Is Paris Burning?

I like to study history, because quite often what we are told happened, is quite different from what really did happen.  While it is attributed to just about every world leader of recent times, the adage “history is written by the winners” goes back millennium, in various twists.  I’ve seen it as “History is written by those who have hanged hero’s”  and I’ve seen other variants such as  "History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon."

While researching various incidents that occurred during WWII I was given a book called “Is Paris Burning?”  The thrust of the book was that when Hitler realized that France was going to be liberated, he instructed the Generals in charge of the French occupation to burn Paris to the ground as his troops evacuated the area. But the main man in charge of that operation had reservations about doing it. It didn’t seem like a humane thing to do, and he continued to put it off. Ultimately he refused to give the order, despite an almost hysterical Hitler demanding it.