Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation

by Charles Glass

Overview

An unforgettable portrait of Paris and Vichy France during the Nazi occupation

Americans in Paris recounts tales of adventure, intrigue, passion, deceit, and survival under the brutal Nazi occupation through the eyes of the Americans who lived through it all. Renowned journalist Charles Glass tells the story of a remarkable cast of five thousand expatriates—artists, writers, scientists, playboys, musicians, cultural mandarins, and ordinary businessmen—and their struggles in Nazi Paris. Glass's discovery of letters, diaries, war documents, and police files reveals as never before how Americans were trapped in a web of intrigue, collaboration, and courage.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143118664
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/22/2011
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

CHARLES GLASS was the chief Middle East correspondent for ABC News from 1983 to 1993 and has covered wars in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. His writings appear in Harper's Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, The Independent, and The Spectator. He is the author of Tribes with Flags, The Tribes Triumphant, Money for Old Rope, The Northern Front, and most recently Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation.

www.charlesglass.net

Table of Contents

Maps xiii

List of Illustrations xvii

Introduction 1

Part 1 14 June 1940

1 The American Mayor of Paris 9

2 The Bookseller 24

3 The Countess from Ohio 37

4 All Blood Runs Red 50

5 Le Millionnaire américain 60

6 The Yankee Doctor 66

Part 2 1940

7 Bookshop Row 89

8 Americans at Vichy 98

9 Back to Paris 113

10 In Love with Love 121

11 A French Prisoner with the Americans 136

12 American Grandees 139

13 Polly's Paris 144

14 Rugged Individualists 150

15 Germany's Confidential American Agent 159

Part 3 1941

16 The Coldest Winter 169

17 Time to Go? 174

18 New Perils in Paris 180

19 Utopia in Les Landes 188

20 To Resist, to Collaborate or to Endure 193

21 Enemy Aliens 204

Part 4 1942

22 First Round-up 213

23 The Vichy Web 224

24 The Second Round-up 239

25 'Inturned' 246

26 Uniting Africa 261

27 Americans Go to War 268

28 Murphy Forgets a Friend 275

29 Alone at Vittel 280

30 The Bedaux Dossier 283

Part 5 1943

31 Murphy versus Bedaux 291

32 Sylvia's War 298

33 German Agents? 304

34 A Hospital at War 310

35 The Adolescent Spy 314

36 Clara under Suspicion 318

37 Calumnies 325

Part 6 1944

38 The Trial of Citizen Bedaux 335

39 The Underground Railway 341

40 Conspiracies 347

41 Springtime in Paris 350

42 The Maquis to Arms! 358

43 Résistants Unmasked 363

44 Via Dolorosa 371

45 Schwarze Kappelle 374

46 Slaves of the Reich 376

47 One Family Now 378

48 The Paris Front 385

49 Tout Mourir 393

Part 7 24-26 August 1944

50 Liberating the Rooftops 407

51 Libération, not Liberation 411

Epilogue 413

Endnotes 419

Acknowledgements 491

Select Bibliography 495

Index 501

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A story of extraordinary precision... absorbing." —Financial Times

"Rich in intrigue and heroism... a fascinating treat." —Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph (UK)

"Glass, a world-class journalist, proves a gifted historian in this electrifying account of resistance, collaboration, terror, and valor." — Parade magazine

"[Glass] skillfully uses memoirs, diaries, letters, documents and official records to draw a picture of expatriates caught in a mesh of deceit, bravery, self-sacrifice and fear, and places them in the context of diplomacy and the wider war." —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Editorial Reviews

"A story of extraordinary precision... absorbing." —Financial Times

"Rich in intrigue and hero'sm... a fascinating treat." —Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph (UK)

"Glass, a world-class journalist, proves a gifted historian in this electrifying account of resistance, collaboration, terror, and valor." — Parade magazine

"[Glass] skillfully uses memoirs, diaries, letters, documents and official records to draw a picture of expatriates caught in a mesh of deceit, bravery, self-sacrifice and fear, and places them in the context of diplomacy and the wider war." —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

From the Publisher

Once upon a time, historians told stories about the brave and the cowardly, about heroes, villains, and the many whose lives lay somewhere in between. That's what Glass (former chief Middle East correspondent, ABC News; Tribes with Flags) has done in this extraordinary narrative of the lives of the nearly 5000 Americans who lived in Paris during the German occupation from June 1940 to August 1944. For Clara de Chambrun, related by marriage to FDR on one side and the Vichy premier Laval on the other, life went on much as before—dinners at Maxim's, fine wine, dresses from Schiaparelli. But Sumner Jackson, chief surgeon at the American Hospital, was at constant risk for his work with the Resistance, spiriting Allied soldiers out of Paris. Millionaire Pierre Bedaux carried on business as usual, only with Germany now. Eventually arrested by the United States and charged with treason, he killed himself rather than face public humiliation. Glass is scrupulously fair to his subjects: there are no clear-cut villains in this story (although there are some heroes). VERDICT This is outstanding popular history, well researched and told and never oversimplified. It's difficult to conceive of anyone who wouldn't enjoy this exceptional book.—David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Library Journal

Well-traveled journalist Glass (The Tribes Triumphant, 2006, etc.) reckons with a handful of intrepid Americans who stuck it out in Paris during the Nazi occupation. Of the 30,000 Americans who lived in Paris before World War II, the author estimates that about 5,000 stayed after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, despite warnings to leave by American Ambassador William Bullitt. When the Nazis marched triumphantly through Paris in June 1940, the French premier had fled, essentially leaving Bullitt, who helped convince the Nazis not to bomb the city, in charge. Americans did not have cause to fear the Germans, as the United States would not declare war on Germany for another two years. Jews and blacks, however, were most often deported to camps. The remaining Americans were able to move rather fluidly between the French and German sides, and sometimes their loyalties grew murky and questionable. In alternating chapters that delineate the daily tension of four years in Occupied Paris, Glass pursues some of the notable American characters who congregated at the protected American sites, including Countess Clara Longworth de Chambrun, a Cincinnati heiress married to a French banker (and descendent of the Marquis de Lafayette), who was steadfast in keeping the American Library running during the Occupation; millionaire industrialist Charles Bedaux, who opened his country estate to marvelous collaborationist parties and later faced charges of treason; stalwart Yankee doctor Sumner Jackson, who tended prisoners and wounded at the American Hospital in Neuilly; and Sylvia Beach, American bookseller and publisher of James Joyce, who eventually had to close her seminal Shakespeare and Company storeunder Nazi threat of confiscation. "Everybody we knew was for resistance," she declared righteously. Most of Glass's tales aren't quite so clear-cut, but they illuminate a dark, fascinating period in World War II history. Agent: Tina Bennett/Janklow & Nesbit

Kirkus Reviews