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Retreat to the Reich is an account of the Normandy Campaign from the German perspective. Professor Mitcham sketches the general outline of the story and critiques the important decisions and events of the spring and summer of 1944, such as the design and construction of the Atlantic Wall, the positioning of defensive forces, command and control structures, reactions to the Allied landings, and the eventual withdrawal of German forces to the Seine River. The topics given more than a little attention include the dispute between Erwin Rommel and Gerd von Rundstedt, nominal commander of the Western Front, on how best to defend the Atlantic Wall; the plot to assassinate Hitler, Rommel's association with it, and the effect it had on how the German army fought in Normandy; and the paralysis of command on the German Western Front brought about by Hitler's meddling in what should have been the theater commanders' purview. Although much of this will be familiar to those who have studied the campaign from the American a nd British perspectives, what sets this book apart and makes it deserving of the reader's time is the wealth of material and extraordinary detail on German forces, equipment, strategy, tactics, and--best of all--personalities and profiles of leaders great and small, generally not accessible to those who do not read German.

Mitcham's engaging narrative style combines the best of that which we have come to expect from Stephen Ambrose and Carlo D'Este. Ambrose's books on Normandy (D-Day and Citizen Soldiers) tell the story of the invasion through the eyes of the participants, with vivid eyewitness accounts woven together to carry the general narrative. D'Este, on the other hand, in Decision In Normandy follows the action from the perspective of the key senior commanders, building the story around their actions in the major battles of the campaign. Mitcham moves easily between the two styles. The thoughts, actions, and reactions of senior leaders, field marshals, and commanders at the army, corps, and division levels carry the narrative, while the eyewitness accounts and impressions of officers, noncommissioned officers, and private soldiers give the reader a feel for the intensity of the fighting. Mitcham is most effective when he merges the two styles. For example, upon completion of Rommel's inspection of the vaunted Atlantic Wall, he proceeds to denounce it as "a farce--an enormous bluff," although not to Hitler's face. Similar expressions of personal sentiments by German senior officers attest to the loss of confidence in Hitler's leadership, yet as Mitcham shows in the chapter dealing with the assassination attempt on Hitler's life, the public expression of such sentiments could get one killed. Mitcham makes particularly effective use of data to convey impressions on morale and readiness. One can readily understand the decline in effectiveness of the Luftwaffe when informed that "the pilot training program... had been steadily reduced from 260 hours of flight time per student in 1940 to as little as 50 in 1944.... In May 1944... the Luftwaffe lost 712 aircraft to hostile action and 656 in flying accidents."

Because of the command problems on the Western Front, derivative of Hitler's meddling, corps and division commanders often found themselves saddled with hopelessly impossible tasks. From their vantage points at the front they could see the folly of holding ground at all costs, yet ordering a withdrawal could not only lead to a removal from command, but, in the poisoned atmosphere following the 20 July attempt on Hitler's life, prove deadly. When reported from the defender's perspective, the Allied efforts to break out of the Normandy beachhead are both grim and fascinating. Lieutenant General Fritz Bayerlein provides a vivid account of what it was like to endure carpet-bombing. As the history unfolds, unit commanders, for example Panzergeneral Kurt Meyer or Oberfuerher Sepp Detricht, are introduced with a brief summary of their careers to date, followed by an overview of their actions. The narrative moves along briskly. Units are swept away despite extraordinary acts of heroism. Atrocities on all sides are m entioned almost in passing as part of the texture of combat in Normandy. Meyer, for example, survives capture and near death at the hands of French partisans. Excellent endnotes provide post-capture and postwar details on Meyer and others. The carnage of the Falaise Pocket is recounted in riveting detail. Having read the Allied perspective on this battle many times, it was particularly interesting to read what it was like to be in the cauldron from the perspectives of those who ran the gauntlet and survived to fight another day.

German reactions to Operation Market Garden, the attempt by Allied airborne units to capture a bridge across the lower Rhine, and their efforts to halt Allied forces along the German frontier conclude Mitcham's campaign narrative. In an effort to include as much detail as possible, Mitcham devotes several pages in the final chapter to the fate of many of the individuals named earlier in the story. For example, the list of names of senior officers lost (killed, wounded, captured, or those who took their own lives) runs for two and a half pages. Maps showing unit locations, order of battle charts reflecting shifting command lines throughout the campaign, and photographs of many of the officers and men mentioned in the narrative complement the text.

The 1944 Normandy Campaign is familiar ground for Mitcham. Several of his earlier books have chronicled it, along with German campaigns from North Africa to Russia, on land and in the air. In Triumphant Fox: Erwin Rommel and the Rise of the Afrika Korps and Rommel's Greatest Victory: The Desert Fox and the Fall of Tobruk, he covered the exploits of the great German field marshal and his forces in the fight for North Africa. Along with Frederich van Stauffenberg, he produced The Battle of Sicily, a superb study of the German and Italian defense of Sicily against the joint and combined Allied invasion. His 1993 book, Rommel's Last Campaign, was a study in generalship, examining as it did Rommel's ill-fated effort to defend the Atlantic Wall.

Return to the Reich provides those interested in World War II with a meticulously researched and highly detailed account of German forces fighting in western France in the summer of 1944 from the perspective of those who were fated to stand against the greatest armada in the history of warfare.

Reviewed by Colonel Len Fullenkamp, USA Ret., Professor of Military History, US Army War College. COPYRIGHT 2001

Technicians from this group took pictures of the uprising in Paris (Battle for Paris) from its beginnings on August 19, 1944. The footage was developed and edited for a documentary titled La Libération de Paris ("the liberation of Paris") which was released to French theaters on September 1, 1944, immediately after the German departure from the occupied territories.

The documentary is available in its entirety for streaming and download at the Internet Archive

Summary

After the Allies, under General Dwight D Eisenhower, landed in France in June, many groups of Parisian workers began striking as they sensed the Allied approach, intensifying their resistance as the sounds of the approaching war become audible to The City of Light
-- a span of about two months.

U.S. Army 2nd Infantry Division advance under fire at Brest in the north of France, 09.09.44

In the south of France, Americans have taken Cannes and Grasse, the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes. In the north, Canadian and British forces have joined up with American troops on the left bank of the River Seine south of Rouen, while the Paris Resistance has gained momentum and the Germans appear to be in disorganized retreat from Paris.

An uprising begins on 19 August. With the exception of wealthier suburbs like the 7th, 8th and 16th arrondoisemments, young and able French erect barricades to prevent the German garrison from moving about the city and shoot sporadically at German soldiers. Raoul Nordling, the Swedish Consul General to Paris arranges a ceasefire and also persuades General Choltitz to disobey Hitler's orders to destroy the French capital.

General Eisenhower is reluctant to march on Paris and unnecessarily engage allied forces in running street battles, but he finally relents and allows General Philippe Leclerc's 2nd Armoured Division to enter the city first.

Owing both to combat conditions and poor road progress, Leclerc orders Capitaine Raymond Dronne to form an advance party, immediately proceed to Paris and inform the Resistance that the Second Armored will be in Paris in 24 hours.

Dronne was the first Allied officer to enter Paris representing liberation forces. A volunteer who joined the Free French Forces in Africa in 1940, he was assigned as commanding officer of the 9e Compagnie, du Régiment de Marche du Tchad (Ninth Company, Regiment of March of Chad), a subordinate unit of the Deuxieme Division Blindée (French 2nd Armored Division) Dronne's advance party consisted of armoured cars and Sherman tanks. In the French tradition, the vehicles were named: armored cars Guadalajara, Madrid, Ebro (so named because most of his men were Spanish, veterans of the Spanish Civil War) and Sherman tanks Montmirail, Romilly and Champaubert. The vehicles are clearly seen in the documentary film.

The object of Dronne's advance force was to swiftly secure a central location in the heart of the city without confronting German forces, this to reassure the civilian population that the Free French Forces had arrived and to prevent a repeat of what had happened in Warsaw weeks earlier.

In Warsaw, the population had risen up in anticipation, but when the liberating Russian forces were halted, the civilians were ruthlesly massacred by the German occupiers and the city razed to the ground. (Revelation that Stalin had ordered the halt with objective that the Polish independence force in Warsaw would be conveniently destroyed came later.)

Such a small task force making its way to the heart of a city occupied by some 25,000 German troops was a chancy proposition but in the meantime the rest of the Deuxieme Division Blindée fought its way rapidly enough into the city against a deteriorating defense to join them --
a fight that ultimately reached casualties of 78 dead and 300 wounded.

At the opening liberation of France following Operation Overlord, in which Free French forces played a minor, symbolic role, General de Gaulle quickly and shrewdly established the authority of the Free French Forces in France -- Forces Francaises de l'Interieur (FFI ) -- thereby avoiding an Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories.

De Gaulle flies north into France from the French colony of Algeria a few hours before the liberation of Paris, and drives near the front of the liberating forces into the city alongside Allied officials.

The new Free French wireless station reports that the German commander of the Paris region, General Dietrich von Choltitz, has signed a surrender at Montparnasse station in front of General Leclerc and Colonel Rol, commander of the Forces Francaises de l'Interieur (FFI ) in the Paris region.

The day after liberation General de Gaulle leads a parade down the Champs Elysees, with General Leclerc, all the way to Notre Dame, braving lingering sniper fire inside the cathedral itself from the pockets of German resistance that still remain.

Colonel Rol's real name was Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, a Communist leader of the Resistance in Paris. His signature appears alongside Leclerc's on the German surrender document to recognise the Resistance's efforts.

En guerre contre l'Allemagne hitlérienne depuis le 1er septembre 1939, la France est envahie le 10 mai de l'année suivante. Le haut commandement militaire et le gouvernement se résignent au bout de six semaines à la conclusion d'un armistice infamant. Les Français, sous le choc, ne songent pas encore à la résistance... à quelques exceptions...

Un Appel peu entendu Le 18 juin 1940, tandis que les armées françaises refluent en désordre devant l'invasion allemande, le général de Gaulle lance un Appel depuis les studios de la BBC à Londres. Il invite ses compatriotes présents sur le territoire britannique à le rejoindre et pour la première fois évoque la «flamme de la résistance française».

L' Appel est largement diffusé dans le pays par la presse régionale mais, dans les premiers mois de l'Occupation, il a peu d'effet sur la population, abasourdie par l'ampleur de la défaite et confiante dans le Maréchal Pétain, nouveau chef du gouvernement.

Cette résignation rend d'autant plus méritantes les personnalités très tôt entrées en résistance. Jean Moulin, préfet d'Eure-et-Loir au moment de l'invasion, est de celles-là. En octobre 1941, il part pour Londres demander une aide en vue de développer la résistance intérieure. Il est reçu par le général de Gaulle qui apprécie sa connaissance de la Résistance intérieure et ses compétences d'administrateur.

Le chef de la France libre lui demande de se faire son ambassadeur auprès de la Résistance intérieure. L'ex-préfet accepte. Il est parachuté sur le sol français le 2 janvier 1942. Tout en tissant sa toile secrète, il va mener au grand jour, dans le sud du pays, la vie paisible d'un ancien préfet à la retraite !

La Libération de Paris: la semaine du 16 au 26 Août 1944, entre ces deux dates, la Ville Lumière s’est éteinte pour n’être plus que l’ombre d’elle-même.

Les combats pour la Libération de Paris filmés par une équipe de cinéastes de la Résistance, seront les premières images de la France libre, diffusées par France Libre Actualités et le Comité de Libération du Cinéma Français, que verront les Français de métropole dès les premiers jours de Septembre.

Entre ces deux dates, a vu l'insurrection Parisienne, sous la direction du Colonel Rol Tanguy, chef des FTP, avec les FFI, dresser des barricades, prendre l'Hôtel de Ville et la Préfecture de Police, faire la chasse à l'occupant Allemand et aux collaborateurs; l'entrée de la colonne Dronne puis de la totalité de la 2ème Division Blindée du Général LeClerc puis des Alliés Anglais, Canadiens et Américains est accueillie par la population avec un enthousiasme indescriptible qui atteint son comble avec l'entrée dans Paris Libéré du Général De Gaulle.

Le général de Gaulle, chef des Forces Françaises Libres (FFL) ainsi que le général Leclerc, commandant de la 2ème Division Blindée (2ème DB), et le colonel Rol-Tanguy, commandant des FFI (Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur) s’opposent au Général von Choltitz, chef du
« Gross Paris ».

Le 18 août 1944, une fusillade éclate sur le Pont des Arts. C’est le début de l’insurrection, menée par les Communistes, prémices à la libération de la Capitale quelques jours plus tard. Les combats sont suspendus le 20 Août. Ce jour-là, Choltitz concède une trêve avec les insurgés, négociée par l’entremise de Raoul Nordling, consul de Suède. Mais ce répit est de courte durée. Le 22 Août, sur décision du Comité Parisien de Libération et du colonel Rol-Tanguy, la trêve est rompue. Les combats de rue reprennent de plus belle.

Le général de Gaulle insiste pour que la 2ème DB marche sur Paris. Pendant ce temps, Choltitz se prépare à quitter les ors et les velours de l’Hôtel Meurice où il séjourne. Il sait que la défaite est inéluctable. Les troupes allemandes sont certes nombreuses et bien armées, mais la détermination des libérateurs est la plus forte. Tant et si bien que le 24 août, le capitaine Raymond Dronne entre le premier à la tête d’un détachement de la 2ème DB par la porte de Gentilly d’où il se rend, sans tarder, à l’Hôtel de Ville.

Des soldats alliés défilent dans un M8 Greyhound

Le document est signé par le général Dietrich von Choltitz, commandant du 84e corps d'armée. Il est aussi contresigné par le colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, chef régional des FTP-FFI (Francs-tireurs et partisans des Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur).

Une heure plus tard, le général Charles de Gaulle lui-même arrive à la gare et se voit remettre par Leclerc l'acte de capitulation.

Il se rend ensuite à l'Hôtel de Ville où il est reçu par Georges Bidault, président du Conseil national de la Résistance. Comme celui-ci lui demande de proclamer le rétablissement de la République, de
Gaulle rétorque qu'elle n'a jamais cessé d'exister.

Sur le perron, devant une foule enthousiaste et joyeuse, sous un beau soleil festival, il célèbre en des termes flamboyants la Libération de Paris :

«Paris martyrisé ! mais Paris libéré !»...

- Le lendemain, avec les Français Libres, dont Bidault et Parodi, il descend les Champs-Elysées jusqu'à la Concorde sous les acclamations d'une fouleimmense.

Le soir, de Gaulle s'installe au ministère de la Guerre en qualité de chef du gouvernement provisoire de la République française et le lendemain, le chef de la France libre descend en triomphe les Champs-Élysées, suivi de Leclerc et de ses fidèles de la première heure auxquels il a recommandé de se tenir derrière lui.

Dans une joyeuse pagaille, acclamé par deux millions de Parisiens, il arrive à la Concorde. Là éclatent des coups de feu sporadiques. Puis le général gagne Notre-Dame pour un Te Deum passionné.

Libre, enfin libre, la Ville Lumière resplendit à nouveau de toute sa magnificence.

La libération de Paris - Version monde libre

Paris, plongé dans la nuit pendant quatre longues années est libre. Le peuple, encadré par les FFI a reconquis les armes à la main, après quatre jours de durs combats son droit à la liberté.

La libération de Paris, de l'entrée de l'armée de LECLERC puis des alliés, Britanniques et Américains, jusqu'à la descente des Champs Elysées par le Général De GAULLE et la fusillade à l'Hôtel de Ville.

Credits:

Le Journal de la Résistance : La Libération de Paris, INA, Sept. 1st, 1944

The Triumph of Propaganda by Hilmar Hoffmann, John A. Broadwin, Volker Rolf Berghahn

La Libération de Paris (archive documents and detailed timeline), Gilles Primout

Related:

Testimony File - History of the resistance of the Strasbourg French University

George Dukson, the lost lion of Paris