An Ode to General Dietrich von Choltitz

It is a rare and mighty event when one, as I, can say they were part of the first mega-mega-mega-mega-mega-mega change in the history of one of the Western world’s most historic cities.

Today, January 2, 2008, I arrived in Paris on the very first day France has banned smoking in all bars and restaurants. There are few sea-change seminal events in a nation or culture’s history, but for Paris, a bastion of individual freedom, the smoking ban ranks near the top.

Even more uncanny is my discovery, after two days of awe-filled wonder with Paris’ unparalelled magnificance, that none of it would be here but for German general Dietrich von Choltitz. General Choltitz, at risk to his family’s life as well as his own, disobeyed Hitler’s order to burn Paris to the ground. Were one to make a bet that Von Choltitz would refuse Hitler the odds would have been a million to one. After all, he grew up in the Prussian military tradition and was perhaps Hitler’s most dependable general. Simply, he did what he was told. He did not hesitate to destroy Rotterdam or Sevastopol, or to execute scorched earth policies while retreating from the Russians.

But a meeting with Hitler just prior to his new post in Paris may have fractured his mind enough to allow the sunlit rays of reason and rational humanity to compete with his military code of blind obedience. Hitler, shaken by the assassination attempts and other pressures was a rambling mess. His new edict, the Sippenhaft Law, that families of disobedient officers would be killed left von Choltiz realizing how bestial Germanic culute had become.

However, what may have fortified his newfound resolve for looking beyond the soldier’s oath of loyalty was this plea from Paris mayor Pierre Charles Tattinger as they met at the general’s posh Meurice Hotel headqurters overlooking the Tuilerie Gardens, the Seine and the golden dome of Les Invalides, with the Eiffel Tower just beyond:

"Often it is given a general to destroy, rarely to preserve. Imagine that one day it may be given you to stand on this balcony again, as a tourist, to look once more on these monuments to our joys, to our sufferings, and be able to say, 'One day I could have destroyed this, and I preserved it as a gift to humanity.' General, is not that worth all a conqueror's glory?"

General von Holtitiz delayed, fed lies to Hitler’s high command and othrwise prevented Paris from becoming another Dresden, just as the French Second army, the U.S. 4th Infantry and the impassioned French resistance reclaimed the City of Light. General von Choltitz surrendered at the Meurice. He was to be tried in absentia in Germany for treason, but his highly placed friends managed to delay the trial until the war’s rend, thus preventing his court-martial and his family’s lives.

But we shall never know whether he would have destroyed Paris as part of a siege in a defensive military operation for then the general may have seen the razing of Paris as a jusitified military maneuver. It was apparent to him, however, that the German high command had no real interest in defending Paris for they kept moving toops out and failed to provide promised reinforcements. Thus, in the general’s eyes to destroy the city just for Hitler’s pleasure was a totally unjust cause. Anyway, so that this Ode may be pure, I will prefer to believe that general von Choltitz would never have destroyed Paris in any event.

So it is most ironic, incredibly so, that I come to a Paris saved from external flames on the day it extinguishes the internal ones. Now to the question Is Paris burning? we can truly answer, not anymore.

Richard F. Dawahare 1/3/08

ps I am now quite anxious to see the 1966 movie Is Paris Burning with Gert Frobe (of Goldfinger fame) playing the general.

Note :
After learning about general Von Choltitz I gathered the information for this pièce from an artile on HistoryNet.com by Kelly Bell. http://www.historynet.com/magazines/world_war_2/3031316.html?page=1&c=y