Invisible army set stage for liberation of Paris from Nazis

The Nazis knew everything about the city of Paris that they occupied almost.

They didn't know about the bunker with a massive door as thick as a bank vault that served as a command post for the chief of the Resistance in the French capital.

They didn't know all the secrets of an underground world defined by codes, assumed names and identities that covered the tracks of saboteurs and fighters.

On Sunday, Paris will celebrate 75 years since its liberation, when French and American tanks rolled into the former jewel of European cities that had epitomized the sweet life, but whose citizens were humiliated, hungry and mistrustful after 50 months under the Nazi boot.

It was the Resistance movement that helped soften the city for the siege and the Nazis' eventual surrender on August 25, 1944.

A parade will retrace the entry into southern Paris, heading to the building that served as headquarters for Henri Tanguy alias Col. Rol chief of the French Forces of the Interior of the Paris region. A new museum on the site dedicated to the liberation will open, throwing wide the heavy door of Rol-Tanguy's secret headquarters, 26 meters (85 feet) underground.

The dank complex of cement rooms was built in the 1930s to serve as a shelter to ensure city services in the event of bombings that ultimately didn't occur. But on June 14, 1940, the Nazis moved into town, and hoisted their flag emblazoned with a swastika above the Eiffel Tower.

The Nazi hierarchy ensconced themselves in Paris' luxury hotels, and hobnobbed at theatres and fine restaurants. Photos at the museum show artists and industrialists at soirees hosted by the occupiers, who quickly redefined life in the City of Light.

Most Parisians got on with diminished lives, using age-based ration tickets to eat, wooden soles on shoes to replace scarce leather and sometimes curtains for clothes.

Some women painted their legs to look like silk stockings. The black market thrived.

Some, though, revolted, entering the clandestine world of the Resistance, the "army of the shadows".

It is impossible to know how many Parisians went underground, said Sylvie Zaidman, director of the Museum of the Liberation of Paris.

"It's a hidden story," she said. "If you're Resistance, you leave as few traces as possible. So there are pseudonyms...there are double lives that are completely separate."
"People were dancing with joy. Me, with two comrades...we cried like kids," she recounted. We didn't party at all."