Glossary of terms relevant to the Liberation

• CPL - Comité Parisien de Libération; the Paris Liberation Committee, controlled the COMPAC and the CNR. It was a largely Communist dominated.

• COMAC - Comité d'Action Militaire; the Military Action Committee, was under the CPL and Communist run.

• CNR - Comité Nationale de la Résistance; the National Committee of the Resistance, was founded by de Gaulle in 1943 and was in theory the senior political body of the Resistance. By the summer of 1944 however, it had outlived its usefulness and (de Gaulle felt) probably become dominated by Communists.

• FFI - Force Française d'Interior were an organized Resistance network through France.

• FFI Commandant Gallois - Chief of Staff of Colonel Rol.

• laissez-passer - This has the same meaning as in English, literally ``let pass''. General von Choltitz gave a laissez-passer to R. Nordling, so that he could pass through German lines on a mission to the Allies.

• Pierre Laval - Maréchal Pétain's Prime Minister.

• Alexander Parodi - de Gaulle's personal representative in Paris.

• Maréchal Pétain - French Hero of World War I, Maréchal Pétain was the president of the collaborationist Vichy regime. Condemned to death in 1945, his sentence was commuted to life in prison. He died on an island off the coast of France.

• Radio-Paris - The Vichy radio station in Paris.

• Vichy - This was the capitol of the French collaborationist regime. Germany occupied most of northern France, while Vichy administered the south.

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  Updated 08/94

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