africa and Syria.[23]
The parade began at theArc de Triomphe at the western end, where de Gaulle also rekindled the Eternal Flame at France'sTomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is estimated that up to two million people viewed this parade and reported that such a crowd and the scenes it created on the Champs-Élysées were not seen there again until France won theFIFA World Cup for the first time as hosts in1998.[24][25]
A few German snipers were still active, and ones from rooftops in theHôtel de Crillon area shot at the crowd while de Gaulle entered thePlace de la Concorde.[26]
On 29 August, the US Army's28th Infantry Division, which had assembled in the Bois de Boulogne the previous night, paraded 24-abreast up theAvenue 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."[27]
The liberation was ongoing, but it became apparent that food in Paris was getting scarcer by the day. The French rail network had largely been destroyed by Allied bombing and so getting food in had become a problem, especially since the Germans had stripped Paris of its resources for themselves. The Allies realised the necessity to get Paris back on its feet and pushed a plan for food convoys to get through to the capital as soon as possible. In addition, surrounding towns and villages were requested to supply as much to Paris as possible. TheCivil Affairs of SHAEF authorised the import of up to 2,400 tons of food per day at the expense of the military effort. A British food convoy labelled 'Vivres Pour Paris' entered on 29 August, US supplies were flown in viaOrléans Airport before they were sent in. Also, 500 tons were delivered a day by the British and another 500 tons by the Americans. Along with French civilians outside Paris bringing in indigenous resources, the food crisis had been overcome within ten days.[28]
An estimated 800 to 1,000 Resistance fighters were killed during the Battle for Paris, and another 1,500 were wounded.[29]
The 2nd Armored Division suffered 71 killed and 225 wounded. Material losses included 35 tanks, 6 self-propelled guns, and 111 vehicles, "a rather high ratio of losses for an armored division", according to historianJacques Mordal.[30]
Choltitz was held for the remainder of the war atTrent Park near London along with other senior German officers. In his memoirBrennt Paris? ("Is Paris Burning?"), first published in 1950,[31] Choltitz describes himself as the saviour of Paris, but some historians opine that it was more the case that he had lost control of the city and had no means to carry out Hitler's orders.[citation needed] No specific charges were ever filed against him, and he was released from captivity in 1947.
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. That replaced the fallen Vichy regime (1940–1944)[32] and united the politically-divided French Resistance by drawingGaullists, nationalists, communists and anarchists into a new "national unanimity" government.[citation needed]
De Gaulle emphasised the role of the French in the liberation.[32] He drove the necessity for the French people to do their "duty of war" by advancing into theBenelux countries and Germany.[citation needed] He wanted France to be among "the victors", a belief that it had escaped the fate ofbeing administered and having a new constitution imposed by theAMGOT threat like those that would be established in Germany and Japan in 1945.
Although Paris was liberated, there was still heavy fighting elsewhere in France. Large portions of the country were still occupied after the successfulOperation Dragoon in southern France, which extended into the south-western region of theVosges Mountains from 15 August to 14 September. Fighting went on inAlsace andLorraine in eastern France during the last months of 1944 until the early months of 1945.
Several alleged Vichy loyalists involved in theMilice, a paramilitary militia established bySturmbannführerJoseph Darnand that, along with the Gestapo, hunted the Resistance were made prisoners in a post-liberationpurge known as theÉpuration légale (legal purge). Some were executed without trial. Women accused of "horizontalcollaboration" because of alleged sexual relationships with Germans were arrested and had their heads shaved, were publicly exhibited and were sometimes allowed to be mauled by mobs.
On 17 August, the Germans tookPierre Laval toBelfort. On 20 August, under German military escort, MarshalPhilippe Pétain was forcibly moved to Belfort and then to theSigmaringen enclave in Germany on 7 September; there, 1,000 of his followers (includingLouis-Ferdinand Céline) joined him. They established the government of Sigmaringen and challenged 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 byFernand de Brinon. The Vichygovernment-in-exile ended in April 1945.
On 25 August 2004, two military parades reminiscent of the parades of 26 and 29 August 1944, one in commemoration of the 2nd Armored Division, the other of the US 4th Infantry Division, and featuring armoured vehicles from the era, were held on the 60th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris. Under the auspices of the Senate, a jazz concert and popular dancing took place in theJardin du Luxembourg.[33] In the same event, homage was paid to the Spanish contribution – the first time in 60 years. Paris MayorBertrand Delanoë laid a plaque on a wall along the River Seine at the Quai Henri IV in the presence of surviving Spanish veterans,Javier Rojo the President of the Senate of Spain and a delegation of Spanish politicians.
On 25 August 2014, plaques were placed on theBoulevard Saint-Michel and neighboring streets, in the vicinity of theLuxembourg Palace, seat of the French Senate, where combatants had been killed in August 1944.[34] There was dancing in the street in every neighborhood of the French capital andPlace de la Bastille, as well as ason et lumière spectacle and dancing on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville in the evening.[35]
On 25 August 2019 many acts in commemoration of the liberation of Paris focused on the role of the Spanish soldiers of "La Nueve". The mayor of Paris,Anne Hidalgo, herself descendant of Spanish Republican veterans, emphasized during the inauguration of a fresco that it has taken too long to recognize this chapter of the French history.[36]
On 16 May 2007, following his election as President of theFifth French Republic,Nicolas Sarkozy organized an homage to the 35 French Resistancemartyrs executed by the Germans on 16 August 1944. French historianMax Gallo narrated the events that took place in the woods of Bois de Boulogne, and a Parisian schoolgirl read 17-year-old French resistantGuy Môquet's final letter. During his speech, Sarkozy announced that this letter would be read in all French schools to remember the resistance spirit.[37][38] 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 chancellorAngela Merkel, as a symbol of theFranco-German reconciliation.
La Libération de Paris ("The Liberation of Paris"), whose original title wasL'Insurrection Nationale inséparable de la Libération Nationale ("The National Insurrection inseparable from the National Liberation"), was a short 30-minute documentary film secretly shot between 16 and 27 August by the French Resistance. It was released in French theatres on 1 September.
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 theLudendorff Bridge illustrating itscapture. Other countries have issued stamps commemorating the bridge's capture, includingNicaragua,Guyana,Micronesia, andRepublic of the Marshall Islands.[39]
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