Books: The Reluctant Prussian

• Share

(2 of 2)

Act of Treason. At that point, Von Choltitz still intended to do his duty, and he said so. "You are a good advocate of Paris, Mr. Taittinger. You have done your duty well. And likewise I, as a German general, must do mine." But there were other things that weighed on him. The one interview he had with Hitler in his life—the one assigning him to Paris—had been unsettling. He went expecting to be inspired; he came away convinced that Hitler was mad. Finally, it became clear that the war was lost, that the destruction of the City of Light would serve not the slightest military purpose. By then, explosives had been carefully planted under every symbol of Paris. To ignite them, Von Choltitz realized, would mean that his family's name would be forever dishonored in history. In the end, the Prussian reluctantly went beyond doing nothing: using the Swedish consul as his liaison, he secretly invited the Allies to enter Paris in order to save the city.

By his own lifelong military code, it was an act of treason beyond measure. By any other measure, it was one of the few luminous deeds to come out of the darkness of Nazi Germany.