During World War II, the Liberation of Paris Saved the French Capital From Destruction

“Paris must not fall into the hands of the enemy,” Adolf Hitler told his top general in Paris, “or if it does, he must find there nothing but a field of ruins.” Public domain via Wikimedia Commons The square outside Notre-Dame Cathedral, usually empty early on a Saturday morning, filled with hundreds of policemen on August 19, 1944, all of them converging on the fortress-like Prefecture of Police headquarters. A…