Smith - Liberation of Paris: How Eisenhower, de Gaulle, and von Choltitz Saved the City of Light

General von Bock saluting his troops entering Paris, June 14, 1940

The beginnings of World War II, and the history of France preceding it, must be understood to appreciate the significance of the German occupation of Paris. After German forces invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Britain and France, honoring their diplomatic obligations, declared war on Germany. That decision was not popular in France. There were no supportive demonstrations in Paris or other French cities when war came, no ringing declarations of the righteousness of the war or the evils of Hitlers regime. France mobilized an army of 2.6 million men. But they took up defensive positions, half on the Maginot Line, the other half on the Belgian border, ready to meet another German Schlieffen Plan that would outflank the French army by moving through Belgium, as in 1914. Many Frenchmen doubted the wisdom of the governments going to war. The French right admired Hitler and Nazi Germany. For them, the war was indefensible. The left, though they despised Nazi totalitarianism, did not want war with any country, because of a devotion to pacifism and a conviction, taught in public schools since 1919, that war was an evil to be avoided at all costs. Frances enormous losses in World War I contributed to that feeling.

After the surprise signing of the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact on August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union joined Germany and invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. By September 29 that war was over. Germany and the Soviet Union divided Polandthe fourth time Poland had been dismemberedand Britain and France had done nothing to prevent it. Why the French did not attack Germany while the German army was deployed in Poland remains a mystery. As Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the chief of the German high command, said later, We soldiers had always expected an attack by France during the Polish campaign and were very much surprised when nothing happened. A French attack would have encountered only a German military screen, not a real defense.

The decision of Stalin to join with Hitler complicated political alignments within France. The French Communist Party (PCF), under orders from Moscow, endorsed the partition of Poland and denounced Frances decision to join with Great Britain in an imperialist war against Germany. The people of France have been assigned the mission of executing the orders of the bankers of London, said the PCF in October.

After the fall of Poland, France still did not attack Germany. Russia invaded Finland on November 30, but France was not involved. For the next five months the French and German armies faced each other without a shot being fired. The French called it drle de guerre. The Germans called it Sitzkrieg. During that period French military morale suffered badly. It was largely a draftee army; pay was minimal, and with no fighting it seemed a waste of time. At the governmental level, douard Daladier, who had succeeded Lon Blum as prime minister in April 1938, resigned on March 20, 1940, and was succeeded by Paul Reynaud.

The situation changed abruptly on April 9, 1940, when Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. The Danish invasion took only four hours, and by noon on the 9th the Germans were in total control. No shots had been fired. In Norway, the exercise took longer, but the outcome was never in doubt. All of Norways ports as well as the capital of Oslo were captured by the Germans on the first day. The British fleet intervened briefly; a number of German vessels were sunk, and the port of Narvik was retaken. But resistance was marginalized, and Norway, like Denmark, became occupied.