Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944

by Matthew Cobb

'I had thought that for me there could never again be any elation in war. But I had reckoned without the liberation of Paris – I had reckoned without remembering that I might be a part of that richly historic day. We were in Paris on the first day – one of the great days of all time.' (Ernie Pyle, US war correspondent)The liberation of Paris was a momentous point in twentieth-century history, yet it is now largely forgotten outside France. Eleven Days in August is a pulsating hour-by-hour reconstruction of these tumultuous events that shaped the final phase of the war and the future of France, told with the pace of a thriller. While examining the conflicting national and international interests that played out in the bloody street fighting, it tells of how, in eleven dramatic days, people lived, fought and died in the most beautiful city in the world.Based largely on unpublished archive material, including secret conversations, coded messages, diaries and eyewitness accounts, Eleven Days in August shows how these August days were experienced in very different ways by ordinary Parisians, Resistance fighters, French collaborators, rank-and-file German soldiers, Allied and French spies, the Allied and German High Commands.Above all, it shows that while the liberation of Paris may be attributed to the audacity of the Resistance, the weakness of the Germans and the strength of the Allies, the key to it all was the Parisians who by turn built street barricades and sunbathed on the banks of the Seine, who fought the Germans and simply tried to survive until the Germans finally surrendered, in a billiard room at the Prefecture of Police. One of the most iconic moments in the history of the twentieth century had come to a close, and the face of Paris would never be the same again.

Genres: History, World War II, Nonfiction, France, War, European History, 20th Century

544 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Matthew Cobb (born 4 February 1957) is a British zoologist and professor of zoology at the University of Manchester. He is known for his popular science books The Egg & Sperm Race: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unravelled the Secrets of Sex, Life and Growth; Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code; and The Idea of the Brain: A History. Cobb has appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage, The Life Scientific, and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, as well as on BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service.
Cobb has written and provided expert comments for publications including New Scientist and The Guardian, translated five books from French into English, and written two books on the history of France during World War II.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This account of the liberation of Paris in 1944 takes the reader from the early hope of June-July, through the main events of August, and on to the restoration of the city in later months. The German Army marched into Paris on the 14th June 1940 and occupied the city for the next four years; during which time the population of the city were oppressed, exploited and suffered rationing and shortages. In London, General Charles de Gaulle called for French resistance to the occupation. In this book, the author uses diaries and eye-witness accounts to show personal experiences and includes the views of both the French and Germans, members of the resistance, occupiers and members of the public caught up in momentous events.

However, the liberation of Paris was not easy or unified. The resistance wanted a mass, popular insurrection to drive out the Germans and take power. The Gaullists wanted the resistance and population to be passive participants in de Gaulle's triumphant entry into Paris. As the possibility of liberation came into sight, those involved kept an eye on events in Warsaw, also rebelling in anticipation of Soviet troops arriving and the fierce reprisals this had unleashed. Paris was both wary and worried that they could easily become such a battleground.

This was a time of strikes, threats, rumours and panic. General von Choltitz was ordered to take command as Commander of the city until "the end", but many German soldiers were stealing bicycles from civilians in order to flee. Field Marshal Walter Model, loyal to Hitler, turned up at Choltitz's headquarters with a handwritten order giving him command over all German troops in the West. In Paris, the metro closed, households had electricity for one hour a day, the gas supply was erratic, water scarce and food supplies hard to obtain. Meanwhile, Berlin issued unrealistic and shrill demands.

Although it is interesting, of course, to read the overall picture of what happened in military terms, much of what makes this book so readable are the human stories. The seventeen year old girl who, living through the sporadic violence and outbreaks of fighting, remarks in her diary, "All this is very exciting! I don't think that mum will let me go to the dentists this afternoon..." The story of a woman hiding two young Jewish girls, or that of Andre Amar, a resistance fighter who was evacuated along with other prisoners and put on a train for an unknown destination.

As liberation finally reached the city, it did not, of course, mark the end of the war. It took months for some kind of normality to return to the battered city and the population, who had suffered so much. This is a very well written, and detailed, account of the liberation of Paris and how it was achieved. A time when the Germans seemed stunned by their capture; when many French people felt sorrow for those lost, others were hunted down for collaborating and many simply rejoiced. This is a very readable account of those times which I became totally immersed in and recommend highly.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eleven Days in August is a day-to-day account of the Liberation of Paris in 1944. So much, so the title.

It's a well-researched book drawing not just on the secondary source material but on the words of those who were there.

It pulls you into the events of those eleven days. There's a political story here as the Free French/Gaullists vie with the Resistance and the Communist Party for control of events. It's also a good example of how events can escape the control of even the most controlling politicians. It covers the military side of things and the personal. Names are given to those who fought, those who collaborated and those who died. It's also good on how the events of the Liberation were used afterwards to build a picture of France liberated by the French. And how the uprising forced the Allies to liberate Paris when their original intent had been to go around it.

It covers the German side of things too, showing how they lost control of Paris and how they were limited in what they could achieve by both a lack of manpower and equipment but - perhaps most importantly - a lack of will.

Cobb draws all these threads together in a tense, well-written narrative history, which I heartily recommend. It makes me think my next read should be Anne Sebba's 'Les Parisiennes', which I've had sitting on my desk for some time.

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers a day-by-day chronological narrative on the liberation of Paris, covering both the political and military maneuvering. The author does a good job of describing the disparate groups competing for Paris -- the Germans, the collaborationists, the communists, the Allies, the resistance, and the Free French. An easy read, and exciting from beginning to end. I would recommend this book over Is Paris Burning?, which covers some of the same ground.

[Keith Scholey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew Cobb is a very good historian, knowing exactly how to blend personal stories, narrative and argument to provide a clear and balanced account of events. Could have done with more maps and pictures though.

[Harry Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

From start to finish, Cobb's book on the liberation of Paris is enthralling. This is like the 4th book on Paris' occupation I've read, and I'm still finding out new things!

[Ed Crutchley · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s difficult to see how a better job could have been done on tracking how Paris inched back to French control in August 1944. Matthew Cobb uses masses of documents and witness testimonies to narrate the day-by-day evolution of the uprising, the atrocities and street deaths, the squabbling between factions of the Resistance and settling of scores, the eventual arrival of Leclerc’s 2e DB under its reluctant American masters, de Gaulle’s grabbing of power from potential chaos, and the final French mythification of the liberation of Europe’s greatest city which the Allies had wanted to skirt. It’s a great read.

[Graham Clayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eleven Days in August provides the fullest account imaginable of the Battle for Paris, which not only liberated the city but also determined the political future of France. Matthew Cobb draws on a vast array of sources — including material from French and American archives, and the journals and letters of Resistance fighters, collaborators, Allied and German military personnel and all sorts of Parisians — to give an exhaustive, hour-by-hour account of the hectic and momentous days of the 15th to the 26th of August 1944.

[Avis Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author has weak narratives skills and gives a dry recital of facts. Is Paris Burning? by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre is a far better book about the liberation of Paris.