Chapter 24 Details, or details old six

The ending is not valuable, and the truth is not valuable, but the details in the process are valuable. "Paris is worth two hundred thousand dead," said Colonel Rolle, who planned the insurrection.Although the price of doing so may be the destruction of Paris, he believes that the French Communist Party, which controls most of the underground armed forces in Paris, and many patriotic French people who have lived under the iron heel of the German army for four years, are willing to pay this price . General de Gaulle, who was in exile in Algiers, would never allow an uprising led by the Communist Party in Paris to cause him to lose control of the country that was about to be liberated, and he ordered those responsible for the airdrop of weapons: "No weapon shall be airdropped directly to the Communists, or the outcome could fall into their hands."

In Hitler's eyes, of course there were more people worth dying for Paris.He issued an order to all people related to Paris: "Paris must not fall into the hands of the enemy. If this happens, all he will find there are ruins." On the day Paris was liberated, he was still thinking about it. : "Is Paris Burning?" Paris has become the target of a three-way scramble, and whoever is most capable of taking the city is unwilling to join the fray.The Allied plan was to delay the liberation of Paris and avoid falling into a costly urban street battle. Moreover, the captured Paris would require the equivalent of eight combat divisions to maintain it, while consuming a quarter of all the troops on the Second Front oil source.

A tense and intricate struggle began. Is Paris Burning? "records the soul-stirring August spent in Paris in 1944.The two authors, Lale Collins and Dominique LaPierre, are respectively reporters for the American "Newsweek" and the French "Paris Match Pictorial". The 300,000-word reportage they published 20 years after the liberation of Paris has become a world-renowned reportage. Famous piece in the history of journalism.This year, Lale Collins passed away on June 20. The Chinese version of the book was also repackaged and published by Yilin Publishing House. This is the last translation of Mr. Dong Leshan.

This book was, to me in college, a fill-in-the-blank in the history of foreign journalism.When I read it later, I had a feeling of seeing each other late, so some time ago I was discussing business with a young colleague. When it came to detailed training in news writing, the other party asked me to recommend a template. I said without hesitation, "Paris Burning" Yet? ". Within a few pages of this book, I regret that it would have helped my journalism and writing career if I had read it earlier.But having said that, without the experience of running around like headless chickens in those years, it may be difficult to understand the subtleties.Maybe only when I have experienced the ups and downs, can I realize how difficult and amazing it is for others to write such a book.

Nowadays, there is a popular word called "grand narrative". Unfortunately, many people put this hat on some works, which further highlights the shabbyness of the decorated ones who are not grand at all.Let's learn from these two brothers what a grand narrative is: nothing but details.They spent three years collecting materials, interviewing more than 800 people, and dared to claim that everything in their works has a basis, everyone has a whereabouts, and every sentence has a source. On August 25, 1944, the Allied forces invaded Paris. The book uses 17 pages to describe the scene of Parisians welcoming the liberators. There are hundreds of people with names and surnames. The stories used are vivid and detailed. The integrity is absolutely to the point of luxury.

In many cases, the ending is not valuable, the truth is not valuable, but the details in the process are valuable.In fact, "speaking with details" is also the most laborious, so many people would rather take it lightly, but they are not willing to spend stupid efforts to find out the details.And here's where the real appeal is: Choltitz went to Wolf's Lair to take orders, and his orderly, Corporal Meyer, hoped his commander wouldn't come back too early, because that night he was going to see him for ten months This is the first film of the German comedy "The Buchholz Family", which is showing at the Vendome cinema on Boulevard Opera, and the next part will not be shown until next week.Meyer didn't want to miss it.

To be able to spend a lot of effort to collect, it also requires a high IQ to tailor.Journalism is like Rodin's theory of sculpture: take away the useless things from a stone, and the rest is your own work.It's simple to say, but how to get rid of the useless and then highlight the useful things absolutely requires superb narrative skills and writing skills.Lale Collins and Dominique LaPierre did it. They organically kneaded rich materials and interspersed the stories of hundreds of people. Every chapter and every section has ups and downs and dramas. The imposing momentum makes this documentary work superior to all thrilling novels.

True storytellers never use qualitative or decorative words, but leave the right and joy of drawing conclusions to the reader, as Lale Collins and Dominique LaPierre did.Please allow me to transcribe a few sentences to experience the tension and anxiety under the calm in the book.This episode happened when Choltitz, who was ordered in danger, left Hitler and went to Paris to take up his post to visit his home—sorry, I brought the "order in danger" to me, and the two of them never bothered to use it. Didn't think of the word: "A few minutes before the black Hodge took her husband west, Mrs. Choltitz noticed the General's orderly rushing up to his room again and fetching a large suitcase. She knew that. The suitcase contained her husband's civilian clothes."

Is Paris Burning? "fragments gentleman On the eve of the Allied capture of Paris, noncombatant German soldiers began to withdraw from the city, and Paris was looted car by car.An officer living in the Imperial Hotel tore off the curtains and stuffed them into a suitcase, saying, "I'm going to use them to make clothes later on." The machines were also taken; and at the Place Lamartine a group of German signalmen transported several pigs that had been raised in the garden while the neighbors watched. On the Boulevard Victor Hugo in Neuilly, an SS colonel wrote a thank-you note to "my unknown host for his insincere reception" before leaving.He wrote: "I left this apartment as before. The gas, electricity, telephone bills were paid, and the doorman was tipped." He told the owner of the house: "The three-volume The Collected Works of Voltaire, which have been put back on the bookshelf after reading”, and then attached a banknote, “to compensate for the two crystal champagne glasses that I accidentally broke during my stay”.

law rape Pierre Tettinger, the mayor of Paris under the Vichy regime, saw the firm determination of the Prussian soldier to raze Paris to the ground in front of the commander of the German Paris theater, von Choltitz. While Choltitz was panting and coughing because he was talking too excitedly, he suggested that the two of them go outside on the balcony. Facing the beautiful city unfolding in front of them, Taidinger made a final statement to the soldier who seemed to have no emotion: "The task given to a general is often to destroy, not to preserve. Just imagine that one day you will have the opportunity To be on this balcony again as a tourist, to see again these buildings that make us happy and that make us sad. You can say, 'I could have destroyed them all, but I kept them,' As a gift to mankind. 'My dear general, is not that worthy of the glory of a conqueror?'

trek The gates of Fresner Prison in Paris were opened, and more than 2,000 prisoners were to be deported to German concentration camps. Among them were Pierre Le Fauche, the leader of the Paris Resistance Movement, and his wife Marie-Hélène Le Fauche at the prison gate Saw the husband. "He's alive, he's alive!" she whispered to herself.The prisoners were put on the bus.The moment he boarded the car, Pierre raised his head slightly at her. "He saw me!" She could no longer hold back her tears. The bus engine started.Mary Helen ran back to her bicycle, stepped on it, and pedaled along with the car. Her husband was put on a train.The train started, and she continued to follow on her bicycle.She didn't know why or how, but she was determined to follow her husband's prison wagon as far as she could. The train threw her farther and farther away, but she continued to pedal. The resistance group tried unsuccessfully to free the prison train, but gave Helen time.As the Germans herded the prisoners along the bombed-out tracks to a new train, Helen overtook them.She pushed the bicycle, rushed over among the wild chrysanthemums, and arrived in front of her husband.Her first action without thinking was to take out a white handkerchief from her pocket and wipe the dirt from the corners of his eyes. She would never figure out why the SS guard behind her husband was so lenient, letting her walk beside his pale, shambling husband with a nonchalant shrug.Her skirt brushed lightly at his tattered trousers, and her hand held his tightly.She took the time to enjoy the two hours with him to the fullest, enjoying her husband's still-present sense of humor: "I want to promise you one thing, after this trip experience, I will never argue with you about the price of a sleeper car in the future." .” The train started, and the slender white figure was still following behind.In two and a half days, she traveled 183 kilometers without sleep, three-quarters of the way to Germany. A final rescue attempt by the Red Cross failed.At the Nancy train station, she was holding the Lanvin handbag she bought before the war in both hands, and she moved her lips lightly, praying from time to time.She stood there proudly, without humiliation, watching the train slowly slide out of the station and out of sight. Mary Helen turned back to Paris, but she didn't give up.After the liberation of Paris, she crossed the lines of the American and German troops in a Red Cross ambulance, returned to Nancy, and found a secret police official whom some friends in Paris knew, and he was treated by a Frenchman who had done black market transactions with him. Finally, he persuaded him to take her to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany in a car of the French General Staff, took Pierre out, and then the three drove back to Nancy, and finally brought her husband back to the prison in Paris. at home. Of the 2,453 prisoners on that train, fewer than 300 ended up in Paris. captive On August 19, 1944, the people of Paris launched an uprising.For the first time in his life, Louis Berti, a pork butcher in Nanterre, pointed a gun at the German soldiers, disarmed two German devils who were drinking brandy in a restaurant, and escorted them to the district office.Along the way, he drove away three angry fellow countrymen who came up to spit in the faces of the two men. He said, "They are prisoners." One of the German soldiers turned around, wiped his face, nodded to him and said, " thanks." Six hours later, Louis Berti and 20 comrades who were also suppressed were taken to the German command post in Neuilly and lined up in a circle.A German soldier, one of the two Germans Berti had proudly captured, pushed them away into the circle and walked past them.Evidently he had been ordered to identify his captors.Berti went limp with fright as the soldier approached him in a circle. The German soldier looked him straight in the eyes, made a gesture, a gesture that seemed to wipe the spittle off his face, and then, without showing the slightest sign of recognition, he walked towards the next person. wedding Paris is in revolt.Colonel Paul Masbiau, with six of his men, stormed the hall of the first arrondissement of Paris. In the district hall, Henri Shadwell, the mayor of the Vichy regime, was about to officiate a wedding when he was dismissed and arrested by pistol-wielding rebels. Amidst the bride's cries, Colonel Masbio first solemnly announced that, in the name of the Liberation Committee, he took over the district government of the first district.Then, in equally solemn tones, he announced that the wedding proceeded. "According to the powers entrusted to me by the Resistance", he completed his first official action as the new mayor of the 1st arrondissement of the French capital: announcing the marriage of Lycianne Thiel and Narciss Fettifer. Standing across from him was only the bride, and the groom was in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.Lisiana Till, who had been waiting for three years, had a proxy wedding in the absence of the groom. news As the Allies decide to attack Paris, a journalistic competition begins among the correspondents, many swearing to be the first to broadcast from the liberated capital. CBS reporter Charles Collingwood had a valuable tip: He ran into General Bradley, who casually remarked that "it looks like the French 2nd Armored Division is going to liberate Paris."Knowing that he might not be able to find a broadcast station at that time, he had recorded a news announcement announcing the liberation of Paris in advance, and sent this report of the excitement and drama of that moment to London in preparation for the company's great moment. broadcast instantly to the world. The field censor at Allied HQ couldn't listen to the tape and forwarded it to London, and the London censor thought it had been cleared by the field censor and sent it back to CBS.Within minutes, Collingwood's vivid account of the liberation of Paris was broadcast around the world, and the news was heard with astonishment by the fighting resistance groups, the German forces holding on to Paris, and the Allied forces advancing on Paris. The news of the liberation of Paris happened two days after the news was released.No one can beat Collingwood. Benefit German military intelligence agent Bobby Bender pointed out to Allied contacts one by one every German fortification on every road leading to Paris.The once elegant playboy tossed his graying hair from the temples, swallowed his last sip of whiskey, and said to the young man in front of him: "If you are surprised by what I have just revealed, it is because I sincerely I firmly believe it is in the best interest of my country." Then he untied the holster and handed it to the Frenchman beside him: "Now, I consider myself a prisoner of yours." The French told him that he had no time, and that he would not be taken as a prisoner until the morrow. Following the route pointed out by Bobby Bender, the Allied forces invaded Paris.For the second time in 24 hours, he surrendered to the Frenchman, and this time, he accepted. accidental injury Sergeant Laleigh Carey promised to be the first GI to enter Paris.He passed his comrades in the jeep and headed straight for the Pont Saint-Cloud, shouting with joy.On the other side of the bridge, firefighter Jean David saw this strange vehicle, the helmet, and the uniform, and thought that these people could only be German soldiers.He picked up the Mauser and fired all the bullets in the magazine in one go.Carey was shot six times and fell bleeding to the pavement, fifty yards short of the Paris city line. Carey was sent to Marcel Thomas' pharmacy.He told those around him to "don't blame" David, and took out the cigarettes in his pocket to share with everyone.Three days later, filled with remorse and grief, David visited him in hospital with a bottle of wine. The paralyzed Carey was sent back to the United States and remains in touch with Miss Thomas.A year later, he died of this injury.In his final letter to Miss Thomas, he said: "We have helped a remarkable people and I will always remember you in my heart." knowledge The "Simon" tank of the 2nd Armored Division of the French Army is attacking the Etoile Square.The commander, Lieutenant Paul Quinon, spotted a German tank with a field telescope and announced to the gunner Rob Mady that the range: 1500 meters.After Madi calibrated the range of the sight on the cannon, he hesitated for a while, and without telling Quignon, he turned the sight three more times, and set the range at 1800 meters——Madi is a Parisian, and he remembered that he had been there for a long time. It was previously read in the "Volmot Almanac", the most common in France, that the distance between the Champs-Elysées from the Arc de Triomphe to the Obelisk is 1,800 meters. Maddy fired. The yearbook is right.His first shot hit a German tank. "Thankfully, if I had missed the launch by two meters to the right, I would have knocked out the monument!" Madi said. the bell Allied tanks rolled into Paris, and the Resistance broadcast a call for priests in all dioceses to ring the church bells.The bells of the Parisian churches, which had hung silent and listless for four years, rang one after the other, from one end of the city to the other.Within minutes, the entire sky of the capital vibrated with a solemn chorus of bells.Parisians listened to the bells in the dark, weeping. However, the thirteen-year-old Seville was so indignant that he did not hear the bells of the church of St. Philippe du Lour in his parish, that he called the deacon several times, but the line was always busy.A few days later, while attending Mass for the Liberation of Paris, the angry teenager learned why.The priest said at the beginning of his sermon: "I would like to thank everyone who called me to ring the bell, and I also want to remind you that in the excitement of that night you forgot one thing: there is no bell tower in St. Philip's Church. A clock." "There is nothing more suitable than us all donating money to buy a clock," the priest suggested. They donated money, and now the bell tower of St. Philip's Church rings every day. pity After the surrender of the German army in Paris, there were still sporadic German soldiers fighting stubbornly.Major Harry Lighthold escaped capture and took refuge in a corner on the third floor of the Admiralty in Place de la Concorde.He heard the cheers of the crowd in the square, peeped out, and saw a black convertible drive in, with a French general in the back seat. Killing a French general is an excellent way of ending his war.Major Lighthold thought, raising the submachine gun and aiming at the man.At this time, another thought appeared in his head: if he was shot, the crowd would search him and kill him. Reluctantly, he lowered the submachine gun from the window sill, feeling that whoever the general was, his life would not be worth his own. Two years later, in a prisoner-of-war camp, the naval officer knew from a newspaper photograph who the man his machine-gun sight had been aiming at for a split second. That was Charles de Gaulle. Is Paris Burning? "Quotations "I have enough generals to feed pigs." — Wilhelm Bergdorf, head of personnel at the German High Command, to Choltitz in 1942.Three years later, he called Choltitz to tell him that there were no generals left at the High Command. "Thank God they always fry the same leg." —Charles Carlette, an insurgent in Paris, carried World War I veteran Henri Gullin on his back to escape the German army. He saw Gullin's fake wooden leg blown off by a piece of tank shrapnel. "Tomorrow you shoot, today you clean the kitchen." —Franz, the chief of the German army, to the captured insurgent Baldu.He said these words every day, until seven days later, Franz, who became a prisoner, handed an envelope to Baldu, who had been cleaning the kitchen: "This is for my wife." "I want those who survived to fall into the hands of the regular army, not civilians." ——Scholtitz, commander of the German army in Paris, said to his opponents. "Wait a while, I'll capture you later." —Yves Blake dodging bullets that swept across the Tuileries Gardens to a German officer who emerged from the bushes to surrender. "Describing Paris today in words is like painting a desert sunset in black and white." —War correspondent Ed Bauer describing the pomp and circumstance when people celebrated the liberation of Paris Is Paris Burning? "(America) Lale Collins (France) Dominique Lapierre, Dong Leshan Yiyilin Publishing House, second edition in May 2005