Three days after the fall of France in 1940, Napoleon, lying in his marble tomb in Paris, received a visit from his greatest admirer.
Adolf Hitler, on his one and only visit to the French capital, made an unannounced trip to the tomb in Les Invalides.
In his white raincoat, surrounded by his generals, Hitler stood for a long time gazing down at his hero, his cap removed in deference.
He was said later to have described this moment as 'one of the proudest of my life'.
The next day, during his official sightseeing tour of Paris, Hitler again visited Napoleon's tomb to salute him.
Conscious that his hero was known to the world simply as Napoleon, Hitler boasted that he would not need a rank or title on his gravestone. 'The German people would know who it was if the only word was Adolf.'
Throughout the war, Hitler had sandbags placed around Napoleon's tomb to guard against bomb damage.
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