Liberation of Rennes – Wikipedia
The Liberation of Rennes and its surroundings takes place the By the joint action of the French Interior Forces (FFI) and the US military of General George Patton, ending four years of occupation of the city by the Germans as part of the Liberation of Brittany.
The capture of the city will allow allied troops to progress in depth on Breton territory, in the direction of Lorient and Saint-Nazaire.
The city, declared open, has been occupied since the by German troops without fighting, after the French defeat in the Battle of France [ first ] .
Rennes is bombed three times in during the Battle of Normandy. THE , the Bombardiers Martin B-26 marauder American receive the order to bomb the sorting station used by the 17 It is Division of Panzergrenadiers SS which dates back north of France to face the allied bridgehead in Normandy. THE , the Royal Air Force bombes German strategic targets. Three days later, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress of the US Air Force again lead several raids against the city, some of which will be intercepted by the Messerschmitt BF 109 of the Luftwaffe and other slaughtered by the Flak canons German anti-aircraft defense [ 2 ] .
After the success of the Cobra operation, and the breakthrough of Avranches which ensued fine , the trampling of the allies on the Norman front ends and the release of Brittany begins.
Initially wishing to go around Rennes to go for Brest, Lorient and Saint-Nazaire, the main Breton ports, mostly transformed into fortresses ( fortress ) by the Wehrmacht, the Americans find themselves blocked in Rennes by the resistance of some German units.
The , while the Americans have just released Avranches, the progress of a spearhead of the 4th Armored Division ( 4 It is armored division) is hampered at 3 p.m. by a German DCA unit at a place called White House in Saint-Grégoire. The six 88 mm cannons and the two 20 mm cannons of the mixed battery put out of combat, by outstretched shots, eleven tanks of Sherman and three autoosses, killing 50 soldiers, wounding 20, and 20 others are captured [ 3 ] . The Saint-Laurent church, to the north, serving as an observatory for German artillers, is destroyed.
American artillery then pounded the city. THE , due to communication problems in the American staff and the lack of infantry available to enter the city, no progression is made and Major-General John Shirley Wood has Rennes by the west With his combat groups A and B, descending to Châteaubriant, but he is forced to move towards Vannes and Lorient when he wanted to go back to Angers towards Paris. This judgment in front of Rennes has two harmful consequences: on the morning of the 3rd, the Germans made a train of 800 resistant and resistant and 400 allied prisoners leave in the direction of Germany and, on the night of the 3 , Colonel Eugen König receives the authorization of General Paul Hausser, commander of the VII It is Army, to evacuate the city being surrounded, not without having blew up most bridges on the 4th around 5 am. The servants of the German DCA batteries evacuate after having put them out of service. On the evening of , elements of the 8 It is US infantry division had launched an assault against the city in the Gantelles sector. On the morning of the 4th, soldiers of 13 It is infantry regiment of the 8 It is Division enter town around 9:00 am without meeting resistance.
The At the end of the afternoon, the Rennes town hall had been taken by the Resistance, under the orders of General Le Vigan, and Yves Milon, appointed president of the special delegation. His mastery of English, necessary for relations with the American army, would have been a decisive asset to his appointment to this post [ 4 ] . Mayor Vichyst, René Patay, and his assistants and secretaries are ousted. The Germans try to set fire to the building, but it is quickly controlled [ 3 ] . The , the resistance fighter Victor Pierre Le Gorgeu takes office as commissioner of the Republic instituted by the provisional government of the French Republic, installed by Pierre Herbart (who obtains from the Americans the cessation of unnecessary bombing on the city). Henri Fréville organized with Jean Marin taking possession of radio and press.
General de Gaulle thus succeeded in setting up his administration in the first big city freed from France, avoiding the establishment of an allied military government in the occupied territories, the AMGOT: Allied Military Government in Occupied Territories .
The units dispersed under the command of Colonel Eugen König will retreat to Saint-Nazaire. During their retirement, several fights oppose them to the FFI and the Americans, because the surrounding areas had already been released. 60 German soldiers were killed and 130 others injured in total between 4 and [ 3 ] .
- Étienne Maignen, The strange release of Rennes , Saint-Suliac, Yellow Concept, , 324 p. (ISBN 978-2-36063-201-5 )
- Étienne Maignen, Rennes during the war, Chronicles from 1939 to 1945 , Rennes, Ouest-France editions, , 245 p. (ISBN 978-2-7373-6173-9 )
- René Cesnais , War and resistance in the south of Ille-et-Vilaine: testimonies , Le Croisic, R. Chesnais, , 432 p. (ISBN 978-2-9513864-0-2 )
- Christian Bougeard, History of resistance in Brittany , Paris, J.P. Gisserot, , 118 p. (ISBN 978-2-87747-091-9 , read online )
- Jacqueline Sainclivier , Ille-et-Vilaine, 1918-1958: political and social life , Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, coll. ” History “, , 479 p.
- Defense of France , Marine Granet, Presses Universitaires de France, 1961, 283 p.
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