Paris after the Liberation 1944-1949 by Antony Beevor Page A

bank of the Seine, as Colonel de Langlade’s armoured column came clanking and grinding up the Avenue Victor Hugo in the 16th
arrondissement
towards the Place de l’Étoile, Paris firemen hung a huge tricolour from the Arc de Triomphe. Crowds gathering to watch the attack on the Hotel Majestic on the Avenue Kléber yelled their support. Yves Montand and Edith Piaf were among those who had to throw themselves flat on the ground or shelter behind trees when the firing began.
    The assault on the Majestic was almost perfunctory, although still confused. The defenders were hardly élite troops, but like most of the Gross-Paris garrison, soldiers ‘abandoned by their officers to a suicidal task’. There was confusion over the surrender. The Protestant leader, Pastor Boegner, saw four German soldiers, bareheaded, their field-grey tunics unbuttoned, hands raised and clasped behind their necks, led at gunpoint to the Place de l’Étoile. One of them was alleged to have shot a French officer after the white flag had been hoisted. All four were shot. ‘
Chose atroce!
’ the Protestant clergyman recorded, powerless to save them. Shortly afterwards, Edith Piaf stopped a young
fifi
from throwing a grenade into a lorry full of German prisoners.
    After the Majestic had fallen, catching fire in the process, the crowd gathered at the Arc de Triomphe under the firemen’s tricolour to sing the Marseillaise. The fighting and the impression of a 14 July celebration ‘were mixed up together in a hallucinating way’, Boegner noted.
    Many of Leclerc’s soldiers were returning home after four years farfrom their families. One young woman suddenly spotted her husband on a half-track, but emotion made her dumb. Fortunately, he caught sight of her, but clearly he hardly believed what he saw. Husband and wife threw themselves into each other’s arms, while his comrades, equally filthy and unshaven, crowded round to share in the joy of their embrace.
    The most important objective was to force General von Choltitz’s surrender. Only then could the fighting in other parts of Paris come to an end. Choltitz had refused to accept a message demanding his submission.
    At about the same time as Colonel de Langlade’s troops began their attack on the Majestic, Colonel Billotte’s group moved against the Hotel Meurice. Five Shermans and a force of infantry set off along the rue de Rivoli towards the Meurice, near the gilt statue of Jeanne d’Arc in the Place des Pyramides. As they got closer to their objective, they began dodging forward along the rue de Rivoli colonnade. Crowds cheered on the attackers in a carnival atmosphere, but as soon as the fighting started, the mood changed abruptly. The German tanks in the Tuileries gardens and on the Place de la Concorde were dealt with at the cost of four Shermans. After a brief battle, resistance ceased. Two French officers went up to General von Choltitz’s roomand demanded his surrender.
    The crowd surged forward, some spitting, when he was driven off to sign the surrender with General Leclerc at the Prefecture of Police. Other German soldiers coming out of the headquarters with their hands up were attacked by a crowd, mainly of women, who tore at their clothes, spectacles and watches.
    The formal act of surrender took place in the billiard room of the Prefecture in the presence of the military leaders of the Resistance. Colonel Rol-Tanguy announced that as commander of the FFI in Paris, he wished to sign the document with Leclerc. His request was supported by the other leaders, including the non-Communists, Chaban-Delmas and Colonel Lizé, so Leclerc felt obliged to agree. Due to a confusion, Leclerc’s signature came below that of Rol-Tanguy.
    After the ceremony, Leclerc, accompanied by most of those who had been present, including General von Choltitz, moved to the railway station of Montparnasse, where he had arranged to meet de Gaulle. Thehead of the provisional government arrived around four