How Mass Insurrection Liberated Paris from the Nazis

Is Paris Burning?

Directed by Rene Clement (1966)

Film Review

This full length features film (2 hours 14 min) is a dramatization of the mass insurrection that liberated Paris from Nazi occupation in August 1944. Another important historic episode totally neglected in our schools and universities.

As Patton’s Third Army approached from Normandy, a network of underground resistance fighters using stolen and smuggled weapons, Molotov cocktails (made from vintage wine) and clumsily improvised barricades, led the population of Paris to seize all the official buildings and half of the city.

Allied military leaders initially planned to bypass Paris in their push to reach Germany and destroy the Nazi army. They reluctantly agreed to divert three divisions to Paris on of Hitler’s threat to dynamite the city as German forces withdrew.

Although the film can’t be embedded for copyright reasons, it can be viewed for free at the following link:

Is Paris Burning? – Paris brule-t-il? (1966 – Rene Clement)