خون مردان آزاد: آزادی پاریس، ۱۹۴۴

As the Allies struggled inland from Normandy in August of 1944, the fate of Paris hung in the balance. Other jewels of Europe — sites like Warsaw, Antwerp, and Monte Cassino — were, or would soon be, reduced to rubble during attempts to liberate them. But Paris endured, thanks to a fractious cast of characters, from Resistance cells to Free French operatives to an unlikely assortment of diplomats, Allied generals, and governmental officials. Their efforts, and those of the German forces fighting to maintain control of the city, would shape the course of the battle for Europe and color popular memory of the conflict for generations to come. In The Blood of Free Men , celebrated historian Michael Neiberg deftly tracks the forces vying for Paris, providing a revealing new look at the city's dramatic and triumphant resistance against the Nazis. The salvation of Paris was not a foregone conclusion, Neiberg shows, and the liberation was a chaotic operation that could have easily ended in the city's ruin. The Allies were intent on bypassing Paris so as to strike the heart of the Third Reich in Germany, and the French themselves were deeply divided; feuding political cells fought for control of the Resistance within Paris, as did Charles de Gaulle and his Free French Forces outside the city. Although many of Paris's citizens initially chose a tenuous stability over outright resistance to the German occupation, they were forced to act when the approaching fighting pushed the city to the brink of starvation. In a desperate bid to save their city, ordinary Parisians took to the streets, and through a combination of valiant fighting, shrewd diplomacy, and last-minute aid from the Allies, managed to save the City of Lights. A groundbreaking, arresting narrative of the liberation, The Blood of Free Men tells the full story of one of the war's defining moments, when a tortured city and its inhabitants narrowly survived the deadliest conflict in human history. In The Blood of Free Men, acclaimed historian Michael S. Neiberg provides a thrilling new history of the Liberation of Paris, showing how a host of brave fighters, commanders, and officials saved the city and, in the process, shaped the outcome of World War II. The Liberation of Paris was a chaotic, complex operation that could have easily ended in the city's ruin. Paris was only spared from being turned into a rubble-heap thanks to the efforts of a complex network of players, some of whom seemed to be working against each other. While the Allied Forces largely ignored Paris (focusing instead on reaching Germany), the French themselves were deeply divided. French political cells competed for control of the Resistance within Paris. Outside the city, Charles de Gaulle and his Free French Forces aimed to direct the Resistance and establish themselves at the head of France upon its liberation. Determined to stop these fragmented forces was the occupying German army, which clung to Paris with ever more ferocity as the Allied army approached from its Normandy beachhead. As Neiberg demonstrates, the Germans were at first far more concerned with Paris's well-being than were the Allies. Paris had been a relatively minor strategic priority for the Allies in the broader scope of the war, but as a major transportation hub for German troops and materiel in the region the city was critical to Germany's stranglehold on France. German commanders knew that, in order to move their forces freely within those parts of western Europe still under Axis control, they would have to keep Paris intact and in order for as long as possible. Many French citizens had themselves been content to forego outright confrontation with the occupiers in favor of city-wide stability; most Parisians lived alongside German troops in relative peace for the early years of the war. But that fa?ade was broken by the time the Allies flooded into Normandy. Hammered by deadly Allied bombing raids and starved by food shortages (which were only exacerbated by the appetites of German troops), many ordinary Frenchmen decided to act. Electrified by news gleaned furtively from the BBC, Parisians began to stand up to the Germans. Paris's policemen, many of them also Resistance members, stopped enforcing the Germans' repressive laws, forcing the SS and Gestapo to do their dirty work themselves. Tensions finally boiled over on August 19, when a group of brave Parisians?mostly policemen and Resistance fighters?faced off against their occupiers. It was a dangerous gambit, as Hitler had ordered the city's military leadership to destroy Paris rather than let it fall. Indeed, Neiberg reveals that, contrary to popular conceptions (which hold that Dietrich von Choltitz, the city's military governor, had never intended to obey Hitler's orders), the mounting chaos may have actually have led to the city's demolition. Tragedy was only averted by the intervention of Swedish Consul General Raul Nordling. Neiberg shows how the oft-overlooked Nordling brokered a ceasefire with von Choltitz, buying the Allies the time they needed to make it to the city?and thereby saving Paris from the fate Hitler had planned for it. Tracking the movements of entire armies as well as the machinations of individuals on the ground, The Blood of Free Men provides an arresting narrative of the Liberation, as well as an authoritative explanation of its place in the scope of World War II and in French history at large. Gripping, fast-paced, and populated with unforgettable characters, it tells the full story of one of the war's defining moments, when a tortured city and its inhabitants stood up to reclaim their liberty The end of this nightmare Resistance Berlin, Washington, London and Paris The smasher of cities The guns go off, August 15-18 "The most beautiful days of our lives," August 19-20 The days of the barricades, August 21 and 22 Deliverance, August 23 and 24 Apotheosis, August 25-27. Describes the operation involving Resistance fighters, Allied commanders, and French citizens that resulted in the liberation of Paris in 1944 from German occupation and ultimately helped shape the outcome of World War II