American Crimes and the Liberation of Paris: Robbery, Rape and Murder by Renegade GIS, 1944-1947

Description

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 Paris' thriving black market with their unlimited supplies of cigarettes, gasoline 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 details the exploits of these “liberators” and identifies both French and American offenders. Cover Ackknowledgments Table of Contents Introduction 1. The German Capture of Paris 2. D-Day, June 6, 1944 3. The 29th Machine Records Unit 4. The Hangings 5. The Liberation of Paris 6. Paris, City of Lights 7. The Officer’s Formal Mess 8. The Mess and Billeting Office of the Hotel Astra 9. The Black Market 10. Paris Detention Barracks 11. The Vincennes Gang 12. The Channel Islands Crash 13. The Voltaire Gang 14. The Lola Murder 15. The 2nd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment 16. The Million-Dollar Battalion 17. The Arrest of Men of the Million-Dollar Battalion 18. The Cigarette Trials 19. A Review of the Trials 20. The Execution of Private Slovik 21. Postwar Paris 22. Martinez’s Early Years 23. Martinez Returns to Germany 24. Springtime in Paris 25. Murder in La Place Pigalle 26. The Trials 27. Mannheim Prison: Maximum Security 28. The Inevitable End Chapter Notes Bibliography Index