World War II Day by Day

Paris, Occupied France · August 10, 1944

Beginning on August 2, 1944, almost two months after the initial D-Day landings in Nor­mandy, France, more than 14,000 per­son­nel and equip­ment from Gen. Philippe Leclerc’s Free French 2nd Armored Divi­sion landed on Utah Beach. Leclerc juggled three roles: He was a sub­ordi­nate divi­sional com­mander in an Amer­i­can army, he was the com­mander of a sep­a­rate national (French) force, and he was Free French leader Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s man on the spot. As the tide turned against Nazi Ger­many after the Allies’ Nor­mandy break­out (August 1, 1944), Free French leaders wanted their own troops to lead the lib­er­a­tion of Paris. In fact, the people of Paris were readying them­selves for libera­tion—by them­selves if neces­sary. Nine days after the citi­zens of War­saw, Poland’s capital, began their up­rising, French rail workers went on strike on this date in 1944. Five days later, as another Allied inva­sion took place in south­ern France (Opera­tion Dra­goon), Paris police struck as well. By August 18 the French capi­tal was com­pletely para­lyzed. Spo­radic street fighting broke out the next day. Pari­sians built barri­cades in the streets, sniped from roof­tops at Wehr­macht and Waffen-SS soldiers evacu­ating the city, and posted pro­pa­ganda posters on walls assuring resi­dents that “victory is near” and pro­mising “chastise­ment for the trai­tors,” i.e., the Vichy loy­al­ists. The Ger­man mili­tary gover­nor, Gen. Diet­rich von Chol­titz, responded by cutting off all power and food sup­plies. On August 23 radio lis­teners heard that Pari­sians were libera­ting them­selves, an act that caused the Allied high com­mand—which feared any insur­rec­tion that might result in the use­less slaugh­ter of civil­ians as was occurring in War­saw—to accel­er­ate their drive east­ward by sending an advance divi­sion of the Free French army under Gen. Leclerc into the city on August 24. The next day Leclerc accepted the sur­render of the Ger­man garri­son, which had shrunk to 5,000 mostly un­en­thu­si­astic men. Four years of pent-up frustra­tion and hatred exploded over the heads of the Ger­man occu­pa­tion forces and espe­cially their colla­bo­rators who had betrayed, tor­tured, and exe­cuted mem­bers of the Resis­tance. At least 11,000 col­la­bo­rators were sum­marily exe­cuted before and after Choltitz surrendered the city to Leclerc.

The Liberation of Paris, August 19–25, 1944

Left: On August 19, 1944, the first skirmishes between French irreg­u­lars (résis­tants) and the Ger­man occu­piers began in Paris. Skir­mishes reached their height of inten­sity on August 22 when some Ger­man units tried to leave their strong­points. It is esti­mated that 800–1,000 resis­tance fighters were killed during the battle for Paris and 1,500 wounded. Leclerc’s Free French Armored Division suffered 130 killed and just over 300 wounded. Ger­man losses were placed at 3,200 dead.

Right: Screenshot from the documentary “La Libéra­tion de Paris,” which was secretly shot by the French Resis­tance during the battle of Paris in August 1944. This still shows two Pari­sians, pos­si­bly mem­bers of the Forces fran­çaises de l’inté­rieur (French Forces of the Inte­rior, or FFI), dis­arming a recently killed Ger­man sol­dier. In the frames before this, the sol­dier is seen being shot, as Parisian sni­pers directly over­looking Notre Dame Cathe­dral watch him die. In the next few scenes, the woman and the man remove his rifle, a pistol, and other objects. (See YouTube video below.)

Left: High-ranking German officers captured by Free French troops are lodged in the Hôtel Majes­tic, Wehr­macht head­quarters during the Nazi occu­pa­tion of Paris, August 26, 1944. Gen. Diet­rich von Chol­titz, com­mander of the Ger­man gar­ri­son and mili­tary gover­nor of Paris, sur­ren­dered on August 25 at the Hôtel Meurice, the newly estab­lished head­quarters of Gen. Leclerc. Some 12,800 Ger­mans were taken prisoner.

Right: The French 2nd Armored Division eventually led the drive toward Paris. A small advance party arrived at the Hôtel de Ville (city hall) late on August 24, 1944. The next day Gen. Leclerc and the rest of his French Armored Divi­sion, along with the U.S. 4th Infan­try Divi­sion, entered the French capi­tal. Some spo­radic fighting con­tinued for several days following the Ger­man capitu­la­tion. Never­the­less, on August 26 a great vic­tory parade took place down Paris’ main boule­vard, the Champs Élysées, lined with jubi­lant crowds acclaiming Gen. de Gaulle and the French 2nd Armored Div­ision the libera­tors of Paris. A sign in the crowd reads, “Viva de Gaulle.”

Left: Free French head Gen. Charles de Gaulle and his entou­rage set off from the Arc de Tri­umphe down the Champs Élysées to the Cathe­dral of Notre Dame in Paris for a service of thanks­giving following the city’s liberation, August 25, 1944.

Right: On August 29, 1944, following the arrival of the U.S. Army’s 28th Infantry Divi­sion, a com­bined Franco-Amer­i­can mili­tary parade was organ­ized. This iconic photo­graph, taken by a member of the U.S. Army Sig­nal Corps, shows the divi­sion marching down Paris’ Champs Élysées.

Contemporary American Newsreel of Liberation of Paris, August 1944