‘Paris is Free.’
Reading the paper on August 24, 1944.
“Yesterday a Frenchman burst into Lieut. Gen. Omar Bradley’s headquarters.
“He was the chief of the French Forces of the Interior in Paris and he had a staggering, incredible story to tell.
“He said that he had concluded an armistice with the German forces in Paris.
“The people of Paris had risen and had so hounded the Germans that the German commander had requested an armistice.
“The news caused a sensation in General Bradley’s headquarters because, although we had known that rioting had been going on in Paris since Saturday, we had not known that things had gone so far that obviously the French had given the Germans a terrific beating.
“The French Second Armored Division, which fought its way across the African desert, seems to have been the first Allied force to enter Paris.
“Seventy-seven days after D-day the world can rejoice for Paris is free again.
“A general insurrection began four days ago, when, in response to the orders of the underground leaders and the self-styled Provisional Government of France for a general uprising against the Germans,
“50,000 members of the French Forces of the Interior, [the French resistance fighters] armed and supported by several hundred thousand unarmed patriots, went in to action against the Germans.
“After four days’ fighting, the enemy was driven out of all the public buildings and all the Vichy representatives who had not fled were arrested.
“In those historic four days there was fighting in the Rue de Rivoli, where the Germans used small field guns against the rifles and pistols of the French.
“The casualties among the people of Paris were fairly heavy.
“General Charles de Gaulle, who is now on his own soil, is expected to go [to Paris] at once and establish the capital of his Provisional Government there.
“The fact that the liberation of Paris was accomplished by the French and announced by them may have been part of the Allies’ strategy to bolster French confidence and emphasize to the world the resurgence of France.
“There was no word of the fate of the German force that the French caught in Paris.
“It was known that the Germans had fled Paris by the thousands as the American armored pincers closed around the capital during the past few days.
“The Allies’ airmen reported the roads to the east jammed with Germans.
“The people of London received the news of the liberation of Paris with mixed emotions today.
“They were happy that the French capital was rid of the Germans but, looking over their own bomb-scarred city, they found it hard to rejoice.
“They are watching the progress of the Americans in France with the grim fascination of people whose very lives depend on the spin of a wheel.
“For them it is a race between the Americans and the Germans’ technicians hurrying to get huge rockets in the air against England before they are driven out of that part of the coast within range of this country.
In Berlin.
The newspaper printed the photo of Hitler’s little jig at Compiègne on June 22, 1940, when France and Germany signed the armistice establishing a German occupation zone in the north and west of France.
The paper noted that “yesterday [August 23, 1944] he was very quiet.”
And from Union Square in Downtown San Francisco.
“Jubilant over the liberation of Paris, Paul Verdier, a native of the French capital, ordered champagne for his 600 City of Paris department store employees today to celebrate.
“He closed the store, a San Francisco fixture since its founding by Verdier’s family in 1851, an hour early to enable the employees to attend the party.”
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I’ll see you on Monday.
— Brenda
These stories from the New York Times have been edited for brevity and include bits of helpful background information.
Banner image: US infantry parades on the Champs Élysées, August 29, 1944.
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