At a time when the Allied and Nazi war machines laid waste to cities in their paths, Paris was liberated with monuments intact. Fifty years later, debate continues on who deserves the thanks.
"It's the Americans who liberated Paris," said Chantal Leger, 48, who owns the Rose cafe on a street in central Paris where some of the heaviest fighting took place. Many American veterans agree.But a former Resistance fighter or veteran of the French 2nd Armored Division who fought to redeem four years of humiliating occupation will claim the most credit. Hundreds of Resistance fighters and French soldiers died in the battle for Paris.
This year, officials will mark the German surrender of Paris on Aug. 25, 1944, with a dramatic procession by 2,000 actors, fireworks and a dance on the Place de la Concorde.
On Friday, 8,000 schoolchildren from across France will re-enact the historic walk by Gen. Charles de Gaulle down the liberated Champs-Elysees.
The liberation was an almost comic, and nearly tragic, combination of insubordination by Germans and French alike; a race between Allied and German reinforcements approaching the city, an orgy of celebration during and after the battle.
It was rich in political intrigue: De Gaulle elbowed past Communist Resistants and collaborationist Vichy rulers, seeking to establish himself as the leader of postwar France and win over skeptics in Washington.
U.S. reluctance to recognize de Gaulle, called an "egoist" by President Franklin Roosevelt, and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's decision to delay the liberation of Paris helped set the tone of relations that still remain testy.
By August 1944, two months after the landings in Normandy, the Allies were about 60 miles from Paris. Eisenhower chose a pincer-like strategy to encircle the capital and force a German surrender without the costly urban warfare that had leveled St. Lo, Cherbourg and Caen.
But the people grew impatient in Paris, where butter cost $10 a pound, electricity was on only two hours a day and D-Day had raised hopes.
The Germans had goose-stepped down the Champs-Elysees more than 1,500 days. On the Eiffel Tower hung a huge "V" sign the Nazis borrowed from the Allies, accompanied by the declaration that "Deutschland siegt auf allen Fronten" (Germany is winning on all fronts).
On Aug. 19, Resistants armed with guns and gasoline bombs launched their uprising. They took a beating from German tanks.
Hitler ordered Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz, the Paris commander, to mine bridges and other sites. He was quoted as ordering the general to leave nothing but ruins, as Allied bombers were doing to German cities.
Von Choltitz refused because he "knew that the war was lost (and) realized that Hitler was a very sick man," his widow, Uberta, said by telephone from her home in Baden Baden, Germany.
De Gaulle, afraid a Resistance victory in Paris would freeze him out, sent a note to Eisenhower threatening to send in the French 2nd Armored whether the Allies agreed or not.
On that ultimatum, Eisenhower is said to have scribbled: "It looks now as if we'd be compelled to go into Paris." He sent the French division, led by Gen. Philippe Leclerc, and the U.S. 4th Division, as a reward for its heavy losses since Normandy.
Leclerc's force was held up by heavy German resistance south of Paris and, as U.S. Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley said, "a Gallic wall as townsfolk along the line of march slowed the French advance with wine and celebration."
Meanwhile, Hitler had dispatched reinforcements from the north that were to arrive within days.
Bradley was quoted as saying he could not wait for the French "to dance their way to Paris. . . . To hell with prestige. Tell the 4th to slam on in and take the liberation."
The French managed to send a small group of tanks to City Hall before midnight Aug. 24. The next day, French and U.S. forces knocked out German posts isolated by Resistants, who controlled most of the streets.
"The majority of Paris was liberated by the 2nd Division," said retired Gen. Jean Compagnon, 77, a former military attache in Washington.
Russ Meyer, 72, disagrees. The American movie maker, an Army cameraman at the time, said by telephone from his home in Palm Desert, Calif.: "I'll tell you who liberated it. It was the 1st American Infantry Division and the 4th Infantry Division. De Gaulle, and vive la France, they didn't have to liberate France at all."
On Aug. 26, de Gaulle strode down the Champs-Elysees to a wild welcome from Parisians.
"The liberation really legitimized him," Compagnon said.
Three days later, Eisenhower arrived and American troops paraded down the Champs-Elysees before marching off to fight Germans north of the city.
"What I wanted was to see the situation in Paris under control, and as far as I was concerned de Gaulle was the best man to do that," Eisenhower wrote. "That's the effect I wanted and that's the effect I got."