Photo, above:  Combat, 24 August 1944: "French troops enter the liberated capital"  "after four years of hope and struggle."

"DeGaulle will be in Paris today [In Rennes,] his car was covered with flowers by the population" "A day of battles and a night of enthusiasm in free Paris." "Lyon and Bordeaux were liberated yesterday. Le Havre and Rouen are menaced. Huge Russian advance toward Cracow" "The SS install Petain and his ministers in chateaux in the Jura"  "Communique from the Prefecture of Police: The public is immediately invited not to use gas for illumination until further notice, by reason of grave danger that could occur"

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 1, Block A: The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts ( of 4)

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 1, Block B: The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts ( of 4)

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 1, Block C: The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts ( of 4)

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 1, Block D: The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts ( of 4)

Hour Two

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize. by Sean B Carroll (1 of 4)  "Really fascinating duel biography of Albert Camus and Jacques Monod--their respective work in the French Resistance, their respective careers as a writer and molecular biologist, their anti-communism, their place as public intellectuals, and their philosophic outlook. Carroll's linking of these two figures is unexpected and brilliant."

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 2, Block B: Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize. by Sean B Carroll (2 of 4)

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 2, Block C: Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize. by Sean B Carroll (3 of 4)

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 2, Block D: Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize. by Sean B Carroll (4 of 4)

Hour Three

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 3, Block A: Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War (Vintage) by Michael Dobbs (1 of 4)

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 3, Block B: Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War (Vintage) by Michael Dobbs (2 of 4)

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 3, Block C: Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War (Vintage) by Michael Dobbs (3 of 4)

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 3, Block D: Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War (Vintage) by Michael Dobbs (4 of 4)

Hour Four

Below: postage stamp with photograph of the liberation of Paris. See also image below at end of Schedule text

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 4, Block A: The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944 by Michael Neiberg (1 of 4)  As the Allies struggled inland from Normandy in August of 1944, the fate of Paris hung in the balance. Other jewels of Europe—sites like Warsaw, Antwerp, and Monte Cassino—were, or would soon be, reduced to rubble during attempts to liberate them. But Paris endured, thanks to a fractious cast of characters, from Resistance cells to Free French operatives to an unlikely assortment of diplomats, Allied generals, and governmental officials. Their efforts, and those of the German forces fighting to maintain control of the city, would shape the course of the battle for Europe and color popular memory of the conflict for generations to come. . . . 

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 4, Block B: The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944 by Michael Neiberg (2 of 4)  In The Blood of Free Men, the celebrated historian Michael Neiberg deftly tracks the forces vying for Paris, providing a revealing new look at the city’s dramatic and triumphant resistance against the Nazis. The salvation of Paris was not a foregone conclusion, Neiberg shows, and the liberation was a chaotic operation that could have easily ended in the city’s ruin. The Allies were intent on bypassing Paris so as to strike the heart of the Third Reich in Germany, and the French themselves were deeply divided; feuding political cells fought for control of the Resistance within Paris, as did Charles de Gaulle and his Free French Forces outside the city. Although . .  .

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 4, Block C: The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944 by Michael Neiberg (3 of 4)  . . . many of Paris’s citizens initially chose a tenuous stability over outright resistance to the German occupation, they were forced to act when the approaching fighting pushed the city to the brink of starvation. In a desperate bid to save their city, ordinary Parisians took to the streets, and through a combination of valiant fighting, shrewd diplomacy, and last-minute aid from the Allies, managed to save the City of Lights.  A groundbreaking, arresting narrative of the liberation, The Blood of Free Men tells the full story of one of the war’s defining moments, when a tortured city and its inhabitants narrowly survived the deadliest conflict in human history.

Saturday 14 December  2013 / Hour 4, Block D: The Blood of Free Men: The Liberation of Paris, 1944 by Michael Neiberg (4 of 4)

Below: postage stamp with photograph of the liberation of Paris. See also above, beginning of  Hour Four.