A massive celebration of liberation from more than four years of oppression is the focus of today’s #stampoftheday. A 3-cent stamp issued in 1945 that commemorates the liberation of Paris by Allied forces on August 25, 1944, it shows US troops parading in front of the Arc de Triomphe a few days after the Germans surrendered.
The German had occupied Paris (along with much of France) since June 1940. They faced few challenges to their control until June 1944 when Allied forces landed at Normandy almost 200 miles to the west of Paris. By mid-August, the Allied forces, which were pushing towards Germany, were close enough to Paris that residents could hear their guns.
But the city’s fate was still up in the air. Allied planners had concluded that the liberation of Paris should be delayed so as to not divert valuable resources away from their main objective of defeating the German Army. The city, they believed, could be encircled and then liberated later. This approach was particularly appealing because Allied leaders knew that if they attacked, Hitler had issued orders telling General Dietrich von Choltitz, the city’s military governor to destroy the city and its landmarks until Paris was “lying in complete debris.”
However, within the city, the French resistance was becoming much more active. In a 2004 interview with BBC, Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont, who was a key leader of the resistance in the city, recalled: “In Paris we had one great advantage – which was a tradition of popular uprising. There was the revolution of course in 1879, but after that 1830, 1848, above all the Commune in 1870. There was a body of doctrine. We knew how to do it….On top of that we had all studied military theory – Clausewitz and the others – and had a good grasp of when to act: not too early and not too late. I myself had no military training, but I had become an expert.”
On August 15, Paris Metro workers and police went on strike. Postal workers followed them the next day. By August 18, workers in all fields throughout Paris were on strike, leaving the city at a standstill. On August 19, German forces began to retrench in defensive positions while also continuing to fight with resistance forces. Moreover, in keeping with Hitler’s commands, they began laying explosives under Paris’ bridges and many of its landmarks. On August 20, the resistance forces prepared for a siege, building barricades and digging trenches into the pavement. Men, women, and children transported materials between barricades with wooden carts and painted their personal vehicles in camouflage to aid the resistance cause. “In 36 hours there were 600 or more [barricades],” Kriegel-Valrimont recalled. “The people were like ants – tens of thousands of them. Some of the barricades were real masterpieces, built by craftsmen and strong enough to stop a tank. Others would have just collapsed, but the German did not know which was which….Fear had changed sides, and now the initiative did too.”
Despite these activities, on August 21, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied forces, told General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the French forces, that he had decided not to try and take Paris. De Gaulle urged him to reconsider and assured him that Paris could be reclaimed without difficulty. De Gaulle also told Eisenhower that the Free French forces would not go along with the plans and even if the Allied forces didn’t attack, the French ones would do so on their own.
Eisenhower relented and on August 23, a French armored division began advancing on the city from the north and an American infantry division began attacking from the south. Initially the French force attacking the city ran into heavy German artillery and took heavy casualties. But on August 24 managed to cross the Seine and reach Paris’ suburbs. They were met by enthusiastic civilians who greeted them with flowers, kisses, and wine. Later that day, their commander, having learned that the American troops might enter the city before his troops, ordered his exhausted men to press forward. And just before midnight on August 24, the French troops reached the heart of Paris.
German resistance melted away during the night and most of the 20,000 troops surrendered, or fled, while the rest were quickly overcome in battle. Choltitz, who was captured in the early afternoon on August 25, didn’t give orders to destroy the city before the French forces found him. He later claimed he decided to save the city from unacceptable ruin “because I knew that Hitler was insane.” However, Kriegel-Valrimont, who was in the small group that took the German general from his headquarters to the French headquarters to formally surrender, insisted that this was a revisionist view. “The question is meaningless,” he said, “because once we had the initiative he did not have the power to act.”
Later that same day, de Gaulle came to the city. Kriegel-Valrimont and Henri Rol-Tanguy, who commanded the French forces in Paris, were among the handful of people who took the German general by half-track to meet de Gaulle at Montparnasse station. When they got there, he recalled, “Val and I looked at each other. We didn’t speak a word, but we both knew what the other was thinking: yes – it was worth it all for this! Paris is free, the enemy is our prisoner, the war is going to be won. Not a bad job!”
That night, de Gaulle made a rousing speech in the heart of the city. “These are minutes which go beyond each of our poor lives,” he said. He recalled the shame of “Paris outraged! Paris broken! [and] Paris martyred!” But, he added, the new reality was “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….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.”
The next day, even though a few German snipers were still active, de Gaulle and the French troops paraded down the Champs-Élysées. Two days later, the U.S. Army’s 28th Infantry Division, which is shown on today’s stamp, paraded 24-abreast to the Arc de Triomphe then down the Champs Élysées. There, was, of course, much fighting and much hardship ahead. But for those who were there, such as Kriegel-Valrimont, the fall of Paris was a special moment. “To say it was unforgettable is meaningless,” he recalled. “It was phenomenal. Everyone should have a day like that once in their lifetime.”
We, of course, are not at war. But, in our own way we are outraged and we are broken and we even might be martyred. But, in time, I believe we will return to our Parises, our sacred and special places. When we get there, we too, will be bloodied, quite resolute, and, I hope, enlightened by the immense lessons we are learning.
I hope to have that day in my lifetime.
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice (and liberation) and work for peace.