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"They have arrived!", Titled the French newspaper Libération on August 25, 1944, the day of the liberation of Paris from the Nazi yoke, after four years of occupation. In the cover photo: the captain of the Free French Army Raymond Dronne, the prefect of Paris Police Charles Luizet and the Spanish military Amado Granell, a member of La Nueve, the unit of Spanish Republican soldiers who led the Liberation of Paris.
Seventy-five years later, Paris, which was occupied by the Nazis between June 1940 and August 1944, celebrates this anniversary with exhibitions, parades, concerts, readings, films and tributes to the heroes of liberation and of the resistance. Among the scheduled activities, the Freedom Parade, with costumes and cars of the time, and the inauguration of the Museum of the Liberation of Paris- Leclerc- Jean Moulin stand out on Sunday.
The celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris have a marked Spanish accent. And is not for less. A mural is inaugurated that reconstructs the road taken by the tanks of the 9th Recognition Company of the 2nd Armored Division of the Army of Free France, also known as the Nine, when entering the French capital.
The new museum - located in the Denfert-Rochereau square, in front of the entrance to the Catacombs of Paris - is heir to the Leclerc Memorial and the Liberation of Paris, a Parisian museum that used to be at the Montparnasse train station.
The museum proposes to discover the history of the occupation and liberation of Paris through objects, original documents, photographs, archive videos and testimonials. In the chronological route, the role played in the liberation of France was highlighted by Jean Moulin, unifier of the French resistance , and General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, leader of the forces of free France.
Visitors will be able to access for the first time the underground command post (PC) of Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, which initiated the insurrection of Paris against the Nazis. This is the highlight of the visit. The command post - accessed after going down one hundred steps, which must then be climbed - was in a former civil defense shelter, built in 1938 and had never been used until then. In this refuge, the colonel established between August 20 and 28, 1944 the command post of the regional staff of the French Interior Forces (FFI).
But what happened in August 1944 in Paris? After the Allied landing in Normandy on June 6, the Parisians looked forward to their release. The call for mobilization launched by Colonel Rol-Tanguy accelerated the uprising of the Parisians against the Nazi occupier. Improvised barricades were mounted on the streets. There was urban guerrilla.
The allies wanted to get to Germany as quickly as possible. The liberation of Paris was not at that time his goal. For General Charles De Gaulle, however, liberating Paris was a symbol full of strength. On August 22, De Gaulle finally convinced General Dwight Eisenhower to authorize the 2nd Armored Division of General Leclerc, formed by a hodgepodge of soldiers of 22 nationalities, to march towards Paris.
Several units tried to arrive, without success. The Germans resisted. On August 24, Captain Dronne, the first Frenchman to arrive in the capital, entered Paris with the Nine. This company, formed mostly by Spanish soldiers exiled from Franco, was the first to enter the capital. Many Parisians, who expected the Americans to be the first to arrive, were surprised that "the liberators of Paris" spoke Spanish . At 21:20, they arrived at the Town Hall. The bell of the Notre Dame Cathedral replied to announce the news to the Parisians.
On August 25, General Dietrich von Choltitz signed the unconditional surrender of the German forces of Paris to Rol-Tanguy. At seven in the afternoon, De Gaulle was received at the City Hall of the capital, where he delivered his famous speech "Paris released."
"The combative France, the eternal France"
"Paris! Paris outraged! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by itself, by its people, with the participation of the troops of France, with the support and participation of all of France, of combative France, of the only France, of the authentic France, of the eternal France, "proclaimed De Gaulle.
On August 26, accompanied by General Leclerc and the president of the National Resistance Council, Georges Bidault, De Gaulle paraded triumphantly from the Champs Elysees to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Paris was free.
French historiography has minimized in recent decades the role played by the Nine in the Liberation of Paris. General De Gaulle wanted to show the world that the French had liberated France by themselves and inflate the myth of the French resistance, less numerous than they wanted to see after the Second World War.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo , born in San Fernando (Cádiz), did remember the Nine. Since 2015, the garden of the City Council is called "Garden of the Fighters of La Nueve". And it is dedicated "to the Spanish anti-fascist Republicans who continued their struggle by framing in the 2nd Armored Division. Heroes of the liberation of Paris."
Although the French capital did not suffer massive bombings, the human balance of the liberation of Paris was high: About 1,000 dead and shot and 1,500 wounded among the members of the French Interior Forces (FFI); 582 dead and more than 2,000 injured among civilians; 156 dead and 225 injured from the 2nd Armored Division in the Paris region; and 3,200 dead and 12,800 German prisoners. Parisians also took revenge. For example, many women collaborators of the Nazis shaved their heads and some marked them with a swastika to humiliate them publicly.
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