French,subtitles
Many may have seen the movie "IS PARIS BURNING". This is another take on the same subject.
As the Allies march toward Paris in the summer of 1944, Hitler gives orders that the French capital not fall into enemy hands, or if it does, then 'only as a field of rubble'. (In fact Hitler ordered all his commanders to destroy anything of value (i.e railroad tracks) if they had to retreat. An absolute madman).
The person assigned to carry out this barbaric act for Paris is Wehrmacht commander, General Dietrich Von Choltitz, who already has mines planted on the Eiffel Tower, in the Louvre and Notre Dame and on the bridges over the Seine. Nothing should be left as a reminder of the city's former glory. However, at dawn on 25 August, Swedish Consul General Raoul Nordling steals into German headquarters through a secret underground tunnel and there starts a tension-filled game of cat and mouse as Nordling tries to persuade Choltitz to abandon his plan.
Obviously he successfully convinced Choltitz.
You may now better understand the Russian "rape" of East Germany during the war. The Germans even destroyed magnificent palaces (built in the 1700's) in the outskirts of St. Petersberg in Russia (I saw pictures of the destruction after it was restored by the Russians). That part of my visit to Russia will live in my memory. . . forever.
