The Ressistance

On D-Day the FFI foughtt with Tigers advancing to reinforce the beaches sacrificing their lives to keep them from throwing the allies back into the sea.

So here is my question.

If the allies used the Ressistance in more offensive combat roles would the war have ended earlier?

The sinking of the Tirpetz(SP) with help from the Norweigh Ressistance, insurrections across France like at Paris, and Warsaw Insurrection in Poland were exceptions to how the Ressistance of every country was used mainly as intelligence gatherers, sabatours, and for the rescue of downed allied airmen and POWs.

So what do you think would it have been effective to have used the FFI as an armed force to harrass the german lines earlier?

Remember there were airlifts of weapons into France for use by De Gaulles ressistors, and there were also weapons given to the ressistance in Belgium, Norwiegh, and Greece.

 

It is known that the Allies frequently could have used intelligence gathered by the resistance in the Netherlands during Market-Garden, but didn't. In this case, they most certainly could have taken major advantage of the underground fighters and would probably have sped things up considerably.

In other cases, I don't really know how the resistance could be used better than it was already. In France and Belgium alone, in four years of occupation, more than five thousand locomotives were blown up! And that's just a fragment of what these people did.

 

It should be pointed out that the Allies had little way of knowing for sure that the intelligence from their agents was truth.
It could be wrong, or (worse) it could be coming direct from the Germans.
After all, we had 'turned' almost every German agent in the UK & were feeding the Germans a bunch of Tripe - why could they not do the same to us?

Would you like to base a military operation on the basis of information that might be supplied by the Germans?

 

Too true Ricky, Soldier of Orange shows a perfect example of it.

 

The French Ressistance may have done a better job had it recieved American as well as British support earlier. The conflict between De Gaulle and Rosevelt (which was De Gaulles fault for keeping pride in his country while it was destroyed and refusing to yield anything which convinced Rosevelt he wasn't commited to democracy) did damage ressistance-american relations.

The way the Allies could have been sure about Ressistance information would be what the French and Belgiums did, assign people to watch the leaders and operatives, and kill anyone who turns traitor.

Entire pockets of FFI were killed in reprisals for doing that, but it garunteed their information was correct and so was worth the extra casualty.

The people who's ressistors went unused by the allies were the Danes.

The actions of the Danish Navy in evacuating jews to Sweeden at the start of occupation before it was done away with by order of the captured government, and the Kings heroism in wearing the jewish star show they had a lot of unused potential.

 

How about the partisans? their way of resisting was much more open and they controled teritory in serbian and yugoslavia! Territory the germans had much trouble recapturing.

 

They did a damn good job, and we should have been far more supportive.

However, in Yugoslavia, there were 2 factions (broadly speaking!).
The Royalists, who supported the Monarchy, and the Communists.
We began by supporting the Royalists, obviously (!)
Then we worked out that actually the Royalists were working with the Germans, and the Communists were fighting the Germans. So we switched our support.
The ultimate result was the pinning down of a lot of German troops, the deaths of a LOT of Yugoslavians, and the country became Communist post-war. True it was non-Stalinist (almost an 'independant' Communist state), which was (mostly) preferable to the almost inevitable Stalinist regime that would have occurred had the USSR 'liberated' Yugoslavia.

 

Te royalists ur mentioning are more commonly know as Chetniks, with their long beards that they swore not to shave until yugoslavia got liberated. Their leader was Drazha Mihailovich. He was executed by Titos partisans in the end of the war.

 

I still say the Danes by far had the most unused potential.

the heroism of the navy in evacuating jews, and the king in wearing the jewish star and ordering his subjects to do the same show how easily ressistance could have been sparked there.

The wearing of the jewish star btw was just an insult to the Germans, the jews were saved by evacuation to Sweeden during the first days of the occupation.

 

There's a film of the early 1970s by Marcel Plphus called " The Sorrow and the Pity", it documents the occupation of France-and several interesting ing aspects emerge from it. Other than small , isolated minorities oin the right as well as the left, most people in France followed Marshal Petain faithfully. simply because he wa, after all was the constituted head of state. Small fringe groups (at the beginning) either volunteered to fight alongside De Gaulle and others (late in 1943) with the Germans. The overwhlming majority of the people simple got on with their lives..This is not an indictment against France and the French-just a reminder that tghis is howthe population of any country tends to behave. A sort of "l'm all right Jack!" attitude.. .Having said that, when l first aw the film, l developed a notion that the resistance, in France was small at the beginning, since De Gaulle was vrtually unknown, an outsider, and Petyain, one must remember, the hero of Verdun. At first the Germans used kid gloves with the French. The ressistance began to grow in numbers as soon as the forced labor drafts began,as soon as "slave laborers" were conscripted to go to worki n Germany..I get the same impression about the Danish ressistance: Denmark was described by Himmler as "The Model Protectorate", and treated fairly well at the beginningas soon , but, as in France when as the war advanced, the ressistance grew in numbers and became far more active..Any thoughts?

 

A further though on the ressistance: , has anyone refected in the cynical way the West handed Poland over to the Communists, and how the Soviet army's offensive "stalled" near Warsaw while the gallant Poles were butchered...

 

Yes - there is a topic on the Warsaw uprising on here somewhere.
It was fairly atrocious. Pragmatic, maybe, but atrocious. :evil:

 

Cynical and Odious might be more apropiate terms....

 

Agreed.

 

This was one of the problems 21st AG had when Dutch resistance gave them a pretty account of the Geramn forces int he Market Garden area.

 

I agree with you about Warsaw, it was an atrocity, but I do not like the way the Poles acted during the war. They actively killed jews and continued to do so after Hitler's defeat. What the Poles did to the jews is a stain to the Polish Flag, as is what the Austrians did.

You forgot the communists who I wouldn't exactly call a small fringe group. The communists were a big part of France before and during occupation.

The Danish Ressistance started fighting Germany on the issue of exterminating jews early, as did the french. There were hundreds of groups of ordinary people in both country that didn't have association with government or general but helped save jews anyway.

The Danes somewhat more of, and more successful to, but I think they deserve recognition for their heroism, even though De Gaulle did not command them.

For example when the Clause Barbie raided a school hiding jews he was destroying a very heroic and patriotic section of ressistance. Ressistance in Europe was not just what the leadership had.

 

The FFI (French forces of the interior) were largely communist; the Paris revolt of late August 1944 was led by communists. Yet they were shoved aside by de Gaulle as soon as he got the opportunity to take legal control over France.

This is pretty much what happened in Holland, and I think in just about any occupied country during the war.

 

The danish king, Christian X, did not wear a jewish star under ww2, he became a symbol for the danes by riding every morning through the streets of Copenhagen with out bodyguard and in uniform, I have seen pics of german soldier make the military salut to him, not the nazi-salut and the king did not wear a jewish star in the pic.
The danish resistance started in the small, the germans more or less left us alone, of cause there were restrictions from german side, but they allowed us to have a goverment, an army, a police force and they did not do much to the jewish population in the beginning.
But as the resistance grow so did the german restrictions and in 1943 the germans gave the danish goverment an ultimatium they could not meet and on the 29. of august 1943 the danish goverment stepped down and the germans imposed martial law, Denmark was now at war with Germany.
The germans started to disarm the danish army, but not with out fighting, some danish and german soldiers died, I dont know the number of deads, the fleet was mostly sunked by it crew.
The germans also tried to take the king, but the police put up to much of a fight and the germans gave it up after some loses, I have seen pics of dead germans on the streets outside the kings residence in Copenhagen, also some danish police men losed thier lives.
The germans also started to plan the "evacuation" of the danish jews, but the resistance found out about it, and knew when it was going to happen, someone in the german administration in Denmark warned the resistance, in octorber 1943, so they started to get the jews to Sweden, and here Sweden should also be thanked by taking care of them, almost all the danish jews was evacuated to Sweden and many resistance figthers got killed doing it, dont know how many.
The jews was evacuated by the danish fishing fleet and other small boats.
One of the people how was evacuated to Sweden was Niels Bohr, one of the master minds of the US atomic bomb and a Nobel price winner in 1922.
From 1943 and to 1945 the resistance grow and became more organized, many danish soldiers joined the resistance movment, many resistance fighters got killed by the germans, many executed, today you can still see the spot were they were executed and visit thier burial site in "mindelunden" in Copenhagen.
The danish resistance saved almost all of the 7000 danish jews.
After the war, 46 people how had helped the germans duing the war, was executed for treachery against Denmark, mostly people how had killed resistance fighters and terroristed the danish people, others was jailed.
But I dont know were the story about the danish king wearing a jewish star comes from, its only a nice, sweet story, but not true.

 

That's to bad, it is a good story.

Are the stories about thousands of Danes wearing the Star to confuse the Germans also myths?

 

yes it is, I have never heard about danes wearing the jewish star...
The danes tried to live a normal life in the beginning of the occupation and the germans did not really do much about it, there was of cause restrictions from german side.
Those restrictions grow every year and so did the resistance against the germans, but untill 1943 we had some form of self-control.
There are many myths from ww2, both from Denmark and other places, but one thing is true, we did save the jews, almost all 7000 danish jews was saved, only few hundred jews and police men, the germans also arrested the danish police when they impose martial law, was taken by the germans and around 50 of them died in the camps.
There were many danes who helped saving and hidding the jews and the police.
But the story about the danish king and many danes wearing the jewish star is a nice myth and we can live with that.