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By Root 667 0

General von Choltitz, the overall German commander of the city, had received orders from Hitler that if Paris were not defended it was to be utterly razed to the ground, an act of wanton vandalism that would, if carried out, have been unsurpassed by any in history. To this end, the principal bridges and buildings of Paris had been mined, and a tunnel under the city had been filled with U-boat torpedoes capable of causing tremendous explosions. Von Choltitz came from an old Prussian military family. To disobey orders ran against every fibre of his being, but he now realised that Hitler was a madman, or at least that Germany was going to lose the war, and he sought, during those tense August days, to play for as much time as possible in order to find a way to surrender Paris to the advancing Allies without either wanton destruction or loss of face.14 Under these circumstances, on Monday, 21 August 1944, two SS men suddenly presented themselves at his office at the palatial Hotel Meurice.

The two men, elegantly attired in smart new SS uniforms, gave the customary 'Heil Hitler' salute. Von Choltitz may well have thought that his time was up, that they had come to arrest him for disobeying Hitler's orders, but what they actually wanted was rather more bizarre. They said that they had orders from Himmler to seize the Bayeux Tapestry and to take it to Berlin. In the curious logic of the Nazis, the city of Paris with all its monuments was to be destroyed but the Bayeux Tapestry was to be saved. What was to become of it in Berlin is not known. It would be naive to assume that it would have ever found its way back to Bayeux. The ultimate intention may have been to house it, along with other Nordic relics, at some quasi-religious shrine for the scrutiny and instruction of the elite of the SS.

Von Choltitz took the two SS officers to his balcony and gesturing towards the Louvre told them that the tapestry was being kept in a basement there. Events were moving fast. It was clear that the Louvre was by now in the hands of the street fighters of the French Resistance. At that very moment stuttering machine-gun fire could be heard emanating from the portals of the museum. Von Choltitz suggested that five or six of his own men could provide covering fire, so as to enable the SS officers to storm the Louvre and seize the precious tapestry. The two SS officers withdrew for a moment to consider their position. One of them thought that he had found an honourable way out. Surely, he said, the French authorities must have evacuated the tapestry long ago and the assault would turn out to be pointless. Von Choltitz replied that he believed the tapestry to be still there. He asked for his artistic adviser to come into his office; the adviser duly confirmed that the tapestry remained at the Louvre. The two SS men reflected for a further moment before deciding that it would be better to depart empty-handed, for, as von Choltitz later remarked, the courage of their hearts did not quite live up to the brilliance of their uniforms. According to von Choltitz, the SS men had two lorries at their disposal and enough petrol for the return trip to Berlin. At a time when large amounts of fuel were almost impossible to come by, and the resources of the German army were in every way stretched, the length to which Heinrich Himmler was prepared to go in order to safeguard the Bayeux Tapestry for his own nefarious purposes is quite remarkable. Four days after this incident, on 25 August 1944, Hitler, holed up in his headquarters in the forests of east Prussia, finally lost his patience and snarled at his generals, 'Is Paris burning?'15 Fortunately, on that very day von Choltitz surrendered, Paris was safe in Allied hands and the wartime dangers faced by the Bayeux Tapestry were effectively over.

The old mayor of Bayeux, Monsieur Dodeman, had received not a breath of news about the tapestry's fate since November 1943. He assumed, as did many, that the embroidery was still at the Château de Sourches, well out of harm's way; and he had no idea just how narrowly