Volume One Available Now!

Our new book, Where Did They Put the Gestapo Headquarters? A Walking Tour of Nazi-Occupied Paris, is available for sale direct from Stew and Yooper Publications.

The price of the book is $24.95. All books sold directly will be autographed with a personal message. Sales tax will be covered by Yooper Publications.

For our domestic subscribers, we’ll pay the postage. For our international subscribers (and non-subscribers), the cost of postage will be added to the cost of the book.

If you would like to own and read our new book, please contact Sandy directly at sandy.ross@yooperpublications.com. Your review of the book on Amazon would be greatly appreciated (click here).

This is the first of three volumes on the occupation of Paris. I hope you enjoy the following preview of the book.

The False War & Vichy, 1940-1944

BRING OCCUPIED PARIS TO LIFE

(without obtaining a ration card to survive)

Come walk in the footsteps of the men, women, and children who lived, worked, and died in Nazi-occupied Paris. Your walks will take you to buildings, places, and sites that were significant to the Nazis, French Resistance, Free French, the British, and most importantly, the citizens of Paris.

“Maybe I’ll protect it; maybe I won’t. It’s up to me.”

Adolf Hitler

(to Albert Speer on the fate of Paris sometime during their three-hour tour of Paris on the morning of 28 June 1940)

Although World War II and the German occupation of Paris occurred more than 75 years ago, these historical events are still fresh in our minds. France spent almost 40 years denying its role in the collaboration with the Nazis and in particular, the arrests and deportations of the French Jewish population. While the German occupation of Paris started out rather benignly in June 1940, within two years the city and its citizens were firmly in the grip of the tightening Nazi vise.

WALK ONE (Vichy France)

Louis Darquier de Pellepoix to the Kommandantur du Groß -Paris

WALK TWO (PARIS BY NIGHT)

Cabaret le Shéhérazade to the Milice Headquarters

WALK THREE (SOLDIERS ON LEAVE)

Montmartre: UGIF to the Moulin Rouge

METRO WALKS (OTHER SITES TO VISIT)

Sample Stops

WALK ONE STOP 10

WALK TWO STOP 9

Testimonials

“Stew blends the dark history of buildings in Paris that are associated with the infamous deeds of the Gestapo with contrasting insights into the bravery of the French people, who, at great risk to themselves and their families, secretly resisted the German Occupation.”

⏤Squadron Leader Stanley Booker, MBE, RAF (Ret.), Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, Member: KLB Club

“An invaluable guide to a host of little-known locations and facts about wartime occupied Paris. Not just for the historian, this book will allow anyone to view this beautiful city of light in the shadows of enemy occupation.”

⏤Paul McCue

Historian, lecturer, and author of SAS Operation Bulbasket: Behind the Lines in Occupied France 1944

“Guidebooks are usually described as informative, sometimes entertaining and Stew Ross’ newest work is both. It is also more⏤it evokes a difficult and frightening time in the history of the City of Light. The detailed descriptions of sites such as the Vél’ d’Hiv’ or Gestapo headquarters as well as the home of glamorous traitors such as Coco Chanel reminds us of the choices people made during those years. Even more interesting is how Paris did its best to remain a capital of pleasure as nightclubs and cabarets remained open to the mainly German audience.”

⏤Cynthia Bisson, PhD

Professor of History, Belmont University

French Resistance Expert

“Another outstanding, well-researched, and presented book by Stew Ross. It gives a detailed guided walking tour full of facts about the activities of the Gestapo during their occupation of Paris during World War II. I highly recommend this book to everyone who has an interest in what life was like during the Nazi occupation in France.”

⏤Richard H.F. Neave

Member of Paris-based Libre Résistance SOE “F” section and author of SOE: A Life in the Shadows”

Walks Through History

Did You Know?

Did you know that even government postal services make mistakes? If you didn’t, then you’ve never had your mail delivered to the wrong address or vice versa. Well, the Royal Mail of Britain just made a major blunder.

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings (6 June 1944), the Royal Mail designed a stamp using a photo of American troops knee-deep in water as they left their landing craft to storm the beach. The stamp’s caption reads, “D-Day: Allied soldiers and medics wade ashore” ⏤only one problem.

The image used was a landing sometime in May 1944 in Dutch New Guinea (part of Indonesia). It was not Normandy. Almost immediately, social media was atwitter with comments about the errors (it’s easy to determine the landing craft were different than those used on the Normandy beaches and the men getting off are medics carrying stretchers).

I collect stamps (a dying hobby like model trains and bridge playing I suppose). Since stamps were invented, there have been some real whoppers of mistakes. Take for example, the American “Inverted Jenny” stamp with an upside-down aircraft (no, it wasn’t meant to honor air shows). Today, a mint and never-hinged inverted jenny stamp is worth around $1.6 million. Britain is also known for mistakenly issuing stamps without the head of the monarch (if it was King Charles I, it wouldn’t have been a mistake) or without perforations along the edges. This time however, the Royal Mail caught the problem before any stamps were printed and got out into the public.

US Airmail stamp: Inverted Jenny Air Mail issue of 1918, 24 cents. Photo by Bureau of Engraving and Printing (1918). United States Post Office Department. PD-US Government. Wikimedia Commons.

British designed D-Day stamp. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). The New York Times, 29 December 2018.

Too bad for us collectors (and the auction houses). So, the next time it happens, would all of you on social media please be quiet and don’t say anything ⏤ it ruins the fun (and our bank account).

Let’s Meet Abbe Franz Stock

Franz Stock (1904-1948) was born in a small village in Germany along with eight other brothers and sisters. Attending a Catholic-run elementary school, Franz made the decision to become a priest by the time he was twelve. In his early twenties, Franz entered the Catholic seminary in Paderborn, Germany. Several years later, Franz moved to Paris where he spent several years studying at the Institut Catholique (reportedly, he became the first German student of theology in France since the Middle Ages). Ordained in March 1932, Father Franz was assigned to the town of Effeln, northeast of Dusseldorf, Germany. Two years later, Franz returned to Paris where he lived at 23, rue Lhomond (5^e) while serving as rector to the German parish.

Abbé Franz Stock. Photo by anonymous (unknown date). Courtesy of the Franz-Stock-Komitee. PD-Release by Copyright Holder. Wikimedia Commons.

Tag: Mont-Valérian

Available Now: “Where Did They Put The Gestapo Headquarters?”