Raoul Nordling

Raoul Nordling was the Swedish consul-general in Paris in August 1944 and talked the German commander out of destroying the city. He was born in Paris to a Swedish father and a French mother, ran the family business there, and had held the consular post since 1926, which by 1944 meant he was one of very few people trusted at least partly by the Germans, the Vichy authorities, the communist resistance and the Gaullists at once. As the Allies approached he negotiated the truce of 19 August that paused the fighting between the resistance and the garrison, and used it to obtain the release of several thousand political prisoners from Fresnes, Drancy and other camps who would otherwise have gone east on the last trains. He then went repeatedly to the Hotel Meurice to see General von Choltitz, who had orders from Hitler to hold Paris to the last and leave it a field of ruins, with the bridges, the Louvre, Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower prepared for demolition. What passed between them has been dramatised heavily since, and Choltitz had reasons of his own - the demolition charges were incomplete, the war was visibly lost, and his family was hostage to the regime's collective-responsibility laws. Nordling also carried the message that got Leclerc's division sent to Paris ahead of the American schedule. The city was surrendered intact on 25 August. He suffered a heart attack during the negotiations and had his brother take over some of the meetings. He stayed on as consul until 1958, was made a Companion of the Liberation, and died in Paris. He had earlier used the consulate to shelter and document people the occupation authorities were looking for. His account of the negotiations was published only after his death. The film Is Paris Burning? made him briefly famous outside France, played by Orson Welles.

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