Is Paris Burning

The story is told with the in-your-face realism of two journalists. Yet it's full of humor and even downright silliness. Would-be soldier Enrnest Hemingway captured a German soldier and relieved him of his pants. Why? He figured no man would escape half-naked. He was right.

This isn't about troop movements, it's about real people risking their lives (and those of their families) to liberate Paris. After all, Eisenhower didn't think he had enough fuel or time to fight a mini-war for Paris. He desperately needed to push east to Germany.

So how did it all happen? Read the book, in Paris if you can, but whever you can find a good lamp. Is Paris Burning? will keep you up late at night.


A Great Book!   August 17, 2000
Pedro Peters (Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires Argentina)
25 out of 26 found this review helpful

Is Paris Burning? is one of the best books that Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins have wrote together. A huge job, a piece of history novel, good as only a few can be, with a great work of investigation; interviews with people like General Dietrich von Choltitz, (who recieved the order from Adolf Hitler, to burn Paris, in case that the defense couldn't be accomplish) or for example the Chief of Operations in Europe, the General Dwight Eisenhower. As usual in their books, Lapierre and Collins, put the reader inside of one of the most importants chapters in the history of the XX century, the liberation of Paris, with precisions of days, hours, and places. The order of Hitler, the beginning of the resistance, the slow arrival of the allied, the clear disobedience of General Von Choltitz.... in fact, a crucial moment in the history of one of the most beautiful citys in the world, a turning point in the development of the Second World War. A different way to learn history.


History that Reads Like a Stephen King Novel   April 6, 2002
Alex Lukic (Washington, DC)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

As part of Adolf Hitler's nihilistic resolution to decimate all traces of his infamous conquests and satanic occupations, Paris was to turn into a victim of Warsaw proportions. Lapierre and Collins masterfully direct the reader to the grueling scenario Generalfeldmarschall Dietricht von Choltitz had to endure: a German army turned decadent from Parisian amenities; allied troops slowly filling in the fringes of the French capital; and most importantly, Hitler's irreversible obsession to obliterate le Champs Elysées, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the perennial scars of European history.

Hopscotching between enemy lines, the authors draw the nauseating political picture of Paris during August of 1944 with Resistance militias and FFI agents vying for eventual supremacy, de Gaulle battling against time and the insensitive Eisenhower to avoid internal military strife and eventual Communist hegemony, and Wehrmacht officers contemplating the insurmountable fate of the City of Lights. They also explain in detail the military background of the liberation of northwest France and the strategic and political dilemma facing the Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Forces: chasing after the subdued German army all the way to the Rhine or liberating a Paris overshadowed by the hammer and the sickle.

"Is Paris Burning?" is superbly documented, intelligently written, and scrutinizingly researched. The real accounts of heroes and antiheroes, mothers and sons, Fascists and Communists, French and German alike are spellbinding and Homeric.


Thank God it isn't!   October 8, 2004
Maximiliano F Yofre (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

The dreadful question "Is Paris burning?" was put by Hitler himself to the German commander of Paris.
It anticipated the mad politic he will follow in the last year of WWII: burn it all, destroy it all (enemy or German alike).

The authors of this book had done a great work performing a very readable and entertaining piece.
They apply the technique of interviewing key witness, ranging from public figures to almost unknown particulars, from Allies military thru Resistance members, from Diplomats to German military. All of them have their saying and express their viewpoints unrestricted.
The collective memories of the witnesses generate an enormous "collage" of the period.
Collins and Lapierre take this huge mass of information to produce a coherent, ordered, dynamic and griping story that keep the reader going on.
An excellent 1966's film of the same title with an all stars cast is done based on this book.

This is an informative book commendable for anyone who is interested in WWII history or in the curious and dangerous events that endangered the existence one of the most beautiful City Capitals of the world.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.



fascinating history   April 22, 2000
Kathleen Dorantes (California)
13 out of 16 found this review helpful

This book reads as a gripping fiction story rather than a history book. The setting is WWII Paris just before and during the Allied liberation of the city. The authors follow the activities of dozens of characters who played a role in the liberation. I got very engaged with the characters as well as the plot. Excellent book.