Video: 'LIBERATION OF PARIS (AMERICAN VERSION) (SOUND)'

(Friday, August 25, 1944, 3:30 p.m. Western European Mean Time; during the Liberation of Paris, part of Operation Overlord, World War II) — Despite repeated orders from Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler that the French capital “must not fall into the enemy’s hand except lying in complete debris,” General Dietrich von Choltitz, German military governor of Paris, surrendered the City of Light to Free French troops this afternoon at the Hôtel Meurice.

Choltitz was then driven to the Paris Police Prefecture, where he signed the official surrender and then to the Gare Montparnasse, where General Leclerc had established his command post, to sign the surrender of the German troops in Paris.

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The liberation began Aug. 19, 1944, when the French Forces of the Interior — the military structure of the French Resistance — staged an uprising against the German garrison upon the approach of the U.S. Third Army, led by General George S. Patton.

On the night of August 24, elements of General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque’s 2nd French Armored Division made their way into Paris and arrived at the Hôtel de Ville shortly before midnight.

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The next morning, today, the bulk of the 2nd Armored Division and U.S. 4th Infantry Division and other allied units entered the city.

The Free French Forces were met with cheering crowds and ringing church bells, despite ongoing skirmishes with isolated German units.