When Paris Went Dark

The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944

By: Ronald C. Rosbottom

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

The spellbinding and revealing chronicle of Nazi-occupied Paris.

On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. Subsequently, an eerie sense of normalcy settled over the City of Light. Many Parisians keenly adapted themselves to the situation-even allied themselves with their Nazi overlords.

At the same time, amidst this darkening gloom of German ruthlessness, shortages, and curfews, a resistance arose. Parisians of all stripes -- Jews, immigrants, adolescents, communists, rightists, cultural icons such as Colette, de Beauvoir, Camus and Sartre, as well as police officers, teachers, students, and store owners -- rallied around a little known French military officer, Charles de Gaulle.

When Paris Went Dark evokes with stunning precision the detail of daily life in a city under occupation, and the brave people who fought against the darkness. Relying on a range of resources -- memoirs, diaries, letters, archives, interviews, personal histories, flyers and posters, fiction, photographs, film and historical studies -- Rosbottom has forged a groundbreaking book that will forever influence how we understand those dark years in the City of Light.

Critic reviews

"Ronald C. Rosbottom's rigorously researched and deeply compelling book, When Paris Went Dark, examines the relationship between the occupiers and the occupied, specifically how the vanquished Parisians either fought against or adapted to the conditions imposed by their Nazi rulers....Rosbottom strikes a perfect tone that is neither too scholarly nor too familiar and produces a chronicle that edifies as it entertains."—Malcom Forbes, Minneapolis StarTribune

"Ronald C. Rosbottom's When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944 resonated eerily with 2017 America. From its analysis of the French right's rise to power and the many attempts to deny what was occurring, to its nuanced exploration of how both government and average French citizen resisted--or collaborated with--the occupiers, this book is a compelling, sobering warning about the dangers of complacency in the face of intolerance."—Celeste Ng, Wall Street Journal

"A well-rounded overview....The strength of Mr. Rosbottom's book lies in the details he has culled from memoirs, letters, papers, films, plays, songs, and diaries that illuminate the experience of both the occupiers and the occupied."—Caroline Moorehead, Wall Street Journal

"A profound historical portrait of Paris for anyone who loves the city." — Dallas Morning News

"A riveting account of one of the most resonant hostage-takings in history: the 1,500 days when a swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower. Ronald Rosbottom illuminates every corner of a darkened, heartsick city, exploring the oddities, capturing the grisly humor, and weighing the prices of resistance, accommodation, collaboration. The result is an intimate, sweeping narrative, astute in its insight and chilling in its rich detail."—Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra, A Great Improvisation, and Véra

"When Paris Went Dark recounts, through countless compelling stories, how Nazi occupation drained the light from Paris and how many of its residents resisted in ways large and small. This is a rich work of history, a brilliant recounting of how hope can still flourish in the rituals of daily life."—Scott Turow, author of Identical

"Ronald Rosbottom has recreated the Parisian world during the dark days of the German occupation like no previous writer I know. His secret is two-fold: first, exhaustive research that allows him to recover what we might call the importance of the ordinary; and second, a shrewd grasp of how memory works, often in strange ways."—Joseph J. Ellis, Ford Foundation Professor Emeritus at Mount Holyoke College, author of Founding Brothers, American Sphinx, and Revolutionary Summer

The true story behind the wall of occupation

Amazing book to read. Many compelling stories. Very recommended for those readers who love WWII history books.

Made it all the way through and so glad I did

I don’t often make it all the way through the audiobooks that I buy (and I buy many) but this one while a dense history has poignant stories that kept me interested throughout.

Interesting

Well done story about Paris under Nazi occupation - even for someone that's not a history buff. Seem to repeat some - same info in a different way.

An informative read

"When Paris Went Dark" challenges some of the cherished myths about Germany's conquest of France and the dedication and effectiveness of "La Résistance." Per Rosbottom, a consensus has developed in recent years that France's unimaginably speedy defeat to Germany was the result of negligence and sheer incompetence. The vaunted Maginot Line, built in the 1930s, was forever to protect France from invasion by Germany. But it was obsolete only a few years after construction (if not, in fact, during construction). When Germany attacked, its tanks simply bypassed the linked pillboxes of the Maginot Line by rolling over the forest that lay to its north. Presumably, it was inconceivable to the French in the 1930s that any army could launch a successful attack by proceeding through the thick and overgrown forest.

Also, the Résistance is presented as accomplishing little against the Germans, and such resistance as there was was primarily carried out by adolescents. There were instances of valiant resistance, of course, but not the alleged street-to-street fighting by a fearless and organized opposition force that gave the Germans hell for four years. And as to the Résistance, de Gaulle is stripped of his plumage as the man who ostensibly saved France by making intermittent broadcasts on BBC Radio, from London, of encouragement to the French people. After Paris was liberated, he pushed the falsehood that French resistance fighters, assisted in their efforts by the Allied forces, had liberated Paris themselves.

Finally, the narrator is very good at reading the author's text. But he is just awful enough at pronouncing French, and when he reads quoted language, he adopts what he imagines to be the character's voice. G-r-a-t-i-n-g.

Good but not great

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I was expecting a book that I could not wait to listen to each time I got in my car, but I was a bit disappointed. I feel that the book lacked a personal perspective and felt too broad. Moments within it had a personal touch, but overall, it was faceless.