Review: “The Shame and the Glory” by Patrick Bishop – Gripping Tale of Paris Liberation

Amid the sunshine and wild celebrations of Friday, 25 August 1944, the day the Germans surrendered control of Paris, Charles de Gaulle declared the city to have been “liberated by itself”, with “the help and assistance of the whole of France”. The truth, however, was not quite so noble. De Gaulle aimed to embody “the whole of France”, but it had been a fractured nation, subject to regular violent upheavals since 1789. Its army had crumbled before Hitler in 1940, and the reconstituted French force that triumphantly entered Paris in 1944 comprised one armoured division entirely equipped by, and under the operational command of, the US.

The person who arguably saved Paris was Dwight D Eisenhower, the allied commander. He acceded to de Gaulle’s lobbying despite the allies’ original plan to bypass Paris, considering it irrelevant to the push towards Germany. However, Paris was not irrelevant to the world. It symbolized the fantasies, sexual and artistic, of myriad “wannabe Hemingways and Picassos”. This beacon of freedom, the City of Light, had fallen to the powers of darkness as the Germans approached on 10 June 1940. A literal dark cloud hung over Paris due to smog from burning fuel dumps, increasing the sense of impending doom.

Paris ’44 tells the compelling story of the occupation and subsequent liberation of the city but does not read like traditional military history packed with logistics. Instead, the book feels like an epic thriller with vividly evoked characters spanning collaboration and resistance, shame and glory. At the collaborationist end is Marshal Pétain, octogenarian head of the puppet Vichy regime. We learn about Pétain’s daily routines, such as his Sunday mornings at mass, which he attended more to set an example than to pray. His henchman, Pierre Laval, known for wearing a white silk tie for luck, is described as resembling “a Chicago mobster”.

Another character on the role of dishonour is General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris. Described by his captors as resembling a “cinema-type German officer” for his loud, fat, monocled appearance, Choltitz was not the most monstrous Nazi. By the summer of 1944, he knew the game was up and displayed a relatively restrained response to the Resistance uprising. After the war, Choltitz tried to claim credit for saving Paris from Hitler’s wrath by allegedly ignoring an order to incinerate the city, creating another liberation myth.

Paris did manage to “liberate itself” to some extent. The Resistance fighters, emerging from the shadows in 1943, initiated the efforts the allies ultimately completed. The fighters were extraordinarily brave, often young, and, quintessentially Parisian, glamorous. Notably, Gaullist and tennis champion Jacques Chaban-Delmas, a similar-looking Alain Delon on film, remained agile by keeping rooms with quick exits and mastering Métro escapes. Madeleine Riffaud, another featured figure, joined the Resistance after being kicked by a German officer at Amiens railway station; her beauty would later be captured in a sketch by Picasso.

Hemingway, as a sort of war tourist-cum-journalist, followed the allies to Paris, liberating much booze along the way. He frequently bumped into the “sleek” young GI, Jerry (or JD) Salinger, with typewriter in hand and Holden Caulfield taking shape in his mind. They got along well, representing a transitional moment in masculinity.

Author Patrick Bishop’s confident storytelling allows him to break off from war for literary reflections, creating a wonderfully droll and moving narrative in Paris ’44. The book captures the cinematic essence of wartime Paris, making for a captivating read.

The Night in Venice by AJ Martin is out on 11 July, published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

Paris ’44: The Shame and the Glory by Patrick Bishop is published by Penguin/Viking (£25).

Source: The Guardian