| Record Number |
819371 |
| ISBN |
9781501164927 (hardback) |
| Author |
Smith, Jean Edward author. |
| Title |
The liberation of Paris : how Eisenhower, de Gaulle, and von Choltitz saved the City of Light / Jean Edward Smith. |
| Edition |
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. |
| Publisher/Date |
New York : Simon & Schuster, 2019. |
| ©2019 |
| Pagination etc. |
242 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 23 cm. |
| Contents note |
"Simon & Schuster nonfiction original hardcover." |
| Bibliography, etc. note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-229) and index. |
| Contents note |
Paris occupied -- De Gaulle and the resistance -- The Allies advance -- The German defense -- The resistance rises -- Eisenhower changes plans -- Leclerc moves out -- A field of ruins -- Day of liberation -- De Gaulle triumphant. |
| Summary Note |
Following their breakout from Normandy in late June 1944, the Allies swept across northern France in pursuit of the German army. The Allies intended to bypass Paris and cross the Rhine into Germany, ending the war before winter set in. But as they advanced, local forces in Paris began their own liberation, defying the occupying German troops. Charles de Gaulle, the leading figure of the Free French government, urged General Dwight Eisenhower to divert forces to liberate Paris. Eisenhowers most senior staff recommended otherwise, but Ike wanted to help position de Gaulle to lead France after the war. And both men were concerned about partisan conflict in Paris that could leave the communists in control of the city and the national government, perhaps even causing a bloodbath like the Paris Commune. Neither man knew that the German commandant, Dietrich von Choltitz, convinced that the war was lost, dissembled and schemed to surrender the city to the Allies intact, defying Hitlers orders to leave it a burning ruin. In The Liberation of Paris, Jean Edward Smith puts this dramatic event in context, showing how the decision to free the city came at a heavy price: it slowed the Allied momentum and allowed the Germans to regroup. After the war German generals argued that Eisenhowers decision to enter Paris prolonged the war for another six months. Was Paris worth this price? Smith answers this question in his superb, dramatic history of one of the great events of World War IIpublished seventy-five years after the liberation. |
| Subject |
World War, 1939-1945 -- France -- Paris |
| Paris (France) -- History -- 1940-1944 |
| France -- History -- German occupation, 1940-1945 |
| Shelf Location |
940.54214 SMIT |
