his was gerhardt heller. an assertive knock brought madam heller to her apartment door or it was november of 1940 and the germans had been in paris for five months. she had grown used to seeing them in the street but she was stunned when she saw on her landing a man in the uniform of a vermox lieutenant. quickly she called her husband. what could he possibly want? >> officer politely saluted and asked if this is where certain younger heller lived. they answered, yes but told their unnerving visitor that their son was presently a prisoner of war. the germans had over 1.5 million french soldiers as prisoners of war. the german officer introduced himself as gerhardt heller who had known their son while he was studying medicine in germany. that is he, the young frenchman was studying medicine in germany. coincidently they have the same family name and they had bonded because of it. heller told the couple that he was new to paris and that their son was the only person he knew to call on. the parisian hellers were

heller. at any rate he was not there and would not be for a long time. they did not invite gerhardt in or show any interest in his story. lieutenant turned away, still alone and with the jurgens called to the city without a gaze, the city without a face. lieutenant heller for counts the anecdote in his memoirs published in france in 1981 reminding us of the other side of the occupation. of course we have to consider his memoirs with care. we are not reading contemporary documents but the memories of a man who wants to present himself as a sympathetic educated highly literate and generous man. nevertheless his book presents anecdotes that help us to understand further the anxieties that affected many of the reich's best officers. heller was obviously a francophile and at least 40 years later and anti-nazi. an impermanent wehrmacht bureaucrat he was charged with the unpleasant task of preventing the publication of french literature that would be construed as inference by jews. the physical result of this responsibility was a huge warehouse in paris where thousands upon thousands of bo