Paris (AFP)
On August 26, 1944, Paris just released, AFP broadcasts a timeline of eleven days before the capitulation of the Germans, after four years of occupation of the capital.
Here is the day of August 18 told by the journalist of AFP Jean Le Quiller.
Paris, August 26, 1944 -
Friday, August 18 - Dawn so rises on a purified Paris of the most notorious collaborators. Their newspapers do not appear this morning, goodbye "Today", goodbye "Pariser Zeitung", goodbye "Socialist France". We will regret a little not having the pleasure of reading between the lines the panic of your editors, we will regret a little not being able to enjoy your sophisms. Bitter pleasures, it is true.
Already, the free press begins to settle: the printing press of the "Pariser Zeitung", for example, is occupied by the friends of 3 clandestine sheets "Defense of France", "Combat", and "Franc-Tireur" .
CGT calls for general strike, police strike continues; on the doors of the closed police stations, one reads a call of the Committee of Liberation of the police where (Amédée) Bussière (prefect of police of Paris) is treated of sold; the least one can say is that the holder of the powers of (Pierre) Laval (head of the government of Vichy, who resigned the day before, ed) does not have much authority over his subordinates. The strike of the railwaymen is becoming general; from now on, there are German railway workers who run the trains: at the Gare de Lyon, the Resistance cut off the electricity, which forces the Germans to operate signals and switches by hand; we can believe that it does not speed up the work.
Street des Saussaies, where the Gestapo had installed its central services, it burns in a hurry its files, which form more than small steaming heaps on the sidewalk.
The curfew is fixed at 21h. German machine guns fire in the evening on passers-by, rue de Seine. Paris will fall asleep while expecting some extraordinary event.
© 2019 AFP