The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris - Softcover

Mazzeo, Tilar J

3.58

2,759 ratings by Goodreads

9780062323347: The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062323342 ISBN 13: 9780062323347

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2014

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Paperback. Pub Date :2014-03-11 Pages: 320 Language: English Publisher: HarperCollins The mysterious and remarkable story of what happened at the H?tel Ritz during a pivotal historical moment - the German occupation of France - from the bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot. Since the end of the 19th century. the Ritz Hotel in Paris has been an international symbol of luxury and glamour. home to film stars. celebrity writers. playboys and princes. When France fell to the Germans in June 1940. Joseph Goebbels. the Nazi propaganda maestro. famously declared that the capital would be gay and happy - or else The Ritz was divided into two sections:! one half becoming home to the highest-ranking German officers; the other half home to the rich and famous civilians who were in Paris during the Nazi occupation. There was Hermann G?ring. Hitler's morphine-addicted second-in-comman...

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Review:

“This gorgeously written (and photographed) book is a feast for readers wanting to be swept away this summer. . . . Tracing the captivating history of Paris’s world-famous H�tel Ritz, Mazzeo reveals a hotbed of illicit affairs and deadly intrigue, as well as stunning acts of defiance and treachery.” (Brad Thor, The Today Show Summer Reads)

“Stolen art, double agents, a legendary bartender passing notes to the resistance: This is a rich, messy history.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Mazzeo pulls back the heavy curtains of the Ritz in Paris to reveal a steamy world of sex, drugs, partying and political intrigue.” (Alan Riding, author of And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris)

“Mazzeo enthrallingly depicts a hotbed of both the magnificent and the mundane. . . . Readers will enjoy Mazzeo’s fascinating collection of secretive, scheming historical characters, all under one elegant roof.” (Publishers Weekly)

“Fiction could not write betrayal, resistance, collaboration, or celebration with more robustness or with a more alluring who’s-who of writers, artists, and military powers than history did in this single hotel. ” (Booklist)

“Tilar J. Mazzeo tells the tale of the Hotel Ritz, a landmark so imbued with glamour that it was the only hotel in Paris the Nazis ordered to stay open during the war. The antics at and around it during World War II were often shocking.” (New York Post)

“Must read. . . . Mazzeo artfully transports readers to the Nazi occupation of World War II . . . The H�tel on Place Vend�me contextualizes the opulence of 1940s Paris, making for a work of history that reads as enticingly as a novel.” (Harper's Bazaar)

“An illuminating history of the intrigue and drama taking place inside its elegant fa�ade. . . . The narrative reads like fiction, with the difference being accurate testimony from well-researched documents and interviews.” (Bookreporter)

From the Back Cover:

Established in 1898 in the heart of Paris on the Place Vend�me, the H�tel Ritz instantly became an icon of the city frequented by film stars and celebrity writers, American heiresses and risqu� flappers, politicians, playboys, and princes. By the 1920s the bar became a favorite watering hole for F. Scott Fitzgerald and other writers of the Lost Generation, including Ernest Hemingway. In June 1940, when France fell to the Germans, Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of the Third Reich, famously declared that the nation's capital would remain a high-spirited place—or else. Orders from Berlin specified that the H�tel Ritz would be the only luxury hotel of its kind in occupied Paris.

Tilar J. Mazzeo traces the history of this cultural landmark from its opening in fin de si�cle Paris to the modern era. At its center, The Hotel on Place Vend�me chronicles life at the Ritz during wartime, when the hotel simultaneously served as headquarters to the highest-ranking German officers, such as Reichsmarschall Hermann G�ring, and home to wealthy patrons (and to the spies among them) who stayed on in Paris. At Coco Chanel's table in the dining room on any given evening, one might find the playwright and screenwriter Sacha Guitry, the lithe Russian ballet star Serge Lifar, or Jean Cocteau and his handsome boyfriend.

Mazzeo takes us into the grand palace's suites, bars, dining rooms, and wine cellars, revealing a hotbed of illicit affairs and deadly intrigue, as well as stunning acts of defiance and treachery, in which refugees were hidden in secret rooms, a Jewish bartender passed coded messages for the German resistance, and Wehrmacht officers plotted to assassinate the F�hrer. By the spring of 1944, as the tides of the war shifted, these stories were all coming to their dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking conclusions. There were celebrations as well: when Ernest Hemingway returned in the last hours of the occupation with his rogue band of "irregular" troops to liberate the H�tel Ritz, they also liberated many bottles of vintage wine from its cellars.

The result is the story of The Hotel on Place Vend�me—a singular season at the world-class hotel, an intimate and riveting portrait of the last days of the Second World War.

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