Collaboration / Resistance Flashcards
(24 cards)
Julian Jackson
history of European occupation should be written not in black and white, but in shades of grey
Conditional Collaboration
cooperate with occupying power although endorse only some of Nationalist Socialist doctrines
Petain and Vichy regime
- 1940-44: “Dark Years,” Vichy government liquidated democratic institutions of France, pursued policy of collaboration with Germany
- moderate terms of Armistice strengthened belief genuine collaboration with victorious Germans would enable Fr to gain trust and eventually develop into equal partner
- Petain: choice between “traditional peace of oppression” or “entirely novel peace of collaboration”
limitation of Petain’s collaborationist policy
France’s independence, sovereignty, and national identity be preserved at all costs, so that later it could become a capital investment in Hitler’s grand European “business venture”
tactical collaboration
- many worked with and for the enemy for practical and altruistic reasons
- hid refugees, procured arms, ammunition, food, and clothing for Resistance groups, obtained secret information of military value, planned acts of sabotage
- anti-Nazi worker could place time bomb on railroad track used by German freight trains before returning to his work at factory that manufactured high-explosive shells for people he had just attacked
how many French railroad workers engaged in non-violent acts of sabotage
10,000
Resistance from political margins
- early phases of occupation first organisation of resistance emerged primarily from each end of political spectrum
- Communists were ideologically and politically motivated to fight against Fascism
- benefitted from experience in clandestine political operations and activities
When were Italian and French Communist Parties outlawed?
- Italian Communist Party outlawed 1926-43
2. French Communist Party outlawed during Spanish Civil War
When did the French Communist Party organise resistance group?
- 1941: German invasion of Soviet Union triggered active organisation of Communists
- created non-Communist resistance group under control of French Communist Party, “French Irregulars and Partisans” (FTP)
- May 27 1943: organised first collective resistance effort, strikes at Dourges
What did the Italian Communist Party for resistance?
- summer 1944: organised serious armed anti-fascist resistance in north and central Italy, involved around 500,000 workers
- formed first large partisan group that disrupted German requisition of foodstuffs and livestock
Robert Gildea
resistance efforts of Communists ejected from dominant narrative in immediate postwar period due to onset of Cold War
Significance of government-in-exile
- undermined legitimacy of occupying government
- maintained links with Allied Forces under Special Operation Executive
- protected from Nazi attack
When did Fr resistance groups unite under De Gaulle?
1943
De Gaulle as figurehead
- delivered speeches on BBC
2. around 70% of Fr listened
De Gaulle: Aug 1944 marched down Champs Eylsees acclaimed by Fr people
“Paris liberated! Liberated by its own efforts, liberated by its people…”
Gaullist narrative of French Resistance
- constructed militaristic, patriotic, and hyper-masculine narrative.
- heroic interpretation in which, with exception of handful of traitors, horrors of France were work of Germans alone, masses of Fr people stood solidly behind De Gaulle and France
CZ Resistance umbrella organisation
- Central Leadership of Home Resistance
2. principal clandestine intermediary between Edvard Benes and Protectorate
Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
- Heydrich: one of most powerful men in Nazi Germany, important figure in rise of Hitler, given overall charge of Final Solution to Jewish question in Europe
- motivations for assassination: retribution for Heydrich’s brutally efficient rule, and help confer legitimacy on Benes’ government-in-exile
- resulted in brutal German reprisals: execution of thousands of Czechs and eradication of villages
Claire Adrieu
women were better suited to resistance since their traditional position was on the outskirts of society, thus easier to step outside the law
Madeline Meric
- leader of offensive resistance group, Alliance with 3000 agents
- worked alongside Georges Loustaunau-Lacau until he was arrested and deported
- gathered intelligence on German activities in Vichy, valuable information source to British
- attempted to hide her gender from British for fear they would cease cooperation with her
- police reports speculated about her presumed relationship with Loustaunau-Lacau
- captured by Vichy forces however failed to believe that she was in charge of sabotage group
De Gaulle vs Meric
- De Gaulle remembered as hero according to dominant narrative he constructed
- only recently has Meric held up as glorious example of heroic resistance, partly due to her conversion to Gaullism and her charitable work after occupation
Historiography: new approaches
placed greater emphasis on diversity of resistance, and on experience of non-dominant groups
Vichy racial laws
- 1940 and 1941 introduction of “Jewish laws” without any German pressure
- French officers rounded up country’s Jewish population to meet quotas being demanded by Nazi authorities as Final Solution got under way
- 75,000 deported
- despite obloquy poured upon Petain and his collaborators, very little mention of regime’s contribution to Holocaust
Jewish Councils and tactical collaboration
- resisting matter of life or death
- responsible for transmitting decrees and directives, and supervise their implementation
- many decent Jews promoted to collaborate with Germans and assume positions of responsibility in Councils by moral and religious sense of duty, desire and expectation they would be able to protect fellow Jews
- Leo Baeck (German Rabbi who survive): believed it would be better for the Jewish orderlies to select Jews for deportation because at least they would treat them more gently and more likely to assist them
- commander of Jewish police in Lodz ghetto, guided by each individual’s chances of survival, selected the old and sick for “resettlement” knowing they would be gassed
