In Germany a military tribunal convened to try Choltitz in absentia for treason. The defendant still had highly placed friends in the military, however, and they managed to delay the trial so that the war came to an end before the court-martial could come to order, thereby saving Choltitz’s wife and children from execution or imprisonment.

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Ultimately, the liberation of Paris was to come at a great cost. Allied fuel reserves had been depleted, and those German forces that escaped reached the safety of the Siegfried Line. The Western Front stagnated with the approach of autumn and winter. There would be a great slaughter in the dreary Hürtgen Forest. The British would be crushed at Arnhem. There would be a Battle of the Bulge. Worst by far, innocents beyond counting would continue to die miserably in the death camps of the SS. It was a terrible price to pay for the grandest city in Europe.

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