Their cowardice? Was Choltitz (sp?) a coward also, for disobeying Hitler's direct orders?
An elderly French woman once told me about standing with her countrymen and waiving at the German Army as they marched into France.
At a memorial service at St Avold, France, several elderly French men thanked me for the liberation of France.
An Elderly man in Germany told me about his service in Hitler's Bundeswehr. He had escaped an American POW camp in Germany and ended up in a POW camp with the British. He prefered his treatment in the American POW camp.
He apologized for his government's actions during the war and thanked me for the acts of the American soldiers.
Beyond this, all I know is the numbers of French Resistance members swelled in the days following the liberation of Paris.
That’s not my point: if the standard to be set is that you are not a he-man unless your capital is destroyed, then you must still account for the possibility that the occupying commander will refuse orders to destroy it.
Every German I knew who was captured by Americans pretty much raved about the experience (as much as they could). The two I knew who were brought to the U.S. (one to Oregon, one to New England) became life-long fans, and one worked for the Americans in Germany his entire career after the war.