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Otago Daily Times, Issue 25625, 28 August 1944, Page 5

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FRENCH ENTER PARIS GERMANS SURRENDER (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 25. It was stated at Supreme Allied Headquarters that the 2nd French Armoured Division, which early this morning moved into Paris, had by noon crossed the Sevres bridge. Another column reached the Gobelins district, in the southern part of Paris. It is announced at Allied Headquarters that the German garrison which surrendered at Paris is estimated at 10,000. One strongpoint is still holding out at Champigny, on the south-east edge of Paris. Some groups are resisting in the north-east and north-west suburbs. The last Germans have gone from Paris, stated Paris radio to-night a few minutes after the announcement that the German commander of Paris had surrendered to General le Clerc. The German Command, under the surrender terms, ordered firing to cease, and white flags were hoisted: Enemy weapons will be surrendered intact, and the German troops will be gathered without weapons at a determined place pending new orders. Paris radio added that General de Gaulle arrived in Paris at 7 p.m. today, and in a brief speech said: “I wish simply from the bottom of my heart to say, ‘Vive Paris.’” Algiers radio said the National Council of Resistance met in Paris yesterday and issued this proclamation: “The day for which hundreds of thousands of valiant Frenchmen have given their lives dawns gloriously on the barricades.” . , Dealing with the situation in the French capital, just before the complete surrender, a communique from the French Forces of the Interior states: “The F.F.I. chiefs yesterday received the first patrol of the 2nd French Armoured Division m the Hotel de Ville, Paris. The F.F.I. then controlled the main official buildings and most of the public highways. The Germans, however, were ' solidly entrenched at several places. . “They are dancing for joy in Paris to-day,” says a British United Press despatch from Paris. New Revolution “As we entered the city thousands of partisans, young men of the French Forces of the Interior and last war veterans, lined the streets, joyfully dancing. Meanwhile the new French revolution raged. The troops of the French Army are fighting for the barricades and for single houses with rifles, machine guns, and sometimes with bare hands. “Cries of ‘Vive la France’ can be heard everywhere throughout the city. As we rode in, thousands lined the streets, cheering and singing the * Marseillaise,’ with tears coursing down their cheeks. The whole city was beflagged, and people shouted, ‘Merci, merci,’ and climbed all .over us. I never saw such a frenzy of excitement. The people who flocked into the streets last night, when the first French troops entered the city, turned on the lights everywhere, and there was nothing we could do to get them turned off. “ Some time later, the Allied tanks drove down the Boulevard Montparnasse and approached the Invalides. Sniping occurred at the Porte d’Orleans, through which General de Clerc is reported to have personally entered the city.” Reuter’s correspondent with the forces entering Paris says the German artillery, at present ensconced on the far side of the city, is laying down shells and blanketing our advance columns with shrapnel bursts. Shooting and flames are everywhere, but unmindful French civilians who stayed up all night to greet the liberators danced amid the actual fighting, risking their own lives. General de Gaulle spent the night near Paris, listening to radio reports from front-line troops. His operator said the general gave no hint of his feelings as he listened stoically to the news of the advance to the city. The Germans are reported to be engaging in wholesale vandalism and destruction as revenge against the French Forces of the Interior, says the Associated Press correspondent. Scenes of Carnage

The streets of Paris last, night saw scenes of carnage such as have not been witnessed since the French Revolution.

The Parisians, although they have not much food, loaded the reconnaissance 'forces with gifts of food and wine. '

An American infantry column at about 11 a.m. to-day drove towards Notre Dame, which is still held by the Germans. Crowds fled to shelter as machine-guns and rifles cracked. Within a few minutes streets which had been choked with laughing and weeping humanity again became a battleground. Airmen are piloting artillery spotters over Paris, which is black with American tanks and troops. The convoys stretch for miles in a solid mass of guns and tanks with armoured cars out in front. The towns and villages through which the vast armament is passing have been lined with cheering French people. Describing the events in Paris before the German armistice “ trick,” the Daily Mail’s correspondent with the French-American columns says riots swept Paris on August 19, in which scores of Germans were slaughtered. The city from one end to the other became a mass of small-scale bloody fights. The rioting went on through Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. People forgot to eat or sleep. ' The Germans in working-class districts were attacked on all sides, and as they retreated into the houses fired point blank at the frenzied crowds. Many Frenchmen died, but they stormed the Huns and cut them to pieces. Mobs surrounded • the Quai d’Orsay, refusing to believe that Laval had fled, and shouted: “Bring out Laval! Off with his head!” The Germans at first tried to stem the flood with brutal reprisals and wholesale shootings. They lined up 500 partisans, shot them, and flung the bodies in the Seine. Then they began to cringe because blood lust consumed the pistol-armed business men and knife-slashing Apaches. Refugees from Paris told the Associated Press that the Grand Palais on the Champs Elysee was burped, with the loss of scores of lives, during a circus performance on August 23, when a pitched battle broke out between patriots and Germans in the surrounding streets.