The Blood of Free Men

Starred review from July 2, 2012
After the June 1944 Normandy landings, Allied armies intended to avoid Paris, and Germany didn’t consider it strategically important, but the city obsessed every Frenchman. In this vivid account, Neiberg, professor of history at the U.S. Army War College (Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I), points out that, by July, Parisians were starving. Malnourishment during four years of Nazi occupation worsened as Allied bombing plus German diversion to supply its forces reduced food imports to famine levels. This plus a yearning to strike the hated Germans inflamed the city’s resistance. Parisians rose up on August 19, and Neiberg skillfully describes six days of disorganized but bloody urban warfare between poorly armed Frenchmen and mostly unenthusiastic Germans until a French regiment, in defiance of Allied orders, entered the city. While hardly a great victory and followed by a nasty vengeance against collaborators, Paris’s liberation produced ecstatic delight throughout the West, making it one of the few feel-good stories of the war, and Neiberg, with a close-up and evocative narrative, delivers a thoroughly satisfying history. 23 b&w photos, 1 map. Agent: Geri Thoma, Markson Thoma.

August 1, 2012
From the Allied landings at Normandy to Charles de Gaulle's triumphant march down the Champs-elysees, a war historian tracks the ouster of the Nazis from the City of Light. After four years of a humiliating occupation, Paris prepared during the summer of 1944 to finally throw off the Nazi shackles. Hitler ordered the city defended to the last man, reduced to rubble if necessary. With the Allied armies only 150 miles away, factions among the Resistance forces, many of them communist, jostled for leadership. They all shared a hatred for the Vichy regime, sought vengeance against collaborationists and wanted Parisians to liberate themselves. None knew that Allied commanders, dismissing the city's strategic value, aimed instead to capture key ports and drive the German army east. De Gaulle appreciated the city's symbolic importance. He knew that capturing Paris was the key to postwar power in France, and he wanted the capital liberated by his army. Neiberg's (History/Univ. of Southern Mississippi/U.S. Army War College; Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I, 2011, etc.) taut narrative explains how the liberation played out. While he makes clear that credit for the city's emancipation must be shared, he features the contribution of the Resistance, especially the tireless Henri Rol-Tanguy, the martyred Jean Moulin and Robert Monod and Roger Cocteau. Neiberg highlights the critical role played by the Paris police force and the heroism of thousands of anonymous Parisians. Hurling Molotov cocktails and harassing German soldiers from behind makeshift barricades, they suffered 500 men killed and 2,000 wounded. Neiberg also effectively debunks commanding German Gen. Choltitz's postwar claim that he surrendered Paris for humanitarian reasons by demonstrating the hopelessness of his military situation and noting he was "motivated in no small part by his deep fear of the Paris mob." An evenhanded, efficient account of one of World War II's signature moments.

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October 15, 2012

Neiberg's book about the final days of German-occupied Paris is in some ways a retelling of the story by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre four decades ago in Is Paris Burning? But Neiberg adds a depth that the earlier work deliberately omitted. Collins and Lapierre opted for a journalistic, moment-by-moment account of events, whereas Neiberg offers a more panoramic view of events, placing them in the context of the relations among the respective Allies, which had different tactical and strategic aims during the campaign in France. Neiberg also focuses on the rivalries and competing postwar visions of the varying French Resistance factions and the Free French military and political leadership. Neiberg clearly does not intend to supersede or replace the earlier book, which he draws upon often, but his work makes an excellent companion to Is Paris Burning? VERDICT This book is as engrossing and fast paced as its predecessor, and, while targeted to the nonacademic reader interested in World War II, it could easily find a place among academic titles.--RF

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2012
By June 1944, after four years under German occupation, most Parisians had settled into a state of sullen accommodation. The Allied invasion of Normandy dramatically altered their lives. Cut off from the food supplies from Normandy, many Parisians faced starvation. Emboldened by German retreats, the various resistance groups came out in the open, unleashing an orgy of street violence against both Germans and suspected collaborators. At the highest levels of Allied military command, a debate raged over the wisdom of diverting forces for a drive on Paris, since some questioned the strategic importance of the city. Neiberg is a professor of history at the U.S. Army War College. In his engrossing and stirring narrative, he reveals how the city was liberated through a combination of heroism, ignoble acts, and the machinations of politicians, resistance fighters, and even hardheaded diplomats. Although Neiberg doesn't avoid the more unsavory aspects of the saga, his descriptions of the courageous acts of ordinary Parisians roused from their slumber make for one of the most remarkable and inspiring episodes of the war.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)