The Unfree French Life Under the Occupation by Richard Vinen 2006 376pg

 26/6/23   French POWs  and Civilians in Germany during the German occupation of France 1940 to 1945

Officers were kept in comfortable  Oflags where these old men blamed each other for the defeat. Soldiers were in Stalags some had been  German barracks or lunatic asylums and had to construct their own camps at short notice.  A person who worked in the post office recalls letters in 16 different languages that made up conscripts of the French army. North African and Vietnameses were kept in other camps and treated badly. Whereas the British soldiers knew it was their duty to escape the French were not encouraged by Vichy to do the same.

The Red Cross supplied parcels and gave prisoners information of their rights those in work Kommandos did not know this. The strong and less educated were sent to  Work Kommandos there was a big demand for farm peasants and farm worker in some cases got much freedom and were preferable to Industrial work that was dangerous. Kommandos usually got more food that in the Stalags.

Repatriation started immediately for example Renault needed its workers back to fulfill German work contracts. Medical workers not needed in the camps. Veterans of WW1 and fathers of 4 children and other bureaucrats that would be useful to the Germans back in France. Flemish speakers as the Germans though they would be hostile to French unity. Prisoners were always kept by the Germans in the illusion that a peace agreement would be signed and they would go home soon. In France they were always suspicious of those who returned.  Many well connected wealthy families got releases for their sons. The Germans were more likely to release the idle in Stalags than those serving the German economy in the Kommandos. Soldiers like Mitterrand wanting to escape could do it easier from a work party.

The Releve( relief) 1942 June Pierre Laval announced that for every 3 French workers who volunteered to work in Germany, a French prisoner would be  released." For German victory for without it Bolshevism would be installed everywhere." At total of 100, 000 were released. Vichy could choose between 15 to 20% of those released the remainder were designated by the Germans. Many who arrived home were sick and categories that should have been sent home with out. this scheme in any case. Many  were people the Germans had found difficult to work with, who stood up for prisoners rights. Some hommes de confiance refused liberation to carry on their good work. The releve quickly became unpopular with the prisoners, their families and the French population. They caused a fall in morale in the camps .

At some time or othe 2 and a half million French were held in Germany. In rural France they had more food and less contact with the German, than in the cities

Stolen Youth

1943 Service de Travail Obligatoire STO compulsory work service. This was an important Vichy policy and created an opposition to Vichy and resulted in younger men going into the Marquis. Students were allowed to delay this till after exams and farmers were exempted. It was mostly for army age but extended to older people and it was claimed to get the idle off the streets.  Volunteers were mostly lumpenproletariat many were foreigners or criminals and created problems in German factories. Those compelled to go in 1943 were mostly metal workers whose skills the Germans needed.  In many ways people could get out and the way French society rather than the French state pushed men to go to Germany was not taken into account.  Many communities and families encouraged young men to go, because they feared German reprisals. Hunting down young men to be taken to Germany often ment searching cinemas, cafes, racecourses where idlers would hang out.

. About 20,000 bourgeois young men became coal miners, including sons of coal mine owners. This happened especially when student exemption from STO was abolished. Some Polytechniciens were spending a relatively short week underground and continued studying. Some schools came to an arrangement with the coalmines for their students. Professional miners objected as less production per person meant lower bonuses. The Germans knew about this but because of the shortage of coal in France never objected.  Bank clerks and other lower middle class jobs the workers were sent as they seemed more dispensable. The French post office transferred a large number of employees directly to the German postal service to replace those conscripted into the Wehrmacht.

Vichy and German authorities threatened sanctions against French doctors who gave out too many exception certificates and German or collaborationist doctors were brought or medical examination were conducted on German premices. There was a shortage of labour in France but men fleeing STO could be got for just board and lodging but their food could only come from the black market as they could not get ration cards. Families in the black market had the power to protect their sons. Agents of the state could be bribed by black marketeers.especially in rural areas where they got their supplies.

Most of the workers went under compulsion. Those recruited as volunteers with contracts later lost the right to return especially after 1943 when it started becoming clear that Frances future was more to do with what was happening in |London, Algiers and the woods in France and those in Germany were passive spectators of history. Initially volunteers were let home when their contracts expired but then the Germans stopped volunteers going home  when they realized how few were returning.

French Civilians in Germany: Best off were those who managed to pursue careers they had begun in France. Many civilian ended working alongside French POWs. POWs were usually about 10 years older than STO recruits. Catholicism created a bond between French men and the local population. About 200 priest and a small number of nuns went to work as missionaries. French workers in France were given discreet help by German priests and by lay German Catholics..

Transformes :  In 1943 The Vichy government encouraged French POWs to become civilians this way they could work for the German war effort , they got greater freedom , better  pay and easier correspondence. However they lost Geneva Convention protection. Some volunteered but many were not given the choice amongst those who were already in work Kommandos. They idea of being placed in armaments' factories was unpleasant. Men posted on farms where wages were low had little to gain from becoming civilians. Many were not given civilian clothes to replace their uniforms especially those working of fortification on the Eastern Front. They also had no organisation to protect them.

Women : Half the POWs were married men and Vichy made it illegal for wifes at home to live with other men. Those prisoners who did lose contact with their wives  asked the police to investigate as the were more worried about food parcels , the state of their property and children than fidelity. Many women volunteered for work in Germany because they had been abandoned by the fathers of their children. Young girls abused by stepfathers were open to this. French Prostitutes increased and were harassed by the police, pimps and local councils and so some went to Germany.

The Liberation:  France underwent not one but many different liberations. Some French citizen in Germany liberated by the Soviets did not get back for months even years. Cities like Saint -Lo was bombed by the Americans. La Rochelle was surrendered with negotiations with free French forces. De Gaul claimed that Paris liberated itself with the help of France while ignoring the presence of thousands of Allied Forces. Dances that had been forbidden under Vichy began and young people started meeting again especially those who avoided STO and  fled to the hills or from public places to avoid German forced labour. 

Operation Torch in North Africa began the liberation. Algeria was not a colony but part of France. The American approached Henri Giraud a French General who had escaped Germany. He was meant to be the leader but missed the submarine in Gibraltar. American forces landed and Admiral Dahlan ordered the French to resist. After the death of 453 Allied and 1368 french troops a ceasefire was arranged. The American suggested that Dahlan lead the French forces. He accepted as he had been squeezed out of power from Vichy by Laval's return. He was denounced by Petain but it was suggested that Petain was not a free agent. The Cremieux decree of  1870 had given Algerian Jews French citizenship and this had been abolished by Vichy. Jews only regained this 6 months after the Americans arrived. De Gaul met Roosevelt at the Casa Blanca summit and Roosevelt didn't trust De Gaulle but De Gaulle was impressed that Roosevelt could conduct a conversation in French. 

1942 De Gaulle had 50,000 troops under his command 2 years later he had 550,000  Punishment of collaborators and Pertainist in North African had a dramatic effect on mainland France. Vichy leaders  in absence had been sentenced to death sending Frenchmen to fight in the German Army.. German army in Corsica was evicted in November 1943. Corsica had been occupied by Italy till Mussolini withdrew and 40,000 Germans were left there. Once Sardinia had fallen the Germans were surrounded. The invasion in the south of France was mostly French soldiers. More than half of these troops were from French colonies. The Germans put up very little fight in the south and many just melted away. Marseilles was taken over by the Resistance. 

The British and Americans had planned the Normandy landing without DeGaul knowing, as the French could not keep secrets. It was finally agreed that the Allies would not impose a civilian government on France and would permit Free French amongst the Normandy landings. De Gaul was shaken by Petains April 1944 visit to Paris and warm welcome there. 

The  1944 June 6 D day Normandy landing, by the end of August allies had 2 million troops and ports to support the invasion. It also caused the plot to kill Hitler on 20th July 1944.  Frenchmen generally did not fight the British and American as Petain reminded them that France was neutral. The American were the most numerous of the allies and came with great technical skills and set up enormous camps naming them after US cigarettes. The French had best contact with Canadians from Quebec. The American brought more food to France than they took unlike the Germans. They were very protective of women and children. The  US Army refused to accept that their troops would frequent prostitution and put these places out of bounds.. Whereas the Germans had allocated bordellos for their troops and were more worried about diseases. Prostitution was getting back into working order however.  American troops had basic French lessons in the army newspaper and could speak some to women.

Black soldier were not automatically thrown out of bars as in the US but the American authorities were obsessed with the need to prevent contact between black soldiers and white girls. Any complaint was treated harshly and 21 men were executed for rape only 3 of them were white.

 Milice was formed in Vichy who became increaseingly fanatic and were  to keep order and they wiped out the Resistance, they were savage in their treatment of Jews. Petain belatedly tried to distance himself from it.  Many of these ended up joining the French Foreign legion after the war to escape retribution.

 During  the Liberation de Gaulle ceased to  be a radio voice and became a Right wing individual that was cool towards the Resistance fighters. There was now a division between De Gaulle and the Resistance which the Communists dominated over the Communist enemies. There was a division between the Communist leadership that had supported the Hitler Stalin pact and the party membership that dropped away sharply at this stage. The party became strong in rural areas as part of the anti - Fascist struggle after 1943.  Leaders had had  very little contact with the new members as some leaders were in London, Algeria and even Buchenwald. The Resistance only became a mass movement in 1944 because the leaders allowed it to assume such a role towards the Normandy landings. With the liberation came  purges. Lists of collaborators were printed and many of them moved to where German troops could provide protection, by June 1944 the Resistance had assassinated 2,500 people.

The memory of liberation was associated with the warmer weather, which made it easier to abandon homes and flee into the countryside now they were moving away from the bombing. Autumn of 1944 returned some students to their studies, there was still a shortage of food and fuel. Christmas trees that year were decorated by tin foil dropped as chaff by allied bomber to distort the German radar. Almost 2 million French men could not join the happy reunions as they were in Germany.

During Liberation Germans often snatched up workers. The remaining Vichy members went to Germany as political refugees. The presence of colaborator refugees in Germany meant that French could not express anti German sentiments. Food became scarce and Allied bombing increased in Germany and foreign workers were often denied entrance to bomb shelters. Red Cross had to bring the mail now which took months.

In Austria and East Germany Frenchmen were liberated by the Red Army and they witnessed the raping by Russian  or Mongolian troops many of whom were drunk. Those prisoner in big camps were okey but those in work Kommandos were regarded as German civilians and their watches were immediately stolen. About 300,000 French were liberated before the American arrived but were sent home via Odessa or other ways and eventually by train across German and reach their homes a year after liberation. This experience  had made them  very anti Communist and all the philosophy in involved.

Only a tiny minority of Jews returned. Others returning had to be checked if they had been traitors or Nazi sympathisers.

Many had been away 5 years.One wife said  a young man left her and she was reluctant to welcome back a prematurely aged man who felt a stranger to his children. The women had taken active lives while these men had had passive roles as prisoners and their masculinity was challenged.

Vichy did vanish, few people expressed loyalty to it after 1943 and by 1944 it had no authority

End: Many who returned to their normal lives and never talked about their experiences but on retiring wrote their memoirs in the 1980 to justify what had happened for their children and grandchildren.

 Soldiers memory of WW1 was unifying whereas there was no unifying state experience in WW2. When the village of Roussillon  wanted to cash in on Becketts wartime sojourn they had to return  his house to the type of amenities available in during the occupation.

Books on the Role the Beatles played in History

My Beatles Speech

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings-- And why the sea is boiling hot-- And whether pigs have wings." Paul and John liked Alice in Wonderland and took ideas from that In 1967 at school we had lessons on Classical Music Appreciation and at the end of the year the class suggested to the teacher that he should listen to the music the kids like and he was prepared to listen to the Beatles. I though at the time he was informed on music but Leonard Bernstein in 1965 said that they are the Schumann of today. Liverpool, Merseyside and the Cast Iron Shore and speakers of "scouse" Why was it that Liverpool created the Beatles. Starting in 1981 we spent several summers in Liverpool the Cavern which was in an old ware house surrounded by the market was a run down part of the city and had just been demolished. Had Liverpool understood how important the Beatles would be in future they would have refurbished the Cavern and kept it in the same way that every childhood home of the Beatles is now visited. Liverpool has a long history as a port from where ships went out to the slave and sugar trade later in the great migration years in was the place where you got the cheapest ride to New York and immigrants came from all over Europe to get passage to the New World including Jew and many stayed in Liverpool forming a very solid community. Liverpool is close to Manchester and their is a ship canal to Manchester and the worlds first railway line ran from Manchester to Liverpool 1831 My wife's family lived in Woolton which was middle class and I would take our sons around Woolton where you have the red sandstone quarry on one side and quarry street, quarry road and John Lennon first band was the Quarrymen. I walked with the stroller to Calderstones park past Strawberry Field an institution of sorts and we would get a bus that ran along Penny Lane to get to the city. Liverpool was the most cosmopolitan of cities in England after the war. Most dockworker like in London had fled the Irish Famine of 1843. The first Chinatown in Europe was in Liverpool. Every working class family had somebody in the merchant navy who would return with American records and comics. Interesting my wife's cousin learned Spanish at school there and afterwards I read that they needed Spanish as so many sailors were on ships to and from South America. Liverpool was statistically the worst hit in the battle of Britain and by the end of the war 4000 Liverpudlians had died the greatest number of destruction to any city. This is well documented in Nicholas Monserrat book "the Cruel Sea" where returning from the war time convey the sailors return home to Bootle and they hardly have families left all they found of their homes was rubble. The city instead of rebuilding, demolished whole neighbourhoods and rebuilt new one like Speke. Liverpool in the late 50s had over 300 bands and people could get around the city on a very good and cheap public transport with busses, trains their was a big demand for dance halls and night clubs for young people and the "scouse" had very different music from the rest of the country. Also the British musicians union made sure that a very limited amount of recorded music was played on the radio and only live music played so except for pirate radio like Radio Luxemburg you never heard American music. Before the war Nazis had destroyed or kicked out all the "decadent" artists and musicians as well as Jews, so they basically destroyed German music. People like Kurt Weil, Erich Korngold etc. ended up in Hollywood and had to reinvent themselves. After the war kids in Germany were not taught singing it was a totally taboo subject as this was all Nazi songs. Night clubs in Hamburg wanted to bring American musician there but could not afford the strong $, so got the idea to bring musicians from Liverpool (who were used to earning weak pounds) and brought a number of groups including the Beatles. -------------------- 1966 August after playing 10 concerts in front of noisy stadium audiences in the States, the Beatles were exhausted from travel and moved out of the public eye and into making records in the studio, as their newer songs were not suitable for playing in public. The last concert was at Candlestick Park SF. Johns comment that they were more popular than Jesus made they unwelcome in the South. Klu Klux Klan threats. There were Beatle record burnings. They now hated the mop boys who wanted to reinvent themselves. George Harrison had had enough and threatened to leave the Beatles if they had to continue this Beatlemania in front of audiences. 1966 Eleonor Rigby this song was a move away from Pop music to more serious song writer. Paul as a scout had visited old people who talked to him about the war years and was thinking about their bereavement and loneliness. They decided they wanted to get away from the image of bushy haired boys and worked on this LP presenting themselves as a Victorian Circus band.

They never had a deadline to meet and were confident that the cost of producing this album would be recouped so had plenty of time to experiment with the modern recording possibilities available at the time Up till this stage even though the Beatles were a 4 way democracy John was the leader now Paul became the day facto leader 1967 June Sargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band the typical working class brass band very Victorian. John had a poster that he bought in an antique shop advertising a circus in Rochdale in 1843 for the Benefit of Mr. Kite and Mr Henderson and pictures of hoops trampoline, horses and typical circus, with very old fairground music that George Martin provided. This was a band within a band. Not only the songs and uniforms were unique but the Album was cover designed at the cost 3000 pounds when normally that would would cost 25 to 50 pounds. They also did the new thing of putting the lyrics into the sleeve. This album with its cover set the scene by which the psychedelic 60s is remembered. On the cover are over 70 portraits including the Beatles in Circus Band Uniforms as well as their wax images as well as Lewis Carol. By 2011 it had sold 32 million copies. This was the first of the concept albums. They could experiment as they knew they would not play this type of music in public. Up till this time the definitive part of music was the printed score and the words.. From now on the recorded record became the definitive form the money was no longer in selling the printed songs, They also included the lyrics printed with the album. They were the only ones who could do this as they owned the lyrics as opposed to most bands that paid for songs. This became known as the Concept Album. "the most important and influential rock-and-roll album ever recorded" We also have to understand that the technology was capable of doing this type of thing was relatively new and the Beatle were up to date, they had multi track recording..""epitome of the transformation of the recording studio into a compositional tool" The had no limit of time of deadline and they had no budget problem. It cost 25 000 pounds to produce instead of the first album instead of 400 pounds for Please Please Me. Songs just merged into each other as if a continuous live concert. An important work of British psychedelia, the album incorporates a range of stylistic influences, including vaudeville, circus, music hall, avant-garde, and Western and Indian and uses orchestral overdubs. Paul after resisting drugs eventually took LSD so we have the psychedelic effect. Strawberry Fields was a Salvation Army hostel. Penny Lane a main bus junction in Liverpool. During this time they were out of the limelight and Brian Epstein wanted a single made so that the public would not forget them Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were made. Sgt Peppers was the last work where the Beatles worked cohesively. Legacy 1996 Paul's old school becomes Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. 1997 March, Paul was knighted Sir Paul McCarthy. They were the first band to play at soccer stadium the Shea Stadium 1965 which paved the way for others and improved equipment to deal with that. Never has any decade afterword's seen the equivale of Beatlemania. Adelle recently got 2 singles on the chart at the same time first since the Beatles. Singers used to sell singles and then make up an album of them. With the Beatles song on albums never appeared as a single. The Beatles were always open about the drugs they had used, their thoughts on religion and their opinion on the war in Vietnam. In the United States, they refused to play for segregated audiences. Their attitude or disregard for entrenched values caused the youth to become very politically active. Over 300 books have been written about the Beatles and their lyrics. What later became the music video of today was started by the Beatle movies especially "Hard Days Night" The Eastern religions from India was brought to the west and church attendance was affected. British Invasion - American woke up to England being "cool" and not stodgy old fashioned. They became Rock Stars with a social conscience. They led the way in changing music. They were in the right place at a time when music technology was changing and led the way using classical music as a background also. The End ---

Note the 60s started with the unbanning of Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence and this changed the social atmosphere. Military conscription also ended other wise the Beatles would not have met each other as they were a variety of ages.

 

The lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman1988  699pg  Feb.2019

 John Lennon was born during the war while Liverpool was being bombed. The father was a seaman and away while his mother neglected him and flirted. His father disserted his mother who then had lovers and 2 more children and John was sent to live with Aunt Mimi. She strived to be middle class and saw to his physical and educational needs but never gave him motherly love. Later in life he discovered he had a form of dyslexia.

Luckily he had an aunt and cousins in North Scotland where he was sent every summer vacation. 1956 Elvis Presley became an example of a truck driver to superstar. A white American singing black rhythm. Mimi's husband died when John was 17 Johns and mother was run over. His girlfriend Cynthia also had no mother. He never passed his O level but Mimi managed to get him into art school and paid for him. He in the end dropped out of that to run his band. In the US the dance hall period ended with the end of the big bands the Music Hall still continued in Britain but in Liverpool there was a need for cheap dance halls at City Halls or church hall and up to 350 amateur bands were providing the Mersey Beat with the bus service bringing in people from Mersey side. In Hamburg they had to keep playing a time for 8 hours a day and so they learned to take a song and keep it going for 20 minutes and get the audience into a trance like a black preacher. There they were supplied with drink by the audience and John learned to do everything in a drunken state, girls came to them and they had orgies continuously. The Beatles returned from Hamburg and Brian Epstein got them on a tour of the country and they would spend a night in each town with 2 shows an evening, Helen Shapiro was a big name then she travelled with their bus and was attracted to John. When they became big her style of singing was out of date. 1962 Married Cynthia when she was pregnant and divorced 1970 John's marriage was kept a secret as Brian wanted the image of the Beatles to be attractive to girls it took 18 months before it came out. Cynthia gave birth to their son Julian during the tour. John was attractive to everyone including Brian who took him to the gay club as an experience. So many girls were attracted to him and he took full advantage of them including his wife. John was a violent person and had to pay compensation to a number of people he beat, he even understood that his Kama meant that he would die violently. 1963 Oct Performance at the London Palladium in front of the Queen watched by 15 million on TV. This was the start of Beatlemania word coined by the press. The movie Hard Days Night portrayed the Beatlemania and became a successful album. Parents who went with their children to see it got the impression they were 4 nice boys while in the evening girls were brought to their hotel rooms and some boasted they had slept with all 4 in 1 night. After the Beatlemania period Paul started having a lot more input and it was mostly studio recording where George Martin a professional musician does a lot of the arrangement but the Beatles did not want a 5th Beatle not from Liverpool. Very few others got their names on the titles of Beatle works. The book gives us details of Yoko Ono's background that she was a dominating type was married twice and had a daughter Kyoto, before she forced herself onto John was a weird artist and producer whose father was a wealthy Japanese banker who she hardly saw as he was always abroad. She was education both in the States and Japan. Magical Mystery Tour was Paul's idea but John got stuck in and wrote most of the songs. The Press tracked down Johns father who worked as a dishwasher in restaurants and he came to visit the filming of Hard Days Night. John was not keen to meet Freddie as Mimi had given him such negative views of him but his uncle Charles convinced him that his mother was at fault and John gave his father a weekly stipend. They were in India at the luxury hotel of the Maharashtra learning meditation etc. While they were there they had a chance to write 30 songs in a very relaxed state. There songs made up the White Album but after some time they realized that the great teacher was not celibate and was a womanizer and left. They had trouble getting a taxi as the locals did not want to antagonize the great man and ended up going with clapped out old cars one of which broke down and they had to wait on the side of the road for a taxi to be sent for them. Soon after the white Album came out John and Joko brought out an album called 2 Virgins with their nude bodies on the cover. EMI refused to market it so it was marketed on an Apple label. The cover was not allowed in the US and the LP was transferred to a brown paper cover. This did a lot of harm to the Beatles reputation, and this was followed by John being arrested for being in possession of pot the other drugs he never managed to destroy. He was fined and told next time he would be jailed. The Beatles finances were in a bad way and their Apple Co. was a money looser. Allen Klein was brought in to sort this out. Brian Epstein had initially signed contracts: a new unknown group has to accept low % but once their records sell they renegotiate and get a better deal also their taxes are high and singers, go on spending sprees and later have to pay. Most of their money was made in the States and he arranged that would remain their as British taxes were higher In January 1969 they made a recording and the situation was very tense with Yoko stuck to Johns arm it ended by them going onto the roof and playing which brought that part of Saville Row to a standstill with traffic blocked and everyone climbing onto the roof to watch. This was the last time the Beatles played together. John then married Yoko Ono 1970 till his death in 1980.

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With the Beatles by Alister Taylor 248pg 2003 21/2/19 The author was Brian Epstein's personal assistant and worked with him at NEMS. which became a legend for its ability to get hold of any record wanted. Brian Epstein would listen to a new record and could predict how many to order and the record companies would watch his ordering closely. ordering. He was the type who brightened any room he walked into. The unusual thing of the Beatles was they could perform songs but also write them, something unusual. When Brian saw them he knew that he could mould them into a group that could conquer the world and be greater than Elvis. Brian was the type who became enthusiastic on a thing and suddenly lost it but the Beatles he was 100% convinced that had the greatest thing of the 20 Century. Brian was old enough and rich enough to be taken seriously and the 4 were convinced. He immediately got them better rates at the Cavern and discovered that they had debts at the musical instrument shop and paid that. He took them to Beno Dorn a little Jewish tailor to get them decent suits. In Liverpool there were over 300 rock groups in the 60s and all wanted recording contracts. Allen Williams was the one who organised sending the Beatles to Hamburg and he told Brian they are not worth dealing with, but Brian believed in them. 6 months after Brian had walked into the Cavern he was put onto George Martin by EMI as he was threatening to stop selling EMI records and NEMS. This was just meant to be a ploy to keep him happy but George Martin saw the potential.(He had been involved in the Goon Show , Spike Williams and Matt Munro. Brian was the one who had to do the dirty work of sacking Pete after George Martin felt he was unsuitable and Ringo was brought in, Brian already had recognised that Pete wasn't the type of drummer. Jan 1963 the record were a big hit in Liverpool, but not the rest of the country. The boys toured with Helen Shapiro who was lead before they became the great hit. However the National Press remained uninterested in them. The story of Brian and John had a fantastic relationship but not a sexual one it was just rumours. Brian showed John bullfighting in Spain. Brian honestly thought people didn't know he was gay and Marion Faithfull was very keen on him. John got a young girl Jennifer pregnant and Brian arranged a stipend for her till the kid turned 16, the girl promised to keep this out of the press and John didn't know about this. In Britain youngsters showed the were prepared to wait hours to see the Beatles. He dealt with airlines and had to arrange to smuggle them directly to the plane but BOAC were too snooty to deal with pop singers so Pan Am got the business. The press were so involved with the Profumo Affair and Great Train robbery that the Beatles provided light relief. Besides the Beatles NEMS managed Gerry and The Pacemakers, Billy Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Fourmost and Tommy Quickly. Sometime John and Paul songs were sold to them. By the beginning of 1964 the Beatles were some of the most sort after humans in the world. Brian was not keen to take the Beatles to the States as he felt you had to get the timing right for example Cliff Richard had gone to the States and nobody noticed. He turned down the Ed Sullivan show. Eventually he agreed to Ed Sullivan and charged then the lowest fee as long as the Beatles go the top billing. The American reporter regarded the Beatles as a new Marx Brothers. First time Carnegie Hall hosted a Pop group. The visit to the British Embassy reception they heard snooty remarks and were insulting. The police were asked to take them in a police vehicle and they also wanted autographs. With the change in the recording industry whole lifestyles changed. Beatles met Jane Asher in 1963 she was a reporter and Paul took to her. Making Hard Days Night was a novelty to the boys but the movie Help was boring and so Yellow Submarine was animated so that they never had to suffer it. When it was announced that the Beatles were to receive the MBE from the Queen it was very controversial in the Labour Party and Alister had to speak to the Buckingham Palace constabulary to get them in at a side gate. The plane to Japan was diverted and landed in Anchorage, Alaska where out of nowhere 400 fans arrived at the airport. The last US tour was the most stressful and George was the first to want to leave the Beatles but Brian managed to cajole him back in. The very last performance the Beatles gave was at Candlestick Park, San Francisco 29 August 1966. The "More popular than Jesus " statement had made life dangerous there and Brian never recovered and became dependant on his pills. Now that the Beatles were only doing studio work Brian was not involved with them and he felt at a loose end even though the money was simply pouring in. Although the Beatles claimed there was no leader they all regarded John as the leader, he had a presents and power over he group but Paul was a great public relations man. One should not dismiss either George's whole song writing talent developed towards the end of the Beatles or Ringo who did have great influence. John and Mick Jagger were great buddies. At one stage Ronnie Scott (Shatt) played the saxophone for the song "Lady Madonna" Sergeant Pepper Lonely Heart Club Band was considered the greatest album ever made, it took ages to make and the poured the greatest effort into it. The words are more innocent than many believe eg. Lucy in the Sky with Diamond is based on a picture by Johns baby son of a picture of his girlfriend. It took time and work to get permission for every photo used. George Martin was the one able to interpret what they wanted. "They have a gift and I want to help them give it to the world" Paul was at home with another women and Jane Aston walked in and she broke their engagement leaving him devastated and he relied on Alisters moral support during this period. Linda Eastman was out to get Paul and became the solid support he needed but wanted to remove every trace of Jane. She was also jealous of any close to Paul The last Beatles going out with a bang was done on the roof because they loved defying authority at the end of the movie "Let it be"

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A spy named Orphan the enigma of Donald Maclean by Roland Phillips 2018 382pg

 One of the  5 Cambridge Spies 21/2/19

He worked with Sir Roger Makins on top secret atomic matters. The code name Orphan as he was a solitary type and his parents had died. He appeared as a reliable person of integrity who would not let you down. He did his job extremely well in the Foreign office but needed to find a cause and an opportunity. His father was an MP and the family had originated from the Hebrides and he had a Presbyterian upbringing. From his father he learned that you did what you thought right at all costs.. He was at the same school as WH.Auden, Stephen Spender, Benjamin Britten and Alan Hodgkin. He was a high achiever and as such turned inwards and able to maintain 2 lives in balance for decades. Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited is a portrayal of this but in Oxford. 1926 the General Strike was a galvanizing political event caused by mine owners cutting pay and followed by a refusal of the Daily Mail printers to print a column condemning the strike. Over half the undergraduates from Cambridge took up emergency positions rather than side with the strikers. Middle class volunteers who went to work as scab had their eyes opened to working conditions and dispossessed poor. The Communist Party in Britain saw this as the greatest revolutionary advance since the Chartists. 1924 Britain recognized the Soviet Union diplomatically.10 years before the US did. Marxism hit Cambridge in1933 Maurice Dobbs was a pupil of Maynard Keynes. You also had Wittgenstein at Cambridge. Cambridge is made up of 26 collages The Klugman family were the leading Jewish Hampstead liberals. With the chaos of the depression only the Soviet Union seemed to have all the answers. A debate in 1932 declared "This house has more hope in Moscow than in Detroit. The Apostles included GM Trevelyan, EM Forster Maynard Keynes, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Victor Rothchild, Julian Bell(poet). Maclean had no friend but many acquaintances. 1934 Got 1st class degree in French and German. After Cambridge planned to live and teach English in Russia Arnold Deutsch spoke German, French ,Italian, Dutch ,Russian and had been brought up as an observant Jew. His cousin Oscar was a movie theater millionaire ODEON Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation and chairman of a synagogue.. These spies were taken on to be sleepers till they got promotion to positions with access to information. Alan Dulles mistrusted the British from when he was an English teacher in India in 1920. The Spanish Civil War was the last chance to hold back fascism. He worked for the Non- Intervention Committee While he worked in the foreign office from 1935 till he defected in 1951, he had sent pages that filled 45 boxes of 300 pages each. After Stalin Nazi treaty many dropped their support for communism but these 5 were intellectually arrogant. So much information arrived that Stalin did not trust it. It also included his analysis of what was relevant in this information. 2 month before the Russian invasion he Maclean already sent details German plans for the invasion to Moscow. The Soviets received copies of all correspondence between Churchill and Roosevelt. Maclean also sent clear distillation/analysis of the arguments of what was happening. Stalin always had the advantage in bargaining with the allies. Maclean met Katherine Graham , New Dealers in the States. Rebecca West heard that the British Embassy was never as well organized and efficient as when Maclean was there. His handler received a lot of credit. Maclean had access to all information on the US atomic commission. All Wartime telegrams sent by commercial telegraph companies were filed and kept, by Western Union etc. American official were all friendly to Maclean as they believed that it was only a matter of time till he returned to Washington as British Ambassador. He objected to the British Labour Government for kowtowing to the Americans anti Soviet policy. 1945Truman wanted to stop the Soviets from taking the Dardanelles, Stalin being informed put Red Army divisions in Romania and Bulgaria. -------- 1946 Nunn May exposed as a spy giving away nuclear secrets but unlike Fucks had very little information Sept 1948 arrived in Cairo. The Soviets had an ambassador in Tel Aviv before the Americans. The Arab world was on the fault line of the cold war and he encouraged Moscow to get involved there. When Phillip and Elizabeth visited Cairo, the Macleans were at a party they gave and Melinda had come out of her shell. Maclean felt that Communism was not the answer to Egypt's woes. When the American's decoded the material sent to Russia during the war now that they were no longer allies they found Homer worked at the British Embassy but the British were not keen to admit their short comings about somebody who had access to correspondence between Roosevelt and Churchill. They could have started matching name and dates of their staff transfers. Messages had come from Los Alamos Manhattan project and were looking for low down technical staff and not diplomats. 1949 August Russia's first nuclear test followed by Chiang Kai-shek's defeat. Twice from Egypt Maclean asked Moscow to let him defect but they were suspicious of him now and he was worthless to him. He was in the process of having a nervous breakdown and moved back to England for treatment then returned to work in London on American affairs in the empty India dept buildings. The Verona were looking for a spy code name Gomer rather Homer this pointed to Gore as he was a Christian Scientist and Tea totolar. Eventually they found a description of him having his wife's family in NY. Philby sent Burgess the get him out. They took a weekend night ferry to France and got to Russia via Prague. Where they are sent to Samara (Kuybyshev) a dirty industrial city. Maclean in Russia learns Russian and start off working as an English teacher which he had wanted to do before he joined the foreign office. Stalin didn't trust them. MacLean's brother Alan resigned from he foreign office and worked for MacMillan publishes under Harold MacMillan. After Stalins death1953 in Summer Melinda and three children were on holiday in Switzerland and went to Austria which was still under occupation till 1955 and went to the Soviet sector and from their to Moscow. When Dean Acheson heard that Maclean was a spy he said "My God he knew everything" . Later on he joins a research institute and get a doctorate and published as book in England. He said the party had to embrace the intelligent and not send them into exile. He met with Solzhenitsyn and Roy Medvedev. His children married Russians but got visas to leave through his high standing. Melinda lived till 2010 in NY. He predicted that there would be glasnost and convergence of Soviet and Western systems. Died in 1983 his ashes were buried next to his fathers grave.

When Paris went dark The city of light under the German occupation1940 -1944 by Ronal Rosbottom

   21/6/23   On French collaboration in WW2  380pg  

Paris managed to survive the greatest conflagration of the 20C almost unscathed. Today one senses a lack of widespread communal and patriotic desire to remember. The Third Republic established in 1871 legally voted to end itself.  The first time since the Renaissance France in 1940 was a geographically incoherent nation.  From the 6 Century under Clovis it enhanced its reputation by lavishly spending on Paris and French became the language of European Inteligencia  Paris philosophers had shown that the city though under absolute rule was the centre of progressive ideas.  

1940 Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein musical The Last time I saw Paris  with the song played frequently, "Till the town went dark". 

1940 Oct The communist Party was following orders from the USSR not to fight the German occupiers.

1917 Big Bertha shells were landing on Paris without warning and one killed 150 people in a church service on Good Friday.

1937 Luftwaffe and Italian air force dropped bombes on the on the population of Guernica in Basque country and devastated 3 quarters of the city, purely to demoralize the town as this had no military value. The war was no longer a matter of 2 armies and the word "Home Front" came about.

Hitler brought thousand of German soldiers and civilians into Paris to colonize it culturally. A German guide to Paris a month after the occupation had 16 pages the last edition 2 weeks before Liberation had over 100 pages.

Paris had fallen before the Armistice was signed. First this was used to enhance National Socialism that it was in the hand of a sophisticated cultured race worthy of continental leadership. Then allowing the British escape at Dunkirk was another of Hitler's signal to the English. Many of the upper echelons of the Occupying force spoke and excellent French and recognised it as a city of freedom charm and beauty.Ostensibly the German were protecting part of the worlds patrimony while taking material advantage of it.

1852 to 1870  under Napoleon III we see that no other city had a greater example of reconstruction than Baron Hausmann had done. The Nazis occupied a city steeped in blood of revolt, massacre's of civil strife and they would succeed where the French had not .

What is the line between an accommodator and collaborator in dealing with the German Army? Citizens began to feel disconnected from familiar environment .and wondered how long it would take before his city was returned to him. The citizens are closer together in lines, movie houses cafe, suspicion becomes the norm and openness diminishes. Suite Francaise written in 1942 by Irene Nemirovsky and published in 2004. "Silence of the Sea" published clandestinely in 1942 by Jean Bruller a writer and member of the Resistance..

In the 9 months of phony war(drole de guerre) Poland fought Germany alone while France's army thought to be the greatest army in Europe with England navy increased that invulnerability. After  6 weeks the gates of France were breached and a quick armistice was signed. Since Hitler had taken power there had been a dozen French governments installed and dissolved

Since the Dreyfus Affair 1894 -1906 there had been crises. On the right the Catholics , military monarchist and industrialist imagined their power was waning to the Third Republic of public education, labour, secularism a social safety net. A France that welcomed fleeing Spanish Republicans and Jews and political dissidents fleeing Eastern Europe. French politician were deeply divided by fear of communism and hatred for the English with admiration for Hitler's National Socialism experiment.

Charles de Gaulle flew back and forth between France and England at PM Reynaud behest was no match for the influence of Phillip Petain. De Gaul was negotiating with Churchill that all French citizens could get 2 nationstatus and become British?

1940 June 3rd the Renault and Citroen factories were bombed giving fashionable neighborhood feeling of what war would be like. Both Warsaw and Rotterdam had been flattened and the public had seen this on movie news. There were thousands of refugees plodding through Paris from Netherland, Belgium and northern France. .The comment was better Hitler than Blum the Socialist PM and a Jew. Better fascist troops invading than communist ones. Had there been resistance a civil war could have broken out.

1940 June 10th Italy attacked France from the southeast..

Diplomats and ministries were  burning documents and French and foreign Jews felt vulnerable.and Border Guards all over Europe discovered how easy it was to fleece fleeing Jews. The Third Republic voted itself out of power installing a quasi fascist regime. Vichy was a spa town with lots of hotels and superb rail connections and was geographically the centre of France.

The Germans had to climb the Eifel tower to put up the Nazi flag, as the lift had been put out of order. The Germans put up German language signs. German spies had been  in Paris before the war had made records of the buildings and hotel of importance.

Roger Langeron chief of Paris police, kept the Vichy government at an arm's length. A few days before 2 barges of police papers had been sent away.

Picasso remained and was an outspoken opposer of Franco and refused offers to go to the US or S.America and kept up relation with a variety of anti Nazi artists, he was also protected by Arno Breker one of Hitler favorites. Henry Matisse remained in Nice under Italian control. Josephine Baker had toured the whole of Europe and been welcomed in Germany  but by 1928 Brown shirts in Berlin  hooted at her in the audience. She moved to N.Africa where she volunteered for the Red cross and entertained the Free French. Albert Camus wrote the Plague an allegory in 1947. However there were a number of suicides taking place. Foreign Jews were worried while French Jews were confident the French government would protect them.

While virile young Germans invade the French towns and unspoken comparison to the emasculated French army. The Germans tried to give the impression that they were flexible and a compassionate European ally.and were protectors of this architectural gem. Bus loads of German soldiers arrived as tourists.

The Armistice demanded that anti Nazi's Germans be immediatly arrested. Posters on the wall sought to drive a wedge between France and Britain but these were immediately torn off, till it became dangerous to.

British citizens had to register at the police but generally British women were left alone. Wealthy Jewsih homes were immediately opened and their possessions art, blankets taken to Germany.

Hitler arrived but  got a silent reception the city turned its back on him, not like his entry into Vienna 1938 or as conqueror of Warsaw.

Paris was considered a century  old open air museum not like Berlin that had only become the capital under Bismark with unification of Germany.1871. Hitler considered that France had lost much of it former glory with moral decay and leftist politics. Vienna was considered the second capital but it became a tough site for the Nazi regime. 

Free train rides were offered to get residence back home. Returning residents found that the best hotels and residences  had been taken over by the Germans. Jewish shops had yellow signs, later replaced by signs that they had Aryan manager. Jewish yellow sign initially get their businesses to grow was a form of Parisian resistance, even Catholic shops put up yellow signs as they attracted more customers. French agriculture was taken to feed the German army and rationing began. Mimeograph machines became precious and papillons (small thin pamphlets)were dropped by fast bicycle. or by mousetraps  spreading them from the roofs. There was more illness malnutrition but not starvation. 

cinema became popular but when Nazi newsreel were shown they would jeer at them. Only bikes in the streets, and cars lights were covered with only a small strip of light. France was on Berlin time.

A list of bordellos were selected for only Germans. Vibrant entertainment films theater vaudeville cabarets horse racing and the fashion industry, though short of material functioned as usual.

Thousands of Jewish businesses and residences seized and turned over to either Germans or their sympathises.

Owners of large cars were forced  to take them to be "purchased" busses were converted from gasoline to charcoal. Every bike had to be register with a small yellow tag.

The Duke of Reichstag Napoleon II  was taken from his grave next to his mother in Vienna to be buried next to his father in Paris. Petain refused to attend the ceremony that would be surrounded by a Nazi flag. The French knew the Duke of Winsor better than Napoleons boy. This ceremony in the torchlight  was a  filmed propaganda stunt.

 But Petain wanted to move as the Armistice agreement suggested to Versailles.

The Germans began a census of foreigners and immigrants.  The writer Colette later composed Gigi  wrote an advise column for women on how to cope with the difficult time in a Nazi sponsored paper. She had anxiety about her Jewish husband a journalist, who was released as she was friendly with the German ambassadors French wife.

Rubber soles of shoes were replaced by wooden ones.

The Marseillaise was outlawed by Vichy. Students carried 2 fishing poles which were deux gaules in solidarity. with de Gaulle. General Otto von Stulpnagel was commander of France. 

Beginning in the 1930s Germs went to Paris for a break from the moral and artistic strictures imposed by the Nazis.  

Under occupation there was a black market in which the Germans were also involved and also bought from black marketeers supplies that were short. Certain cinemas were set aside for German audiences only, including the Grand Rex of more than 2,500 seats, this was attacked by the resistance in 1942 killing or wounding hundreds of Germans waiting  in line. German soldiers stationed in France were offered a visit to Paris to see the magnitude of the German victory over that nation, however most German soldiers spoke no French. The architectural beauty of Paris was no substitute for human contact. They were surrounded by thousands of pleasant people who paid no attention to them. It was usually the more aristocratic Germans who spoke French and were able to socialize. Soldiers on the Eastern front were offered leave to relax in Paris. The Germans also wanted to reduce the French cultural influence in Europe.

1941 June The German invasion of the USSR was pleasing to the French. Calling Germans Krauts or Boche was forbidden by Vichy so doryphores (beetles )or haricot verts (green beans) was used. Even out of uniform, haircuts posture, quality of cloths and accent identified Germans. Germans rode the Metro free if they showed their IDs.

German soldiers health and youth mesmerized the French women, the Nazis had encouraged German athletic culture and they were often seen sunning naked on rooftops thus a libidinal Occupation. Vichy government would also develop this athletic youth culture. Parisian  women showed an overtly sexual demeanor.. Between 80,000 and 200,000 German fathered babies  were born in France. Enfants maudits (cursed babies) There was a shortage of French men as a result of WWI and all the men were now POWs.  In Paris the Germans seemed to turned a blind eye to homosexualism that was a capital crime in Nazi Germany. 

The Wehrmacht refused to close bordellos, to keep up morale,  but there were warning about venereal disease and condoms were freely offered. Germans enjoyed Paris but when they went home found cities like Hamburg and Hannover badly bombed. There was a huge warehouse of thousand of unapproved books to be destroyed or  left to molder.

1942 July 16-17 the Grand Rafle. Jews were rounded up. This was done mostly by young policemen brought in from the provinces to do the dirty work. At this time Hitler demanded 350,000 French workers for the Nazi war effort only 17,000 unemployed unskilled laborer's showed up. Many now joined the marquis.

Marechal Petain is everywhere on calendars , stamps already in history books and opening up movie news.

The building concierge acted as the telephone, a mailbox and knew what was happening in the building and others in the neighbourhood. and were responsible for removing anti German and anti Vichy graffiti. Some hid Jewish children some betrayed Jewish families. They knew of empty apartment to tell Jewish residents to move from one to another if they were threatened.

May Parisians kept secret diaries and scrapbooks and unsent letters showing daily life. Curfew times were arbitrary changed. It had reached a stage that people kept to their neighbourhoods as if the city had water tight compartments. Parisians also had secret maps following the constellations of troops and the moving frontier especially after D-day.The Gestapo received dozens of letter suggesting the hiding place of a Jew or communist and the Nazis were always under orders to provide a quota of Jews or foreigners to detain. Balconies turned into gardens with rabbits and chickens and even parks had vegetable hot houses.  To keep warm in apartments in the cold, people moved into a single room.

1900 Paris Metro began running, and was also used by the Germans as there was no other transportation form. You could ride all day for  a single ticket and anonymity still prevailed and Germans had pleasant encounter with the French till the roundups and assassination began making it dangerous. There were 5 cars on a train and the middle one was with soft seats for those with a First Class ticket, the Germans who rode free in uniform occupied this as if by right. This First Class coach was done away with in 1981 by the socialist government. There were signs Verboten Rauchen to remind the French they were tied to the Germans.The Germans used stations as workshops storage or air raid shelters and nobody knew which lines or stations would be open. Taxis had disappeared from the streets. Later lack of spare parts and absence of personnel caused power outings and the metro functioned sporadically

It was considered good form to travel 2nd class on the Metro and to leave a museum gallery when a German tour group entered.

1943 Le Corbeau a movie  by Henri Georges Clouzot was on the subject of letters of denunciation this was not shown in Germany, but financed by a German controlled studio, it revealed the fractious society of France.. Recent research shows that there was relatively little denunciation of Jews, and most letter were mainly personal reasons. Denunciation were anonymous and signed and there were not enough police to check them all.

The Queue was a place people spent hours but women mostly, some brough small chairs to sit on or children were used as place holders as there were also spies in them. They became a replacement for illegal political gathering and you had to be careful of what you remarked casually. The line was a reminder that the rich agricultural nation had been looted and the scarcity and lack of choice was a humiliation. The line was a place of women solidarity. France had been de-manned by the occupation and about 2 thirds of them would return after almost 5 years in captivity. Women had few political and financial rights and had to learn to be a man.

There were warning of stolen ration tickets, counterfeit and black market tickets. and a dinner invitation RSVP asked guests to bring a 250 gram bread ticket.

The myth that most of the population supported the Resistance postponed the analysis for 25 years on how easily France had been beaten. In Occupation you had cooperation, appeasement , acceptance and accommodation or worse treason. A lot of resistance was not French citizens but often immigrants and often Jewish and saving Jews. They were successful in getting downed pilots back to England.  It took time to understand that Petain's leadership was anti-semitic. This  pro-fascist and that Nazi occupation was founded on a racist and imperialist ideology.  De Gaul the day after Petains first speech called for the flame of French resistance not to go out. The best organized of the Resistance were the Communist Party. It was the most ever effective in the few days proceeding and after Normandy Invasion and shortened the war by at least 2 months, less than 2% were involved 500,000 people. About 100,000 people were killed by the Germans and Vichy who called them terrorists.

Roosevelt distrusted de Gaul and saw him as a right wing fascist. Churchill called him "the Cross of Lorraine to bear"

1941 June invasion of the USSR had drawn the best trained young German soldiers to the east. Men were  being rounded up to work in the German war effort and many fled to the resistance instead.

Printing presses were hard to come by and paper was scarce for printing resistance pamphlets.

Sephardic merchants from Turkey and Greece had established themselves in Montmartre.

The civil war in Spain had sent thousands of Republican refugees to France.

Radio signals from London were successfully scrambled but not completely. BBC was on the air every night and the Allies dropped million of leaflets. From 1943 there was an surge of derailments of trains leaving Gare de l'est towards Germany.

In 1940 Surprisingly about 150,000 Parisian Jews docilely trooped up to  registered as Jews. 50%  of Jews found themselves from means of earning a living. Initially Jews thought France would protect them from Nozi idiology. Jews were not allowed to move period.There was a high number of Jewish suicides. Hungarian Jews here  were generally ignored till Hitler invaded Hungary. During a roundup of Jews many had left children behind and their neighbours took them to orphanages in Paris  and later   they were sent to places in the countryside.  However in Vichy, Petain was prepared to leave the children behind but Laval insisted that families should not be separated.

When French Jew swere rounded up it finally ended the myth that it was only foreigner that were in danger. Many Jew escaped by a friendly officer turning a blind eye. Many of these round ups the Germans were nowhere to be seen. Those rounded up were calmed by seeing only the French uniforms. Jews who had skills in leather and fur were taken to work in Germany as they needed to make warm uniforms to fight in the east.

1959 The Velodrome which had been the holding centre and also for rounding up Algerians in 1958 was finally torn down, it is a Place des Martyrs Juifs. 

1943 With food shortages and slow release of French POW and declining living standards now caused criticism of Pertains "contact with the devil" Etats francais political impotence-   Vichy supporters began to hedge their bets by joining the resistance. 

In 1939 there the school population was more than 200,000 by 1944 only 50,000. The press was read more for announcement of food availability including the German ones. With the abundant wheat harvest in 1943 the daily bread ration was augmented by 25 grams, tuberculosis  increased by 30% weight loss and depression was rampant. The Germans looted till the end and many escaped on motorcycles piled with French belongings.

There were no exemptions for students from Lycees once they turned 18 and so many of them left school in the middle of the year to join the underground.

1943 the Etat francais established the Milice francais by June 1944 had more than 30,000 troops.

Parisian started to notice that the young blond German warriors were being replaced by middle aged reservists.

1943 May under de Gauls administration the Conseil national de la Resistance was formed of all the different political groups and Camus returned to Paris to edit  Combat the most influential resistance magazine

1943 October The liberation of Corsica made anticipation more intense.  

Movie star Arletty said " My heart is French but my ass is international". Coco Chanel , Maurice Chevalier who sang along with Cocteau said they were French patriots who would keep the French spirits high.

1944 April was the first time Petain visited Paris.

The Germans were now worried about an urban insurrection. The Germans were getting nervous and the more news they heard about their reversal the louder they sang when they marched but continued roundups of Jews and taking hostages. To show no weakness 9 days before liberation, betrayed would be fighter were machine gunned down in the Bois de Boulogne wooded park.

 

1944 July20 Many senior German officers in Paris were implicated in the Hitler assassination plot.

1944August the allies started invading from the Mediterranean northwards.  French railway workers went on strike. The last convey carrying children to their deaths left on July 31st a week before the Paris liberation.

All French railways passed through Paris and many ambulances trucks, staff cars were retreating with frightened soldiers and wounded.

Henry Tanguy called Colonel Rol was the leader of the resistance in Paris a Communist partisan that had de Gaul worried about the communist strength.  A lot of the resistance work was done by women

Dietrich von Cholitz the "Beast of Sebastopol" was appointed by Hitler to defend Paris. he found the troops left in Paris under armed and undertrained. Non military and German women were sent home and Cholitz did not carry out the "Rubble field orders" Hitler gave him and came out with flying colours though he had deported over 3000 political prisoners in the last few weeks.

The first troops to arrive were a  French division in American uniforms and the great bells of Notre Dame were heard for the first time since the occupation began. The American were now in Europe to stay for the cold war and they arrived with an endless supply of food. Liberating Paris had not been on Eisenhower's agenda as it delayed the end of the war as a lot more supplies were needed  to feed the army. 

August 25th the Palais de Luxembourg surrendered and Paris was totally liberated. Less than 3 months after the Normandy landings.

20,000 women throughout  were shorn only 47% of them were accused of sleeping with the enemy the rest were betrayed for working for the Germans as they had lived  better off  than others during the occupation. Later on the women who returned from Ravenbrook with heads shaved against typhus carrying lice. The FFI or official resistance army executed as many as  10,000  Parisian many of them on evidence of hearsay.The  Prostitutes' hair was not shaved as it was legal in France. Former Vichy bureaucrats denounced each other. 

Ernest Hemmingway was the correspondent for Collier magazine and one of the first American to get to Paris he had finangled his way onto a landing craft at Normandy.

1945 April POWs were making their way home with shaved heads and looked years older than their age exhausted , ill starved.

The myth that Paris had remained pure through the Vichy experiment and that the French had liberated Paris.

1994 a book published showed that before joining the resistance Mitterand had been a low level bureaucrat in Vichy.

2008 and photo exhibition of France under the Occupation taken by Andre Zucca, he died in 1973. He had worked for the German magazine Signal was right winger and a Germanophile.  He had a  about thousand  photos in colour a material that was expensive and not available during the war. This was very controversial as it portrayed propaganda of very calm period of Germans and French in casual contact. Most of theses picture were unpublished.  

 

 

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