Paris in the Third Reich: A history of the German occupation, 1940-1944 [Hardcover]

David Pryce-Jones (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 294 pages
• Publisher: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston; 1st edition (1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0030456215
• ISBN-13: 978-0030456213
• Product Dimensions: 13 x 10 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,046,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In spanish..., March 31, 2009

By 

I. M. C. Garcia "leon ecijano" (Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Q: Roo, Mexico lindo) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation, 1940-1944 (Paperback)

...un buen libro, acerca de una epoca negada hoy en dia por todos los franceses, nos acerca a aquel Paris de la ocupacion en que,haciendo a un lado el patriotismo habia que tolerar e incluso ser amable con los hunos ocupantes y de algun modo sobrevivir en aquellos dias que se antojan a años luz de distancia cuando no es asi...pasado el tiempo, en agosto de 1944 los parisinos y los franceses en general de algun modo, por la cercania de los soldados aliados,reencontraron su valor y se sintieron patriotas de nuevo, saliendo de aquel mareo que les habia ocasionado aquel fatidico mayo de 1940 en que habian corrido a refugiarse en los brazos del anciano Mariscal Petain,a quien tan mal pagaron en 1945.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Badly Edited, Badly Written, December 23, 2009

By 

Don Reed "Don" (Cliffside Park NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation, 1940-1944 (Paperback)

The enormous resources that Holt Rinehart placed at the disposal of this writer have been almost entirely wasted. What's worse, I seem to be reading the same book repeatedly. Maybe the same dim-bulb editor has been cloned (in this instance, a Thomas Wallace was sent forth).

From the margin notes, on various pages:

"Had plenty of potential; fails completely...badly written & edited... absence of a comprehensive dramatis personae of French & German officials is mind-boggling...Pryce-Jones' verbosity can be weighed in tonnage; redundancies abound;

"Mocks the quality of other writers' work at the same time that he himself writes poorly; endless paragraphs & interminable 'laundry lists' of unimportant people destroys continuity; first decently written creative sentence on page 89;

"Historical context missing, superb photos of scenes in Paris between 1940-45 are unanimously undated & are almost never logically located in the book opposite relevant text; sophomoric 'in fact' & other rhetorical abuses;

"States that famine - an indispensable condition that led to the French Revolution in 1789, & which probably reappeared during the siege of Paris in 1870-71 - had not existed in Paris for 'centuries' prior to 1940-41;

"Unattributed quotation; a complete non-entity is implausibly in on the big secret @ the impending invasion of Russia; lengthy quotations aren't indented; plural/singular editing goof; pointless elaboration; rambling nonsense;

"Entire bottom of page, a mess & story ending botched; idiotic analogy; portentous 'cue' as to what's coming next; writing has dramatically improved (too late);

"Chronological mishmash; nonsense; endless story - who could possibly remember the original point of it by the time the paragraph finally ends?; still impossible to understand after 4th reading;

"Not all of the respondents interviewed in the pre-epilogue interviews are introduced with historical & context-providing information (dates of birth or age in 1940; role in, or experience during the occupation, which provides the reason for their being interviewed; post-war fate); nor are they listed in alphabetical order, which matters because they're not individually listed in the table of contents;

"Author fails to explain why an interviewee referred to a powerful collaborationist Paris-Soir editor as an 'elevator operator'; interesting passage @ Jean Leguay in a post-epilogue interview ruined due to its microscopic, illegible type-size; likewise, interview of Gerhard Heller also unreadable."

It's not a total loss. The photos in their own right are superb; some of the first-person & historical accounts of the war in 1940 & the ensuing occupation are invaluable; & the index will, some day, prove useful.

But what a pain in the ass it was to read. It's August 25th, 1944*, all over again, when you've finally made it to the end of Paris In The 3rd Reich.

*The liberation of Paris from Nazi tyranny, and a day of festivity without equal in the 20th Century. Recommended: Gardner Botsford's eyewitness account, in his memoir, "A Life of Privilege, Mostly" (2003).