Paris (AFP)

On August 26, 1944, Paris just released, the AFP broadcasts a timeline of the eleven days that preceded the capitulation of the Germans, after four years of occupation of the capital.

Here is the day of August 19 told by the journalist of AFP Jean Le Quiller.

Paris, August 26, 1944 (AFP) -

Saturday, August 19 - The fact is that that morning, suddenly, the entire center of Paris is experiencing a great animation; around 10 am marvelously, tricolor flags flutter on the police headquarters, on Notre-Dame, on the Hotel of the currency, on the Town Hall, on the Normal School: the CNR (National Council of the Resistance) ordered the insurrection and it goes off: 1,200 agents come to occupy their prefecture, and arrest (Amédée) Bussière (prefect of Paris police appointed by Pierre Laval in May 1942, Ed). At the Hôtel de Ville, the Parisian Committee of the Liberation comes to arrest (René) Bouffet (Prefect of the Seine). The chairman of the municipal council (Pierre) Taittinger is also taken under guard.

At the same time, some town halls are occupied by the FFI (French Forces of the Interior, Resistance, Ed) - initials intended to run from mouth to mouth during the following days -. At 8am the town hall of the Xe; at 10 am the town hall of the 2nd; in the evening, the town hall of the fourteenth century; with 6 revolvers and some machine guns, the FFI occupy the town hall of the 17th.

In the same way certain ministries are occupied; that of the Colonies, that of Finance. Place Vendome, the Provisional Secretary General for Justice (Marcel) Willard arrives on a bicycle with some friends and takes possession of his services; at 3 pm he had Maurice Gabolde's hotel (the Minister of the Seals of the Laval government, editor's note), nicknamed Von Gabolde, searched.

That's not all: the press is manifesting itself. The clandestine leaves are preparing to appear in broad daylight. For example the team of the famous "Lettres Françaises" is found in the building of Paris-Soir; the team of "Defense of France" occupies the building of the "Pariser Zeitung" and at 17h, the German flag is solemnly descended, to the great joy of the crowd.

All this can not be to the taste of the Germans; that the posters of the Resistance are stuck on the walls, that the FFI armbands are shown in the streets, that cars with the same initials circulate without the least ausweis (laissez-passer issued by the German occupiers, Ed), that's what the excited. Their own cars will now circulate only with armed watchmen on each wing and on the roof ready to fire.

Boulevard St Germain and rue de l'Université, in the vicinity of the War Ministry, it is a great commotion; German cars are speeding up, shooting anywhere; the crossing of Boulevard St Germain, at the rue des Saints Pères, becomes a sprint exercise; the crowd is animated by ebb and flow as the noise of the machine gun approaches or goes away.

Little by little, we have the impression that the battle is organized better, on both sides: Colonel Rol (Rol-Tanguy, Ed), chief of the FFI (Ile-de-France) gives the order to multiply the patrols, to occupy the town halls, and to recruit en masse. The Germans, for their part, occupy themselves with encircling the city which seems to them, rightly or wrongly, the center of the insurrection; at 1:30 pm, they throw tanks against the police headquarters; but they are boldly taken back by agents who use the rue Saint Jacques and boulevard St Michel; around 5 pm, a new attack; the Germans lose 40 killed and 70 wounded; at 5.30 pm, they try to water the prefecture courtyard with mines, then to penetrate through the roofs. They are repulsed.

Unfortunately, it is not the same everywhere; in Neuilly, for example, where the town hall was occupied by FFIs around 14:00, the German tanks bombed it all afternoon, and forced part of the FFI to surrender; ten Frenchmen have died in this engagement. One group will continue to resist until the next day.

In any case, it is assumed that the Wehrmacht (German army, Ed) no longer has control of Paris: the proof is that it tried to proclaim a curfew at 14h and that Parisians care like a guigne. The Wehrmacht also loses control of some of its elements: in the evening, at Romainville, a band of Georgians, enlisted by the Germans, having no more officers, spreads out in the streets by shooting at random. The Israeli internment camp at Drancy is liberated.

© 2019 AFP