The late Robert Kalbach (1936–2016) was a lecturer in the Department of English in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Poitiers. In 1977, he served as Deputy Mayor of La Rochelle, responsible for cultural affairs and international relations. In 1982, he was a cultural advisor to the French embassy in Austria. He fulfilled the same functions in Berlin from 1988 to 1992. He spent the last years of his life lecturing and writing historical novels and essays, especially on the Cathars and freemasonry.
The Best of Enemies: Meyer and Schirlitz: Saving La Rochelle. September 1944–May 1945
After the Allied D-Day landings in June 1944, Paris was liberated in late August, and the rest of France was freed in the following weeks. However, two pockets of German occupation in Royan and La Rochelle, both cities along the Atlantic coast, remained occupied for several months more.
Blocking access to Bordeaux, the city of Royan would end in martyrdom under a carpet of Allied bombs on January 5, 1945. But the fortress of La Rochelle, with its port, submarine base, and German garrison of 14,000 soldiers guarding the historic city and its 30,000 civilians, would later be delivered intact to Allied forces by its occupier.
By what perilous negotiations were two enemy officers able to avoid disaster in the besieged city? Two men of honor, French Commander Hubert Meyer and German Admiral Ernst Schirlitz, strove to see beyond the war toward reconciliation and the reconstruction of Europe.
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