Original subtitles

June 6, 1944.

As Germans and Soviets fight fiercely in Eastern Europe, the Allies launch their

attack on Hitler-occupied France. In a few hours they manage to take over the beaches

and by the end of the day thousands of soldiers have disembarked. But the story doesn't end there.

In the coming weeks there would be one of the toughest battles of the entire war

for control of France. And the Germans, despite fighting

the Soviets in the east, were able to mount a more than respectable defense

in the French countryside. This is the story of the German defeat in

France after the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris around 1944.

During the day of June 6, the allies managed to take the beaches of Normandy and disembark

about 160 thousand by the end of the day. soldiers, who are preparing to liberate France from German occupation

. Canadians, Americans, English, Australians, Poles and others

are ready to march towards Paris with an overwhelming superiority of resources.

The Germans now face a massive landing, although the high command still

believes that Normandy is a farce, and that the main attack would come through the Pas de Calais.

In the afternoon hours of June 6, and in the face of countless demands from von Rundstedt,

the high command released the two panzer divisions that had been held for more than 10 hours

in the Paris area. These are the 12 SS and the Lehr panzer, which arrive on the

coast between June 7 and 9, when it is too late to turn the invasion around.

With this delay the Germans lose the only chance to stop the Allied attack.

Initial Allied plans aim to capture Saint-Lô,

Caen and Bayú on the first day. They are not available. But the beachheads are

established. There are almost 100 km of front and the casualties are less than expected.

Once Caen and Bayeux are occupied, the Allied objective is to establish themselves between the Loire and the Seine. Take

Cherbourg and Brest, then liberate Paris and the rest of France, then march towards Germany.

Given the success of Normandy, Yosef Stalin sent a congratulatory telegram to Winston Churchill:

“Hitler, who boasted for two years that he would force the English Channel,

was unable to bring himself to even hint that he would try to carry out

his threat. History will record this fact as an achievement of the highest order.”

Stalin sarcastically refers to the frustrated “Operation Sea Lion” planned by Hitler to invade the British Isles and frustrated by the defeat in the Air Battle of Britain.

Returning to the front, the Americans target the port of Cherbourg

on the Cotentin Peninsula, located northeast of Utah and Omaha. For this mission,

two elite North American divisions had been parachuted in. The 101st led

by Maxwell Taylor and the 82nd led by Matthew Ridway, both of enormous caliber.

Ridway, about 10 years later, will be the commander in chief of the US army in the Korean War. Taylor, on the other hand, will be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and also the main

military advisor to President John Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The capture of Cherbourg is a key and difficult objective from the beginning.

General Matthew Ridway sums up the spirit in one sentence:

“You never give up gained ground.”

The British, Canadians and other allies focus on taking the city of Caen,

across from Sword, Gold and Juno beaches. For June 7, Normandy, which was a

dream place since the Middle Ages, is about to become a nightmare place.

The Allies launch “Operation Perch” to surround and take the city of Caen. But they do not

succeed due to fierce German resistance. The allied attempt fails 3 times. The obstacle

is none other than the 12th Panzer Division HitlerJugend of the Waffen SS, with its four

H variant panzer tanks, which have 75 millimeter guns. The HitlerJugend troops,

made up of young people of 17 or 18 years old, fight with fanaticism and ferocity. They are the toughest troops

that the allies face in France and at the time of their withdrawal the casualties would reach 60%.

Lieutenant Walter Kruger of the 12th Division comments on the sentiment of:

“Absolute confidence in victory from start to finish. They had received

proper training. “They had an absolute sense of order and discipline.”

The 21st Panzer Division also participates, whose commander in chief is the Obergruppenführer or

general of the Waffen SS, Sepp Dietrich. Dietrich was, along with Paul Hausser, the highest-

ranking officer within the Waffen SS, having fought in Poland, Holland, France, Greece and the

Russian front. Without a doubt, extensive experience that is worth a lot when fighting with numerical inferiority.

The Germans considered the Caen area the base of their position in Normandy and were

determined to maintain a defensive arc from the English Channel to the western bank

of the River Orne. Within the 21st panzer division, the 503rd heavy panzer battalion had its place,

composed among others of 10 King Taigers weighing 69 tons. These beasts could withstand

fire from any Allied tank and had an outstanding range of more than

2 and a half kilometers thanks to their 88 millimeter cannon. Movements,

however, were not his forte due to his low speed of 38 kilometers per hour on the

road and 20 in the open field. Due to this and the Allied air superiority,

position changes were usually carried out at night when it was more difficult to be seen.

Faced with stiff resistance from the panzer divisions,

the British bombed the city, destroying 70% of it and causing the

death of 400 civilians. In addition to lives and property, irrecoverable artistic treasures are lost.

The battle for Caen would take several British operations to win, with Operation

Godwud being the last of all, which occurred on July 18. In this operation the Germans sold

their retreat very dearly, causing between 4,000 and 5,000 casualties for the Allies and between 200 and 400

tanks out of action. The Germans would lose around 100 tanks and about 2 thousand soldiers.

Despite having a preponderant force and air superiority, British progress

ended up being slow and disorderly and ultimately failed to break the front forcefully.

Caen would finally fall on July 20, but not in the way the Allies expected.

From the Allied side, General Patton questions Montgomery:

“Monty has been too slow in attacking and thus has allowed

the Germans to consolidate in fixed positions and have had time to bring in reinforcements.”

Churchill himself is worried. He believes that if there is not a rapid breakup of the

front it will take a year to reach the Seine and the Rhine. He is sincere with Supreme Commander Eisenhower,

telling him: “You only have to express your dissatisfaction with any

British officer regardless of his rank for "He is

relieved of his position." Monty is included, or Churchill refers to him specifically.

From the German side, the arrival of reinforcements to Normandy, as General Heinz

Guderian states, is practically impossible. Allied bombing and resistance sabotage

have blocked access to the region. The delays are endless.

Once again, Rommel's theory of keeping panzer divisions

close to the coast demonstrates its strong support.

With the gradual advance of the allies, little by little there would begin to be cases

of rape of French women and also robberies on public roads. The

American soldiers sometimes drank too much and attacked

the French women or attacked the French by stealing objects from them.

The American military courts installed on French territory would try

139 soldiers for rape. Of them, 68 were sentenced to life imprisonment

and 22 to the death penalty, but many other victims never filed a complaint.

General Eisenhower himself ordered that the executions be public,

at the scene and with the assistance of the victims, relatives and neighbors. He thus sought

to calm the wave of protests that began to flood the press of the time. Despite this,

in German territory the violations by the United States would continue and reach

eleven thousand according to researcher Robert Lily. On the eastern side, the Soviets

would rape at least a million German women as they moved deeper into

in German territory. East Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania and Berlin would bear the brunt.

On the German side, around June 10, the “Oradour Massacre” took place. This was German retaliation

for the murder of an officer by the resistance. In it, the SS Das

Reich division burned the town of Oradour, killing 600 people. Faced with this event, Rommel complains

to Hitler but the Führer's response is blunt: “Don't get involved in that. Resisting the

invasion is your only job.” The distance between Rommel and Hitler was beginning to become evident.

The Germans would have similar actions in several other towns,

also including mass shootings in other parts of France.

By June 11, five days before the invasion, Rommel sees the worst coming. He tells Admiral

Friederich Ruge: “Even if the British dominate us, it is better to end the war

now than to see Germany completely ruined. “I know Hitler and he will not commit suicide as long as there is

one house left standing in Germany, without caring in the least about the German people.”

The next day Rommel informed his superiors: “

Our enemy's ground power is growing at a speed much faster than our reserves to reach the front.

Our operations in Normandy will be made exceptionally difficult,

and even particularly impossible, by the overwhelming superiority of the

Allied air forces and the effects of heavy naval artillery.

Sergeant Helmut Gunther of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division sees it his way:

“We no longer expected to achieve total victory,

but we still had an absolute sense of loyalty. In Russia we had fought

men against men. “We knew that in Normandy it would be men against machines.”

That June 12,

the head of the 12th Panzer Division HitlerJugend of the Waffen SS that does so much work in

Caen, Brigandeführer (or brigadier general) Fritz Witt, dies from fire from an English ship.

Witt's superior, Waffen SS General Sepp Dietrich, confesses: “One of the best is

gone. Witt was a great soldier who could not survive long.”

Replacing Witt comes the young 33-year-old Brigandeführer Kurt Meyer. Nicknamed “panzer Meyer”, he is

the youngest to hold that rank and upon assuming office he is already famous among his troops and also his enemies,

for his exploits in France, Greece and Russia. Meyer is a convinced National Socialist,

and has a very risky combat style, always being close to danger and leading

by example. Upon assuming command of the Hitler division, Jugend comments:

“I have received the order to defend Caen. Our men are 17 or 18 years old, weeks ago

they had entered combat with fresh and flourishing faces. But now their muddy hooves

cast a shadow on their faces, whose eyes have looked into another world. They stagger sleepily with

ammunition strips around their necks. We all know that the fight will end with death or being

captured. But no one is willing to stop fighting, we will continue fighting for our country.”

The fanatical 12th SS division led by Meyer would continue fighting in France

until it was reduced to a group of just over a thousand men. Meyer himself

would be captured in September 1944 and as a prisoner of war would declare:

“You will hear many things against Adolf Hitler in this camp, but never from my

mouth. As far as I'm concerned, it was and remains the best thing that happened to Germany.”

By mid-June, the Allies use the artificial concrete ports built at

Churchill's initiative. Nicknamed Mulberry, it is a feat of engineering. Cement blocks

that are driven to their location and sunk. These allow thousands of

men and tons to be unloaded every day to swell the allied army.

On those same dates, General Dietrich of

the Waffen SS confesses to his superior Marshal Rommel that:

“I am bleeding to death and I am getting nowhere. We need another eight or ten divisions

in a day or two, or we will be finished.” Just a few days later and as we already reported,

the divisions of the first SS corps under Dietrich withdrew from Caen

on June 20, handing the city over to the British after a month and a half of fighting.

As if the situation in the West were not enough, the largest operation of the Red Army was about to take place on the Russian front

. Around June 22, just 16 days after D-Day,

Stalin launches Operation Bagration in central Belarus. This

attack composed of 2 million Soviet soldiers devastates the central German army,

generating 400 thousand casualties in a month and a half. The Wehrmacht will never recover from this catastrophe.

That June 22, when Bagration begins, the Americans attack the city of Cherbourg,

at the tip of the Contentin peninsula. The German defenses are prepared for

an attack from the sea, but not from land. Delays in the campaign lead Eisenhower

to say angrily: “There are times I wish I had George Patton there.”

The terrain is more complicated for the advance of armor and infantry

through the French “Bocage” terrain. Plots separated by dense hedges that

are very characteristic of the Norman landscape. The difficulties would be repeated on the route to Paris,

but not only for the allies. Also for the German troops in their retreat.

US General James Gavin explains the regulated topography, and

in particular the access to Cherbourg, very clearly: “None of us had

really anticipated the difficulties it would entail. Those enormous walls of earth, lushly covered

with trees and bushes, that bordered each field were impenetrable for battle tanks;

each was a natural fortified line. On the Cotentin peninsula, the difficulties

of the terrain were aggravated by large areas of wetlands equally impassable

for armored vehicles, which were thus restricted to roads.”

By June 26, with German armor bogged down in the fighting for Caen,

Cherbourg finally falls. The port is occupied on

July 1st but is destroyed and will not be used until September.

Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the High Command,

calls Marshal von Rundstedt and this conversation takes place:

Keitel exclaims in despair: “And what are we going to do now?”

Rundstedt replies: “Call for peace, idiots. What else can they do now.”

Following this incident, the aristocratic Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, nicknamed "the last Prussian",

who privately refers to the Führer as "that Bohemian corporal", is replaced as head

of the Western Front by Field Marshal Günter von Kluge, recently arrived from the Russian front.

On June 28, Rommel is recalled to Berlin at the Führer's request. Hitler

wants to motivate him to continue resisting. The Desert Fox, on the other hand,

once again presents with crudeness and his usual honesty the reality on the

front and the need to evaluate an armistice with the allies. He even (and in reference to

Dietrich) tells Himmler to ask his Waffen SS officers their opinion.

Hitler's response to the proposal is icy and unexpected.

-Rommel: “Mein Führer, I must speak bluntly. “I can’t leave here

without talking about the issue of Germany.” (refers to peace with the allies)

-Hitler: “You didn't come here to talk about politics, Marshal”

Given Rommel's respectful insistence, the response is unexpected.

-Hitler: “Please leave the room. I think it will be better this way.”

That would be the last meeting between the two.

July 6, 1944:

On the morning of July 6, General Patton escorted by 4 P47 Thunderbolt fighters heads

by plane to France. He lands in “Omaha”, and cannot help but stand up in the jeep that

is going to pick him up to go see Eisenhower and Bradley. He addresses some words to the soldiers present that

become iconic: “I feel proud to be here to fight at your side. Now,

let's cut the crap out of those Germans and get the hell out of Berlin! And when

we get to Berlin, I'm going to shoot that son of a bitch wallpaperer myself.”

The applause and excitement are general. Patton

will assume control of the US Third Army in early August.

From the German side, things look very bleak by mid-August.

Rommel obsessed with the destruction of Germany and the advance of the Soviet hordes,

He sounds out officers at the front about an armistice with the Western Allies.

His personal aide-de-camp Captain Helmuth Lang declares that

even General Sepp Dietrich at the front shares his opinion:

“You are the boss Herr Marshal. “I will only obey you, whatever you are proposing.”

But on July 17, the Allied aircraft accidentally attacked Rommel's car in a bombing raid.

He is seriously injured and miraculously survives. Rommel, despite his wounds, prepared a

complete report for his new Chief of the Western Front, Marshal von Kluge, in which,

among other things, he pointed out that: “Our aviation has hardly taken part in the combat.

Our troops fight heroically but the end of this battle leaves no doubt.”

Von Kluge makes his own assessment of the situation and sends it to Hitler:

“After long discussions with the responsible leaders of the various fronts,

in particular with the SS leaders, I have come to the conclusion that, unfortunately,

Marshal Rommel had reason. There is absolutely no possibility of

conducting a battle facing such a powerful air force without giving ground.”

Precisely what Hitler does not accept under any circumstances. Withdrawals or surrenders.

On July 19, the town of Saint Lu is liberated after almost 50 days of

fighting. 95% of the city is destroyed and 500 of its 12,000 inhabitants die. For the

allies it is a bittersweet victory. Between dead, wounded and missing, the casualties reach 1,200.

The next day, July 20, 1944, a powerful bomb explodes in

the conference room of the Führer headquarters in East Prussia. Hitler

is meeting with his generals and was waiting for Mussolini that afternoon. Miraculously,

he emerges unscathed from the explosion. Just after the explosion,

Keitel discovers that Hitler, with his clothes torn, survived the attack; As soon

as he got up, she embraced him, exclaiming: "Mein Führer, he's alive, he's alive!"

But this is not just another attack. It is Operation Valkyrie, a civil-military plot with wide

ramifications in the Army commands. The plan contemplates the assassination of Hitler,

and the mobilization of the reserve army to seize power and

neutralize Heinrich Himmler's SS.

The bomb had been planted by Colonel Claus von Stauffemberg.

Those involved reach all levels of the army and all

fronts. And in particular that of Normandy. No less than 7,000 civilians and soldiers are

arrested by the Gestapo. Among them the Chief of Army Intelligence,

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the Military Commander of Belgium, Baron Alexander von Falkenhausen,

the Chief of the General Staff, General Franz Halder, the Head of the General Office of the

Army and the General Friederich Olbricht, among them von Stauffemberg.

Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, destined to be Chief of the Army, is arrested and sentenced

to death. Upon hearing his sentence he told the trial prosecutor Roland Freisler:

“You can hand us over to the executioner, but within three months the people, disgusted and vexed,

will ask you to account and drag all of you through the filth of the streets.”

The ramifications of the plot against Hitler arrive like a blow to the Normandy front.

Rommel knows of the plot from his Chief of Staff, General Hans Speidel, and is willing to

collaborate with the new government. But he does not agree to participate, above all he is a loyal soldier.

In the case of von Kluge he is more involved than Rommel.

His Chief of Intelligence Colonel Rudolf von Gerdsorff is arrested

and his Chief of Staff General Gunther Blumentritt is implicated.

Von Kluge and Rommel are finally forced to swallow a

cyanide capsule. Von Kluge on August 19 and Rommel on October 14, 1944.

Both Chiefs of Staff survive. In the case of Speidel, after the war, he would become Supreme Commander of the NATO Land Forces between 1957 and 1963.

Returning to the front, once the Contentin peninsula was taken at the end of July,

the allies launched Operation Cobra,

with the objective of overtaking the German troops retreating from Caen on the southern flank.

Along these lines, Patton would lead the Third US Army.

Patton's choice is Eisenhower's and he takes it in England a month before the landing.

Bradley was previously Patton's subordinate in Africa and Sicily, but is now his superior.

They are two opposite personalities. Patton is self-centered, arrogant and impulsive. Bradley

has a very low profile and is completely professional.

Bradley sees the situation this way: "This is an opportunity that a commander

encounters less than once every hundred years. We are about to destroy a

hostile army almost in its entirety and advance from here to the German border."

To optimize His advance, the meticulous Patton studies

William the Conqueror's conquest of Normandy . He says in his memoirs: “I read

Freeman's “The Conquest of Normandy” paying attention to the roads used in Normandy and Brittany.”

In August 1944, the United States Army advances through the

Brittany peninsula with the aim of taking Brest with its important port.

The battle of Brest is one of the toughest of the Norman campaign. The city

is besieged by the VIII. Army Corps. The German paratroopers put up a

tough resistance. They fought house to house. The city would surrender only on September 19,

resisting more than Paris. The allies paid another high cost,

some 4,000 dead and 38,000 wounded. German prisoners.

After this Allied advance, Marshal Von Kluge asks Hitler for permission to withdraw, but

in exchange he receives a direct order to counterattack. The Führer orders a desperate counterattack (under

the name Operation Lüttich) to contain the Allied advance

. Hitler irrationally demands that all available panzer units cooperate in

a concentrated attack aimed at recapturing the Cotentin Peninsula

and cutting off the resupply of American forces in the province of Brittany.

According to operations officer Bodo Zimmerman, Von Kluge knew "very well that carrying out this

order meant the collapse of the Normandy front", but his doubts were ignored.

Kluge suggested that there was no chance of success and that the German forces in

Normandy should withdraw to the River Seine, pivoting on the intact defenses south of Caen,

but on August 4, Hitler categorically ordered the attack to be launched.

It demands that eight of the nine panzer divisions in Normandy be used in the

attack and that the Luftwaffe commit its entire reserve, including 1,000 fighter aircraft.

Although ordered to wait "until all tanks, guns and aircraft were assembled",

Kluge and SS General Paul Hausser decide to attack as soon as possible,

before the overall situation deteriorated further.

Instead of eight panzer divisions, only four (and one of them incomplete) could

be relieved of their defensive duties and assembled in time with a total of

300 tanks. These were the 2nd SS Panzer Division and part of the first,

along with the 2nd Panzer Division and the 116th Panzer Division of the Army.

The Panzer Corps was supported by two

Infantry Divisions and five Kampfgruppen, formed from the remains of other units.

The intention was to attack the US 30th Infantry Division east of Mortain,

then break through American defenses to reach the coast.

Had surprise been achieved, the attack might well have been successful,

but Allied code-breakers had intercepted and deciphered the orders for

Operation Lüttich on 4 August, thus managing to warn of the attack in the early hours.

At the beginning of the operation, the Germans manage to capture the town of Mortain, while the

2nd Panzer Division attacks several hours later, heading southwest towards Avranches.

It manages to penetrate several kilometers into the American lines, before being stopped by

the 35th Infantry Division and a commando of the 3rd Armored Division just 3 km from Avranches.

After these events, by noon the morning fog had dispersed

and a large number of Allied aircraft appeared over the battlefield.

The Luftwaffe reports that its fighters are attacked by Allied aircraft from the

moment they take off and cannot even reach the battlefield.

With this, the Germans give orders to go on the defensive along the entire front,

but poorly communicated orders make this impossible to achieve,

with some forces withdrawing and others holding their position.

By August 13 and after 5 days of fighting, the offensive had completely stopped and the

German forces had been expelled from Mortain. The Germans had lost

120 tanks and assault guns to Allied counterattacks and air raids.

Hitler, already suspicious of Kluge's involvement

in Valkyrie, relieves him and appoints Marshal Walter Model as his replacement.

After defeating the German counterattack, the allies gained momentum and launched

Operation Tractable to take the town of Falés and surround the German forces that

were retreating as best they could. The Canadians and Poles attack from the North towards

the South, forming one arm of the pincer, and the French and Americans attack from the South,

taking the towns of Alenzón and Argentan towards the North.

The Falaise gap had closed, catching Marshal Model's forces in the act. However

, when the encirclement occurred, the 2nd SS Panzer Corps had begun

its counterattack against the Polish forces on Hill 262, to reopen the pocket and escape.

With American and Canadian forces facing

German counterattacks in their sectors, the Poles had to defend against

two veteran panzer divisions to keep the gap closed.

On the morning of August 20, the 2nd SS Das Reich Division and the 9th SS Hohenstaufen Panzer Division

attacked the Polish positions on Hill 262. The ridge of Mont Ormel, with its commanding view

of the area, was the only escape route. which was still open to the Germans.

The Poles managed to repel two German attacks, suffering heavy casualties and expending

almost all their ammunition. As an example, a German tank, positioned northeast

of Mont Ormel, managed to destroy five Yerman tanks in just two minutes.

But despite being overwhelmed by counterattacks,

the Polish forces continued to hold the high ground on Mont Ormel, which they referred to

as the "Mace", inflicting heavy casualties on the German forces through artillery fire.

After many hours, the Germans managed to isolate the ridge and force the opening of

a narrow corridor. But lacking the combat power to close the corridor,

the Poles directed constant and accurate artillery fire against German units retreating from the pocket, causing heavy casualties.

The next day, less intense attacks continued until noon,

when the last German attempt to overrun the position was defeated

at close range. After this, the Poles were relieved by the

Canadian grenadiers shortly after noon. Their resistance had ensured the closure

of the Falaise pocket and the collapse of the German position in Normandy.

In the fighting around Hill 262, the Germans lost 2,000 men killed,

5,000 prisoners, 55 tanks, 152 more armored vehicles, and 44 guns.

After the stock market closed definitively, the Wehrmacht

in France had largely collapsed. The Lehr Panzer Division and the 9th SS Panzer Division

existed in name only. The 12th SS Panzer Division had lost 94 percent of its

armor and almost all of its field guns. 500 tanks are destroyed and some 40,000 to

50,000 men are taken prisoner, for whom the war ends on August 21.

Despite this and due to the effort to endure the siege and then try to

escape from it, some 100,000 German soldiers managed to escape from it,

which would generate serious criticism of General Montgomery for not closing the pocket forcefully before

. By the end of August, by any analysis, the German defense in France had already

been defeated and the failed counterattack ordered by Hitler had contributed to this.

On those dates, Operation PLUTO is already taking place.

which consists of the construction of a 130 kilometer pipeline under the English Channel

from the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg to bring fuel to the Allied Army.

Through this energy route, almost 800 million liters of fuel

are supplied to the Western allied forces.

By mid-August, the Allies also carry out a landing in southern France,

Operation “Dragoon”. 100,000 men land on the coast of Provence near Nice.

About 2,000 ships participate and the objective is to occupy the ports of Marseille and Toulon,

and then link up with Overlord's troops. It is the final blow for the Axis forces in

France, which are already thinking about a defense behind the border of Belgium and Germany.

After the landings in the south, the French Resistance rises up against the Germans in

Paris. It is not a priority for the allies but Eisenhower makes the decision to help

the Resistance. The Americans fear a bloody fight like the one they saw in Brest,

Caen or Cherbourg. But in a city of 4 million inhabitants and with an

unmatched cultural treasure, entering the city is a danger.

Because of this, they plan to overtake the city, advance to Germany and have Paris surrender

without a street fight. The plan is carried out by General Patton without any major problems.

Desperate, Hitler wrote an urgent cable to General Dietrich von Choltitz

who was governor of Paris: "Paris must not fall into the hands of the enemy except as a

field of ruins." The general with great courage ignores the message and pays no attention.

At that time great generals and marshals were being arrested and executed for the

July 20 plot. Furthermore, Choltitz has a wife and three children in Germany,

but that does not change him. his decision. Under his command, beautiful Paris would not be destroyed.

By August 24, Eisenhower was liberated at the request of French General

De Gaulle, who was already thinking about the post-war period, allowing French troops to enter Paris first.

Under the command of General Leclerc, the second armored division takes the main

points and arrests the German general von Choltitz. But within this group,

there is also a group of 150 Spaniards who enter the Parisian city before anyone else.

of General Franco, his tanks nicknamed “Madrid, Santander or Guernica”

travel along the Elysées Avenue. A member of said group named Manuel Fernández comments:

“We were volunteers for the defense of freedom, which Franco took from us,

always with the. “I thought that this would lead us to cross the Pyrenees and return

freedom to Spain, but it was not to be.” Paris is liberated with the French and Spanish

at the helm, saving itself from the fire planned by Hitler who had already sent a

detailed list of bridges, museums and even the Eiffel Tower to be destroyed. Intrigued by the

fate of his plan, the führer often asked. : “Is Paris burning?”

But General Dietrich von Choltitz does not obey and surrenders that same day, signing the capitulation.

Less than 3 months before D-Day, Vichy France is dead, and General de Gaulle's France. But

why does von Choltitz disobey Hitler and not burn Paris? His attitude is the product of his

last personal meeting with the Führer a few days before. On August 6, he is summoned to the

Wolf's Lair in East Prussia before taking over as commander. of the Reich in the Paris region.

Until then he had faith in the Fuhrer and had even murdered Jews in the east.

But the image he gets of Hitler that afternoon is demoralizing:

“An old, stooped and flabby man . , with thinning gray hair:

a trembling and physically broken human being.

As Hitler ranted about the perfidy of the generals'

July 20 plot to kill him, I witnessed the terrible eruption of a hate-filled mind.

He spoke in bloodthirsty language with foam literally coming out of his mouth.

Sweat ran down his face as he spoke enthusiastically about the hanging

of the generals. I saw in front of me someone who had lost his mind.

The fact that the life of our nation was in the hands of a crazy being who no longer

"I couldn't judge the situation or I wasn't willing to really see it, it depressed me immensely."

Hitler was clearly no longer in his right mind, and Choltitz as he comments decided to save Paris at the

risk of being executed along with his entire family. After being captured by the Allies,

Choltitz always presented himself, not only as the “savior of Paris,” but as a

convinced anti-Nazi despite having acknowledged atrocious crimes. Once in captivity in England

he would confess: “The worst task I carried out, although I carried it out with great efficiency,

was the liquidation of the Jews. I carried out that order down to the smallest detail.” Despite this,

Choltitz would never be taken to a war tribunal and would die in 1966.

With the liberation of Paris, the writer Ernest Hemingway returned and wrote in 1944:

”I had a feeling of suffocation in my throat. I put together the glasses because there now, below us,

gray and always beautiful, stretched the city that I love most in the entire world.”

After the fall of Paris, the allies would continue advancing, with Montgomery to the

north through Belgium and Holland and Patton to the center as the main protagonists. There would still

be 8 long months of fighting before the end of the war in Europe.

On the other side of the front, the Soviet Union was pressing

forcefully with an army of more than 6 million soldiers. By the end of 1944,

the Soviets were already capturing Warsaw and approaching the

German border. Stalin's troops would arrive first in Berlin and achieve the German surrender on

May 7, 1945 unconditionally, definitively ending National Socialism.

The Allied landing in Normandy had not only served to accelerate Hitler's fall and to

save numerous Soviet and German lives. But it allowed

the Americans and British to recover France, Belgium and Holland, which otherwise

would have fallen into the hands of the Soviet Union, as happened with half of Germany,

Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, which from 1945 would be of socialist regime.