See More See LessĪugust 15th, 1944 - The Second D-Day: Operation Dragoon Operation Dragoon was the code name for the Allied invasion of Southern France on August 15, 1944. While there is no record of Nordling's and von Choltitz's private negotiations, grateful Parisians conferred the title of "Savior of Paris" on the German general and the Swedish diplomat was awarded the country's highest honor, the Croix de Guerre avec palme. Paris had been spared the fate suffered by so many European and Russian cities on the orders of a demented dictator. Von Choltitz disobeyed his Führer's orders and on the morning of August 25 surrendered the city to General Leclerc at the Hôtel Le Meurice.
The Resistance was pushing ahead and von Choltitz decided not to engage in street battles. They were soon joined by the US 4th Infantry Division. On the night of August 24, General Phillippe Leclerc's 2nd French Armored Division made their way into the outskirts of Paris. Hitler's orders to von Choltitz had been brutally specific: "Paris must not fall into enemy hands except as a field of ruins." After the start of the Paris uprising, Nordling held several meetings with General von Choltitz to try to limit the bloodshed and damage to the city. He also made sure that there were Luftwaffe bombers available at Le Bourget airport to bomb the city. When he arrived in Paris on August 5, General von Choltitz did everything necessary to mine the bridges throughout the city and many of its most famous monuments. He played an important role in ensuring Red Cross access to prisoners of war throughout the conflict. Nordling spoke French more often than Swedish and felt himself to be a "citizen of Paris." During the war, Nordling had often mediated between the French and their German occupiers. He succeeded his father as Sweden's consul-general in Paris in 1926. Raoul studied at theLycée Janson-de-Sailly and then joined his father's company which had been established in Paris at the end of the 1870s. Raoul Nordling (November 11, 1882-October 1, 1962) was a Swedish businessman and diplomat who was born in Paris and spent most of his life there. For those actions he was nicknamed "the Smasher of Cities." But with only 20,000 men to hold a city of three-million, von Choltitz had no illusions about the outcome of the battle for France's capital. Von Choltitz was considered a "ganz Harter" - a tough guy - for his role in obliterating Rotterdam in 1940 and Sevastopol in 1942.
He had served in WWI and was involved in rebuilding the Germany army during the Weimar Republic. Von Choltitz was born into an aristocratic Prussian family with an eight-centuries long history of military service. General Dietrich von Choltitz (November 9, 1894-November 5, 1966) had been appointed commander of the German garrison and military governor of Paris by Adolf Hitler after the July 20 plot on his life. The General and the Diplomat The Battle for Paris began on Augwhen the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) - the military structure of the French Resistance - staged an uprising against the German garrison after learning of the approach of General George Patton's Third Army.
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