THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
AUGUST 25, 1944
On Aug. 25, 1944, Paris was liberated after four years of Nazi occupation. Adolf Hitler had ordered the city razed, but German General Dietrich von Choltitz chose to ignore his command and surrendered his force of 17,000 men to the Allies. The liberation wasn’t all peaceful; fierce fighting went on for several days in the streets of Paris between the German army and the French resistance. But when American commander Lt.- Gen. Omar Bradley ordered his troops into the city Aug. 24, von Choltitz decided to capitulate. In a symbolic gesture, he surrendered to Free French General Philippe Leclerc de Hautecloque and French Resistance leader Henri Rol- Tanguy.
The Vancouver Sun plastered the liberation of Paris across the front page. “Paris was reported firmly in Allied hands tonight, conquered by the overwhelming might of French and American armoured forces and a motley street army of hundreds of thousands of patriots,” read the main news story. James McGlincy of the British United Press gave a personal account of the day. “When the people heard the Americans had arrived they crowded the streets,” he wrote. “Lights flashed on in all the nearby buildings. We tried to tell the people to put the lights out, but it was no use. The lights of Paris had been out too long. “As I came into town, thousands of people lined the streets ... everybody dancing up and down. They cried and sang The Marseillaise and cried and sang some more. They hung flags from houses and all the windows they could find – British, American and their own French flag. They climbed all over our jeeps, they dismounted from our bikes and they kissed us. Lord, how they kissed us. I didn’t think it was possible to be kissed by so many people so many times in such a little while.” Another story at the bottom of page one was headlined “Nazis Beaten by October,” but that was optimistic. The war in Europe didn’t end until May 8, 1945.