Wine And War: The French, The Nazis And The Battle For France's Greatest Treasure Part 15

"Yes," the man replied. "I once lived here for a short while and was wondering if I could see my old room again."

The barman, Pierre Levejac, recognized the man and asked him to wait while he phoned the hotel manager. "Sir, you're not going to believe this but Dietrich von Cholt.i.tz is here and he would like to see his room."

The manager rushed to the bar, where von Cholt.i.tz, elegantly dressed in a dark blue suit, introduced himself and repeated his request. "I would be delighted to show you your old room," the manager said. "If you will follow me."

The two went to the fourth floor, where the former German commander of Paris once lived. Von Cholt.i.tz spent several minutes looking around the room, mostly in silence, before opening a door and stepping out onto the balcony overlooking the Tuileries. "Ah yes, this is what I remember," he said.

Within a quarter of an hour, the manager had escorted von Cholt.i.tz back to the bar and suggested they open up a bottle of champagne. "We must mark this occasion of your return, mon general." But von Cholt.i.tz declined. "I have done what I wanted to do and must now be on my way," he said.

Von Cholt.i.tz had another engagement, this one with Pierre Taittinger, the wartime mayor of Paris. Taittinger had organized a luncheon in von Cholt.i.tz's honor, but the old general, who disobeyed Hitler by surrendering Paris intact, refused to be treated like a conquering hero. "Von Cholt.i.tz was not an easy man," said Taittinger's son Claude, who attended the luncheon. "He was a Prussian and perhaps he felt uncomfortable about having once disobeyed his commander-in-chief. Later, however, while we were having coffee on the terrace, he told me something I shall never forget. He said, 'I understood what your father was telling me. I made my decision not to destroy Paris after talking to your father.' "

Three years later, in 1962, Parisians were surprised to discover German flags flying alongside French ones on the Champs-Elysees. For the first time since the war, a French President was welcoming a German head of state.

That evening, Robert-Jean de Voge sat down to watch the news on television with his son Ghislain. When the cameras switched to President Charles de Gaulle as he was about to shake hands with Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Ghislain jumped up and said, "Here, let me turn this off. I'm sure you don't want to watch this."

His father stretched out his arm to stop him. "No, stay where you are, leave it on," he said. "This is what I have worked all my life to see."

Notes.

Most of the information in our book came from personal interviews with those who actively partic.i.p.ated in the events of the time and whose families were directly involved. Material from published sources that could not be included in the main text is cited in the following notes. Publication information about those sources is contained in the Bibliography.

Introduction.

Berchtesgaden . . . the "Valhalla for the n.a.z.i G.o.ds'': Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers; E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne, from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, p. 271.

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"Behind those pleasant white walls'': Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, pp. 35154.

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The use of wine in war by Cyrus the Great, Julius Caesar and other wartime figures is described by Herbert M. Baus, How to Wine Your Way to Good Health, p. 182.

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"A ration of hot wine is not expensive'': Bulletin International du Vin, October/November 1939, p. 109.

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wine's apogee as a military tactic: Baus, How to Wine Your Way, p. 183.

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Wine as "a good counselor'': Andre L. Simon, A Wine Primer, p. 11.

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The study of wine's importance to the French character is from the article "La Vigne et le Vin,'' vol. 2 of tome 3 of Nora Pierre (ed.), Les Lieux de Memoire, which were part of a French government survey, pp. 79697.

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Mirepoix . . . gave a speech . . . in which he described how wine "contributed to the French race by giving them wit'': quoted by Robert O. Paxton, French Peasant Against Fascism: Henry Dorgeres's Greenshirts and the Crisis of French Agriculture, 19291939, p. 22.

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ONE To Love the Vines Information about the International Congress of the Vine and Wine comes from Charles K. Warner, The Winegrowers of France and the Government Since 1875, p. 157, and from the Bulletin International du Vin, August 1939.

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"Our opponents are little worms'': Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties, p. 360.

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Phylloxera, a tiny insect: discussed at length in Alexis Lichine's New Encyclopaedia of Wines and Spirits, p. 31.

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Bizarre remedies and a 300,000-franc reward described by Warner, Winegrowers of France, p. 4.

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Vineyard conditions are discussed extensively by Warner, Winegrowers of

France, p. viix, 7079. Also by Franois Bonal in Le Livre d'Or du Champagne, pp. 45, 174.

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