aOn Friday, August 25, 1944, the day German forces surrendered control of Paris, amid sunshine and wild celebrations, Charles de Gaulle declared that Paris had “liberated itself” with “the aid and support of the whole of France.” The truth was less noble. De Gaulle sought to personify “the whole of France,” but France had been a divided country periodically subject to violent upheaval since 1789. The French army had collapsed before Hitler in 1940, and the reconstituted French army that entered Paris in triumph in 1944 consisted of one armored division, fully equipped and under operational command by the United States.
If anyone saved Paris, it was Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was persuaded by de Gaulle (Eisenhower was one of the few people who found the difficult general affable) and agreed to march on Paris. After the Normandy landings, the Allied forces initially planned to bypass Paris, thinking it irrelevant to their advance on Germany. But Paris was not irrelevant to the world. It transcended the unfortunate nation to which it belonged, and embodied the sexual and artistic fantasies of countless “wannabe Hemingways and Picassos.” This beacon of freedom, the City of Light, had fallen to the forces of darkness, and on June 10, 1940, when the German army approached and the French government retreated, a dark cloud literally hung over Paris. The cause was smog from the burning of fuel waste, but “the silence of the night and the sweet smell of chestnut blossoms mixed with gasoline only intensified the sense of impending doom.”
Paris ’44 It tells a story of occupation and liberation, but it doesn’t read like a military history; there’s no risk of getting lost in logistics. The book is more like an epic thriller, with vividly drawn characters somewhere on the spectrum of collaboration and resistance, shame and glory. Among the former is Marshal Pétain, the octogenarian head of the puppet Vichy regime, whose conservative (to put it mildly) values were epitomized by the sleepy spa town in which it was based. To learn about Pétain’s daily routine, “Every Sunday at 11:15 a.m. he went to mass at the Church of St. Louis, not so much to pray as to set an example.” His henchman Pierre Laval wore a white silk tie for good luck, which “not only accentuated the nicotine stains on his teeth, but also made him resemble a Chicago gangster.”
General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, also has an ignominious role. He was described by his prisoners as a “cinematographed German officer,” meaning he was fat, monocled, and loud. But he was not the most feared Nazi. Bishop suggests that in the summer of 1944, Choltitz realized the game was up, and that he can be given some credit for his relatively restrained response to the Resistance uprising. After the war, Choltitz tried to claim credit for saving Paris from Hitler’s wrath. He supposedly ignored orders to burn Paris, telegraphed by his boss (“Is Paris Burning?”), but that’s probably just another liberation myth.
After newsletter promotion
Paris was, to some extent, “liberated” when in 1943 Resistance fighters emerged from the shadows to begin the task the Allied forces felt they had to undertake. They were extraordinarily brave, mostly young and, because it was Paris, glamorous: Jacques Chaban-Delmas, a staunch Gaullist and tennis champion, was later played in the film by a look-alike. Alain DelonHe left 30 rooms, all with quick escapes (service staircases, skylights, etc.). His rule for riding the Métro was to “get in the carriage at the last moment and jump out again as the doors close.” And we follow the inspiring adventures of Madeleine Riffaut, whose beauty was depicted in a post-war sketch by Picasso, and who joined the Resistance after getting her ass kicked by a German officer at Amiens station.
Another recurring character was Hemingway, who followed the Allied forces to Paris as a kind of war tourist and journalist, picking up copious amounts of booze along the way. He had a number of encounters with Jerry (or J.D.) Salinger, a “dapper” young GI who came along with a typewriter at hand and a Holden Caulfield in his head. The two got on well, but, as Bishop points out, not one idea of masculinity was being replaced by another.
That Bishop can turn away from the war for literary reflection is a testament to his calm confidence as a writer. Paris ’44 It’s a great book: funny, moving, cinematic, and without any boring dialogue.
Venice Night The book, written by A.J. Martin, will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson on July 11th.
