American Crimes and the Liberation of Paris
Robbery, Rape and Murder by Renegade GIs, 1944–1947
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About the Book
The Allies’ triumphant march into Paris in 1944 was met with cheering crowds of liberated Parisians. After the cheering stopped, American deserters and their French cohorts violently exploited the city with the ruthless efficiency of the Chicago mobs of the 1920s. Well organized, and heavily armed, these GIs-turned-gangsters made huge profits on the thriving black market with their unlimited supplies of gasoline, cigarettes and other commodities. Along with this illicit enterprise came rape, murder, robbery, prostitution and epidemic venereal disease. American military justice worked at controlling the crime wave, handling nearly 8,000 criminal investigations in the year after liberation, but only the end of the war in 1945 put a stop to it. This book identifies both French and American offenders.
About the Author(s)
Bibliographic Details
Kenneth D. Alford
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 240
Bibliographic Info: 49 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2016
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9680-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1943-9
Imprint: McFarland
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Introduction 1
1. The German Capture of Paris 3
2. D-Day, June 6, 1944 10
3. The 29th Machine Records Unit 26
4. The Hangings 33
5. The Liberation of Paris 39
6. Paris, City of Lights 51
7. The Officer’s Formal Mess 63
8. The Mess and Billeting Office of the Hotel Astra 69
9. The Black Market 76
10. Paris Detention Barracks 81
11. The Vincennes Gang 88
12. The Channel Islands Crash 103
13. The Voltaire Gang 106
14. The Lola Murder 116
15. The 2nd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment 126
16. The Million-Dollar Battalion 130
17. The Arrest of Men of the Million-Dollar Battalion 144
18. The Cigarette Trials 150
19. A Review of the Trials 163
20. The Execution of Private Slovik 168
21. Postwar Paris 173
22. Martinez’s Early Years 176
23. Martinez Returns to Germany 180
24. Springtime in Paris 189
25. Murder in La Place Pigalle 198
26. The Trials 208
27. Mannheim Prison: Maximum Security 213
28. The Inevitable End 218
Chapter Notes 223
Bibliography 227
Index 229
