Tag: Occupied Paris

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Statuemania

So you read the title of this blog and automatically assumed I was going to share my opinion with you concerning recent events around our country. You were interested to know what I thought about the desire and the movements to destroy or relocate certain statues, paintings, or other memorials that certain people might find offensive.

No, I wanted to talk with you today about the deliberate destruction of approximately 1,750 bronze statues throughout France during the German Occupation of World War II. Not since the French Revolution had so many statues been destroyed (albeit for different reasons).

The Victor Hugo monument in Paris. Photo by anonymous (1908). Georges Lafenestre, L’œuvre de Ernest Barrias, Paris, Renouard, 1908. PD-70+. Wikimedia Commons.
The Victor Hugo monument in Paris. Photo by anonymous (1908). Georges Lafenestre, L’œuvre de Ernest Barrias, Paris, Renouard, 1908. PD-70+. Wikimedia Commons.

During the latter part of the 19th-century, the French government known as The Third Republic began a wide-spread campaign to erect bronze statues. These men (Joan of Arc being the lone woman) were considered heroes of France but in the minds of the citizens, they were closely associated with a widely considered corrupt government. This period of time was sarcastically dubbed “Statuemania.”  Learn more.

What Happened?

Well, first of all, the Nazis invaded France on 14 June 1940 and began a four-year occupation. Hitler created two zones in France: The Occupied and Unoccupied (Paris was in the Occupied Zone). After seventy years in existence, The Third Republic was replaced by the Vichy government headed by Marshal Pétain and Pierre Laval.

Pétain’s collaborationist government was located in the small spa town of Vichy—the Unoccupied Zone. By November 1942 with the Allied successes in North Africa, all pretenses of a separate government were gone when the Germans eliminated the Unoccupied Zone and began to increase their direct role in running occupied France including higher demands for agricultural products and other resources (including non-ferrous metals) to feed the Nazi military machine. Learn more about the Vichy government here.

After France was liberated in August 1944, it became clear that Pétain and Laval had sanctioned laws, decrees, and actions that far exceeded Nazi expectations (including quotas for the deportation of Jews). During their separate trials, Pétain and Laval tried to argue in their defense that they were only trying to keep the Nazis happy and so avoid greater hardships for the French—at least as long as you weren’t a Jew, Freemason, communist, gypsy, homosexual, political opponent or any other type of untermensch (inferior person). Read More Statuemania

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Puttin’ On The Ritz

 

For those of you who are familiar with our books (Where Did They Put the Guillotine? A Walking Tour of Revolutionary Paris and Where Did They Burn the Last Grand Master of the Knights Templar? A Walking Tour of Medieval Paris), you know they are built around visits to buildings, places, and sites significant to the book’s theme.

Those buildings and sites are only bricks and mortar or dirt and grass unless you know the stories behind them. Once the stories are told, the buildings and sites jump to life and not coincidentally, they are usually centered around some very interesting people.

Exterior of entrance to the Hotel Ritz Paris. Photo by Markus Mark (May 2009). PD-Release by Author. Wikimedia Commons.
Exterior of entrance to the Hotel Ritz Paris. Photo by Markus Mark (May 2009). PD-Release by Author. Wikimedia Commons.

The subject of today’s blog is one of those buildings. Although much younger than the buildings in our prior books, the Hotel Ritz Paris has hundreds of stories with a cast of legendary characters, not the least of which are the hotel’s occupants—both Germans and civilians—during the Nazi occupation of Paris between 1940 and 1944.

Listen to “Puttin’ On The Ritz” while you read.

Marie-Louise and César Ritz

Squeezed into the Paris newspaper headlines but subordinate to the daily updates on the Dreyfus Affair, the much anticipated “glittering reception” on 1 June 1898 formally announced the opening of César Ritz’s new hotel located at 15 Place Vendôme on the fashionable Right Bank in Paris. Invited guests to the Belle Époque event at the Hotel Ritz Paris included the writer Marcel Proust (1871−1922) who spent much of the evening watching the wealthy and internationally known guests, many of whom he would later feature (albeit under different names) in his books.

Portrait of César and Marie-Louise Ritz. Photo by anonymous (c. 1888). Schweizerische Verkehrszentrale. PD-70+. Wikimedia Commons.
Portrait of César and Marie-Louise Ritz. Photo by anonymous (c. 1888). Schweizerische Verkehrszentrale. PD-70+. Wikimedia Commons.

César Ritz (1850−1918) was already well known by 1898 for his premier hotels in Rome, Frankfurt, Monte Carlo, and other European locations. Every need of his guests was fulfilled. Despite owning and operating multiple hotels, The Hotel Ritz Paris would ultimately become his legacy. Unfortunately, Mr. Ritz passed away in 1918 leaving control of the hotel to his wife, Marie-Louise Ritz (1867−1961). After Mr. Ritz’s death, his wife (with assistance of the hotel’s managing director) would run the hotel with her son, Charles (Charley), who reluctantly joined the management team in the 1930s. Charley would manage the hotel after her death but never shared his father’s passion or sense of perfection when it came to “the old ways” of creating a perfect client experience. Read More Puttin’ On The Ritz