Eighty years ago Parisians rose up against their German Nazi occupiers, liberating the French capital on August 25, 1944 after a wild week of strikes, barricades and street fighting. AFP takes a look at some key moments from this historic event, some tragic, others more joyful.

Shot in 1944; died in 2005

On the morning of August 19, Parisians first rose up. The police, who had been on strike for four days, reoccupied their HQ. Police officer Armand Bacquer, 24, was arrested by the Germans and shot by a firing squad with a colleague on the banks of the river Seine. While his colleague died on the spot, Bacquer, left for dead, was rescued the next day. He was operated on, survived and resumed his job as a policeman. He died in his sleep more than 60 years later in 2005.

Finally freed

On August 19, Madeleine Riffaut who had been arrested, tortured and sentenced to death by the Nazis after killing a junior Nazi officer, was finally freed. She was then sent on a mission to intercept a German train as it passed through the Buttes Chaumont Park in northeastern Paris. With three comrades she pounded the train with explosives from a bridge over a tunnel, captured 80 German soldiers and then partied on the champagne and foie gras the Germans were taking home. “Let us say, we celebrated on that day: it was the 23 August. I was 20,” she said.

This photograph taken between August 19-25, 1944, near the end of the Battle of Paris shows people inspecting destroyed German military trucks in the 17th district as French and British flags appear at windows shortly before the liberation of the city during World War II.--AFP photos

This photograph shows a group of Parisians happy to eat white bread, which they can buy again after years of rationing in August 1944 after the Liberation of Paris during World War II.

This photograph dated August 1944, shows US soldiers admiring The Eiffel Tower in Paris, after the liberation of Paris during World War II.

This photograph dated August 1944, shows Parisians shooting at German troops with a British Bren machine gun from a window of Paris police headquarters in Paris, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris during World War II.

Smoke and flames rise from The Grand Palais in Paris on August 23, 1944, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

France's General Charles de Gaulle (center), accompanied by his personal representative in Paris Alexandre Parodi (right), French General Philippe Leclerc (second right, second row), his aide de camp Captain Guy (far right) and Andre Le Troquer (second left with bowtie) walk down The Avenue Champs Elysees in Paris, at the time of the Liberation of Paris during World War Two.

Guards and gendarmes fire on German troops in Paris in August 1944, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

‘To the barricades!’

On August 22, Parisians responded to the call of resistance leader Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy to go “To the barricades!” The Parisians, determined to take part in their own liberation, erected a chain of 600 barricades, including paving stones, rails, bathtubs, mattresses, and trees, to block the Germans’ movement.

A sleepless night in Paris

“It was only on the evening (of August 24) around 9:45 pm that the news broke across Paris: at 9:28 pm the first French tank, the Romilly, arrived at the town hall. Everywhere there was an indescribable emotion,” wrote Jean Le Quiller, journalist for the newly-created Agence France- Presse. “Whole apartment blocks sang the Marseillaise, whole streets applauded in the night... A concert of bells filled the air... bringing tears to the eyes,” he wrote. As allied troops entered from different sides of Paris, AFP wrote: “Now it is for sure: they are there. Paris will not sleep tonight.” The next day Colonel Rol-Tanguy accepted the surrender of German General Dietrich von Choltitz, ending four years of occupation.

French general Philippe Leclerc waits to march on the Champs Elysees Avenue on August 26, 1944 with his troops of the French 2nd Armored Division (2e Division Blindée, 2ème DB), after the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

A man sorts through debris in the Halle aux Vins in Paris in August 1944, which was destroyed after a German air raid during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

This photograph taken on August 26, 1944, shows the ruined buildings of Bichat Hospital in Paris after a bombardment during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

Armed FFI (French Forces of the Interior) fighters escort German soldiers on the Grands Boulevards in Paris after the taking of the Kommandantur building on the Place de l'Opéra, in August 1944, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

Goumiers, auxiliary soldiers supplied to the French army by Algerian or Moroccan tribes, march in Paris on July 14, 1945.

Parisian people buy newspapers in August 1944 during the battle for the liberation of Paris, during the Second World War.

Armed FFI (French Forces of the Interior) fighters escort German soldiers after their surrender and the taking of the Kommandantur building on the Place de l'Opéra in Paris, on August 25, 1944 during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

Paris Firemen display a French national flag on the balcony of the Eiffel tower 25 August 2004 in Paris in memory of their 1944 colleagues who did it on the day when Paris was liberated from Nazi occupation.

Killed on his 20th birthday

On August 25, Brigadier Pierre Deville, who had just returned from Morocco, called his parents and said: “I’m on my way.” With his platoon he went to the military school to the west of Paris where the Germans were holed up. It took nearly four hours to neutralize them. Deville was then shot in the head. It was his 20th birthday.

A fireman’s revenge

On the same day, not far away, fireman Captain Sarniguet climbed the 1,700 steps of the Eiffel Tower. It was sweet revenge for the man the Nazis had ordered in June 1940 to take down France’s tricolour flag from the top. He put up French flags, cobbled together with low quality dyes and sown in secret by the wives of junior officers. So the French flag replaced the swastika which had been flying for about 1,500 days. “The only obstacle I met was the wind,” Sarniguet said.

Parisian people welcome soldiers of the 9th company ("Nueve"), the Regiment de marche du Tchad (RMT) of the French 2nd Armored Division (2e Division Blindée, 2ème DB), in halftrack vehicles as a wounded German soldier lies on the ground, on August 25, 1944, rue Daunou in Paris, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris during the Second World War.

Parisians and fighters build a barricade in rue de Maubeuge, in front of Air France offices, near the headquarters of the French Communist Party (center), formerly occupied by the militia, at the Chateaudun crossroad in Paris in August 1944, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during the Second World War.

A nurse looks at the bodies of of peacekeepers and police officers, to be identified, in the courtyard of the Château de Vincennes near Paris on August 25, 1944, after the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

Picture taken in August 1944 of English patients wounded during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during the Second World War, at La Pitie Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.

FFI (French Interior Forces) fighters watch the Nazi flag confiscated from Nazi occupiers inside the Reuilly Barracks in Paris on August 25, 1944, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

A German vehicle burns near Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in Paris on August 19, 1944, during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

Parisians cheer FFI (French Forces of the Interior) fighters and Allied troops as they parade on Rue de Rivoli in Paris on August 26, 1944, after the battle for the Liberation of Paris during World War Two.

French resistants arrest a German soldier in August 1944, rue de Montyon in Paris during the battle for the Liberation of Paris, during World War II.

A German officer bandages the wounds of another as the staff of General Dietrich von Choltitz sits on the platform at Montaparnasse Station in Paris on August 25, 1944, following the surrender of the Nazi Commander of Paris and 10 000 troops during the liberation of Paris during World War II.

Bullets greet de Gaulle

On August 26, French wartime leader General Charles de Gaulle made a triumphant return from exile in London, parading in liberated Paris. He arrived late for a prayer of praise at Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral. As he greeted the crowd in the square from an open-topped car, gunfire broke out. He brushed it off and carried on his way. He put it down to a coup by counter-revolutionaries seeking to sow panic and seize power. — AFP