 When the allied troops led by General Leclerc arrived in the city, Kriegel was one of the three leaders of the resistance who received the surrender of the German military governor of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, on August 25, 1944.Maurice Kriegel-Valrimont, as he was now known, formally joined the French Communist Party (PCF) after the war and was elected to parliament in 1945 to represent an Alsace constituency.From 1947 onward, he was a member of the party's central committee, and was given responsibility for its press bureau.