User:Bigeez/Collaboration and resistance

Prologue (NOT to be included in the subsection):

Over the past few months, Talk:World War II has debated “collaboration” more than Westminster and Brexit. Though some seventy-five years have elapsed since the war ended, “collaboration” stands as a dodgy and combustible topic. The most significant problem appears to be the lack of consensus from scholars and the proper definition of the term. Perhaps, there is a unity of mistrust among those countries who have been branded as fostering collaboration. Or, are they absenting themselves from any moral standpoint of decency? This might explain why scarcely the mere mention of collaboration conjures collusion among editors and finger-pointing, not only in Wikipedia as we have seen but elsewhere. As we have witnessed, the cauldron boiled over, and summary judgment quickly followed. I confess, there is a growing attitude or assumption about collaboration. One thing is quite clear: little faith is to be had in whoever writes this subsection. Factual evidence presented by scholars, historians, and well-known authors is not enough it seems. Perhaps one’s national conscience deterred their scholars from addressing it in the past. When they had, they were dismissed by frivolous attempts aimed at discrediting their work. Indeed, the epistemic justification of the information — the credibility of the available evidence regarding that particular time — in and of itself supports the decision to write about it. The epistemological thought process — the study and determination to write a book on collaboration — has been rendered by scholars, university professors, historians, and yes, by those who were discredited by some. In this subsection, those writers who have been referenced had no fear of their writings. In fact, for them, it was a release. Therefore, nowhere can that same transfer of information be hindered: not on Wikipedia, nor anywhere else. The pulse of one nation’s people, transferred to historians or authors who are — or were — natives of German-occupied Europe, has become the most crucial references on this subsection and have analysed the evidence in detail. In closing, we must be reminded that the unfortunate consequence of the omission of ‘collaboration’ will give the public the impression that nationalistic views take precedence over truth. That impression will undermine the public’s confidence in Wikipedia’s impartiality: specifically, its editorial board, whom I greatly respect. Therefore, let us widen our lenses, and barring any unforeseen crisis, it is doubtful the subsection will go unwritten. Wikipedia’s editors alone possess agency to act. Therefore, to each, his/her own judgment on history. Lastly, if it is ignored, its moral implications will be sacrificed on the altar of one’s national pride.

Collaboration

“The final verdict on how well we withstand the moral and ethical challenges of the war is not that of a judge, who determines the guilt or innocence of the accused. But it was — and remains — too easy to blame just Hitler and the Nazis.”

Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution during World War Il, Chapter 1, p. 38 — István Deák

“Collaboration” is commonly used as a moniker for cooperating with the enemy. Although a controversial topic, to doubt its existence is to deny the obvious, and “without it, the picture of World War II would be incomplete.” In 1941, Philippe Pétain spoke of an understanding between the Vichy French and Hitler, agreeing upon a collaboration which he “accepted in principle.” Collaboration was set forth by the Fourth Hague International Convention of 1907, outlining the citizen's duty to obey the enemy so long as the “latter abided by the terms of The Hague Convention.” ‘‘Collaboration’’ is defined here as a cooperation between the vanquished territories and the Axis Powers. Historians agree that the German Army needed local cooperation or “beneficial accommodation” since without some degree of collaboration, it would be “impossible to have control over the vanquished.” As a result, many were “eager to collaborate with the Germans,” “impelled by various motives, who thought it convenient to cooperate with the Axis Powers.” “Some did so freely, others with reservations; many by force or by deception.” Those who were “wise to cooperate hoped that in return the collaborators might absorb the brunt of the subjugated peoples’ rage, like a “lightning rod, to rob the resistance of its manpower.” Economically, even the British in their colonies (Singapore) or the Americans in theirs (Philippines) couldn’t resist profiting “from close collaboration with their new masters.” See Collaborationism and Collaboration during World War II

Collaboration consisted primarily in participation of hostilities on the Axis side. Nazi ideology-driven collaboration was a factor. There were four main reasons for it: 1) support for Nazi-fascist culture, 2) antisemitism, 3) anticommunism, and 4) a nationalistic desire for establishing an independent fascist-type state. For some, there was a combination of all of the above. “There were shared beliefs in antisemitism, hatred of Soviet communism, enthusiasm for National Socialist ideology, and hope for a united Europe even though under German Nazi Supremacy.” The combination of anticommunism, antisemitism, and the desire for establishing an independent fascist state is best seen in Western Ukraine. The Ukrainians were eventually caught between German and Soviet crossfire, “at the very heart of the bloodlands.” Operation Barbarossa had “opened the way to collaboration and resistance on a scale which nothing in Western or Northern Europe could be compared.” Collaboration assumed an ethnic character: “Ukrainians, Belarusians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Caucasians and members of some Asian nationalities were assembled in ethnic units and served the Germans as Waffen-SS volunteers, armed militiamen, policemen, concentration camp guards, low-level administrators, professionals, workers, and laborers. There were Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian policemen, and Croatian/Bosnian Muslim, Scandinavian, Dutch, Belgian, and French Waffen SS divisions, brigades, 'legions', or battalions, most of them bearing the names of historical heroes.”

The first reason for ideology-driven collaboration, Nazi-inspired symapthies, evolved after World War I. The dissolution of the Central Powers, multi-nationalism in the collapsed German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, the partitions of Poland, the rise of communism, were among the factors which “sowed the seeds for deep resentment.” Collaboration by paramilitary groups or armies which supported Nazi ideology, particularly in Western Europe, were France's Marcel Déat and Milice française, the 33rd Waffen SS in France, Belgium's Léon Degrelle and the Légion Wallonie, Norway's Vidkun Quisling with Nordic countries including Denmark, and Dutch Waffen-SS units in the Netherlands. Germany's Vernichtungskrieg ignited ethnic and Nazi-driven Waffen-SS divisions.

The second reason for ideology-driven collaboration was antisemitism and the identification and killing of ethnic and religious groups, or “undesirables,” throughout Europe, particularly in Western Ukraine, Lithuania, and Byelorussia. “Antisemitism became one of the central features of Europeans who were susceptible to the solutions proposed by Rome and Berlin, with Nazi Germany becoming the bulwark against Bolshevism.” The Holocaust, what the Nazis called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, and the Third Reich’s “determination to murder all the Jews of Europe, developed over time.” “The common denominator was that few Europeans came to the aid of their Jewish brethren, and could never have been accomplished with the efficiency and completeness that it was without the assistance of masses of Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Romanians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Frenchmen, Dutch, Poles, and many other Europeans.” “Most notorious were the Trawniki men, Soviet POW’s trained at Trawniki in Western Ukraine, who tortured and shot hundreds of thousands of Jews under strict German supervision.” The “Channel Islands cooperated with German commanders who handed Jewish families over to the Gestapo.” Mass killing of Jews after the start of Operation Barbarossa was perpetrated by specialised troops composed of local volunteers and “would never have succeeded without the collaboration of many non-German Europeans. Conversely, the survival of many Jews would have been inconceivable without the opposition of many non-Germans to the Nazi presence.” Ultimately, those who collaborated in Hitler’s Final Solution did so as “collaborators, cooperators, or as accommodators,” including the Judenrat that served in the Jewish police as spies of the German intelligence service. However, they sought to escape their doomed fate and “were not committed collaborators.” Many Europeans were executed by the Germans for sheltering Jews. Waffen-SS divisions implicated in the persecution and execution of Roma (Gypsy) and Jews were seen in Eastern European collaborators, Western Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lithuania, France, and Poland, where the highest German-recorded number of Jews were sent to concentration camps, including the Latvian Waffen SS, Estonian Waffen-SS, and the paramilitary and Einsatzgruppen.

The third reason for ideology-driven collaboration was communism. Countries where communism flourished were manipulated by German propagandists igniting ethnic unrest, as in the Baltic countries and Ukraine. Former military and police fought communist threat like Latvia’s 2nd SS Infantry Brigade and the Ukrainian Galician Division. “Fear of Stalin terror such as forced collectivisation, mass executions and deportations inspired many embittered against the Soviets including the paramilitary groups known as Hilfsfreiwillige,” while a “Russian liberation army created within the German Wehrmacht (Vlasov Army), became an anti-communist Russian army.” In Greece, Rallis’ Greek Security Battalions fought communist ELAS partisans.

The fourth reason for ideology-driven collaboration was the hope for establishing an independent fascist state. European countries subsumed by Waffen SS divisions where ideology-driven sympathies festered, aspired to establish an independent fascist country to partner with Nazi Germany. These include Vidkun Quisling in Norway, Ferenc Szálasi in Hungary, Anton Mossert in the Netherlands, Pierre Laval in France, and Stepan Bandera in Western Ukraine. Auxiliary police (like the Estonian Auxiliary Police) and paramilitary forces (Einsatzgruppen and Feldgendarmerie), were responsible for containing resistance. In the Balkans, Georgios Tsolakoglou of Greece's collaborationist government and the allies of the Axis, such as Slovakia and Croatia, from dismembered Yugoslavia, sought independent fascist states. The Croatian Handschar Waffen-SS which included Moslems from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Yugoslavian, and Greek Security Battalions engaged communists. Detention and execution of POWs, either semi-voluntarily or compulsory, also occurred. See Collaboration with the Axis Powers

                                                           RESISTANCE

“Occupied countries had a resource nearer home: their own peoples.” Ch. 1, p. 4 — M.R.D. Foot

Resistance: European Resistance to Nazism 1940-45

Resistance by local populations took place in the Axis’ occupied countries as a result of their repressive nature. A resister was anyone who resisted by a) not cooperating with their occupiers or b) endangering themselves or others; either passively or actively. Resisters came from “all walks of life, not only communists, but teachers, engineers, lawyers, merchants, businessmen, civil servants and priests ... officers, NCO's, and partisans.” For some, the “changes at the battle front made resisters out of collaborators” who were “emboldened by Axis defeats incurred at El Alamein and Stalingrad and the simultaneous invasion of North Africa by the United States.” Some printed illegal newspapers or used the wireless to communicate and “receive radio messages from London.” Widespread partisan movements kept German divisions occupied, such as the Free French Army, Polish Underground, Greek Resistance, Yugoslav Partisans, Russian partisans, and the Italians who changed sides and joined the Allies in 1943. “German policies in Byelorussia resulted in the second-largest resistance group in Europe, following Tito's resistance in Yugoslavia.” Noteworthy was the Polish Underground's “monumental undertaking of the Warsaw Uprising” and Europe’s only underground organisation dedicated to assisting the Jews (Żegota). At times, resistance was complicated depending on one’s nationality, religion, or ethnicity, particularly in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

Extensive, Allied-assisted partisan warfare was the aim of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), which Prime Minister Churchill said “would set Europe ablaze.” The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) adapted the British model upon Churchill's recommendation to President Roosevelt, who appointed “Wild Bill” Donovan as its chief. The OSS would eventually rival the SOE, setting up training camps in the United States and overseas and successfully “sending thousands of agents around the globe.” At times, the Allied intelligence services cooperated in unison with resisters, such as the ‘Jedburgh Teams’ and were sent to Occupied France prior to the D-Day invasion, comprised of “one OSS or SOE officer, one French officer, and one British or American radio operator, playing a crucial role.” In the Balkans, both Churchill and Roosevelt aimed to keep Greece and Yugoslavia free from Stalin's attempt at control. “Churchill's gamble paid off, because Greece and Yugoslavia never entered the Soviet bloc.” At times, both nationalist and communist forces acted in unison to defeat the common foe, such as the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Bridge linking the Athens to Thessaloniki railway by “EDES (nationalists) and ELAS (communists) under the leadership of the SOE.”

In Southeast Asia, resistance was far more complex as the dynamics were different than in Europe. The Japanese also presented themselves as liberators of colonial peoples, and this was accepted by at least parts of the local independence movements. In reality it was much different, since the Japanese sought its own colonial empire and intended to subjugate every country they invaded. However, in the last weeks of the war, the Indonesian independence movement was able to leverage its limited collaboration with the Japanese to gain their support; enough to declare the Netherlands East Indies free, which doomed the Dutch attempts to resume control after World War II ended. In French Indochina, the communist Viet Minh gave rise to an anti-Axis partisan movement. This initiated Vietnam’s anti-colonial movement, in which the American OSS became a key player. See Resistance during World War II

Collaboration and Resistance

Collaboration

Further information: Collaboration during World War II

Further information: Collaboration with the Axis Powers

During the war, large territories were under Axis occupation since the German Army required local collaboration for some degree of control. Collaboration consisted primarily in participation of hostilities by the Axis. Nazi ideology-driven collaboration was a factor, of which there were four main reasons: 1) support for Nazi-fascist culture, 2) antisemitism, 3) anticommunism, and 4) a national desire for an independent fascist state. At times, there was a combination of shared beliefs in antisemitism, hatred of Soviet communism, enthusiasm for National Socialist ideology, and hope for a united Europe under German Supremacy. Auxiliary forces patrolled the shores (Schutzkommandos), while others were concentration camp guards, low-level administrators and professionals. Waffen-SS volunteers formed divisions, brigades, legions, or battalions bearing the names of historical heroes, as in the Croatian/Bosnian Muslim, Scandinavian, Dutch, Belgian, and French. The vast majority of the population were accommodators. Laborers worked in factories, docks, train stations and airfields. Economically, British (Singapore) and American (Philippines) colonies collaborated.

Pétain and Hitler

The first reason for ideology-driven collaboration, Nazi-inspired symapthies, evolved after World War I with the dissolution of the Central Powers, multi-nationalism, the collapsed German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, the partitions of Poland, and the rise of communism that sowed the seeds for deep resentment. Collaboration by paramilitary groups which supported Nazi ideology, particularly in Western Europe were France's Marcel Déat and Milice française, the 33rd Waffen SS in France, Belgium's Léon Degrelle and the Légion Wallonie, Norway's Vidkun Quisling, Nordic "Panzers", and Dutch Waffen-SS units in the Netherlands.

Hungarian Jews arriving at Auschwitz II-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland

The second reason for ideology-driven collaboration was antisemitism and the identification and killing of ethnic and religious groups or “undesirables” throughout Europe, particularly in Western Ukraine, Lithuania, and Byelorussia. The Holocaust, the Third Reich’s determination to murder all the Jews of Europe, developed over time and could not have been accomplished with the efficiency and completeness that it was without the assistance of many non-German Europeans. Conversely, the survival of many Jews would have been inconceivable without the opposition of many non-Germans who were executed for sheltering Jews. Operation Barbarossa initiated collaboration on a scale which could not be compared to in Northern or Western Europe. Ukrainians, the Baltic states, Caucasians, Russians and members of some Asian nationalities assembled ethnic units and served the Germans as armed militiamen, or Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian policemen. Mass killing of Jews after Operation Barbarossa was perpetrated by specialised troops composed of local volunteers who could not have succeeded without the collaboration of many non-German Europeans. The Trawniki, Soviet POW’s trained in Western Ukraine, tortured and shot hundreds of thousands of Jews under German supervision. Yet, even the Channel Islands collaborated with the Germans who handed the Jews over to the Gestapo. Ultimately, those who collaborated in Hitler’s Final Solution did so as “collaborators, cooperators, or as accommodators.” The Judenrat served in the Jewish police as spies of German intelligence, however, they “sought to escape their doomed fate and were not committed collaborators.” Waffen-SS divisions implicated in the persecution and execution of the Roma (Gypsy) and Jews were seen in Eastern European collaborators, Western Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lithuania, and France, where the highest German-recorded number of Jews were sent to concentration camps, including the Latvian Waffen SS, Estonian Waffen-SS, the paramilitary, and Einsatzgruppen.

Ukrainian "Galician" Division

The third reason for ideology-driven collaboration was communism, manipulated by German propagandists and igniting ethnic unrest as in the Baltic countries, Ukraine and Russia. Bronislav Kaminski in Russia’s autonomous Lokot Republic administered an entire district for the Germans. Former military and police fought the communist threat as in Latvia’s 2nd SS Infantry Brigade and the Ukrainian Galician Division. Fear of Stalin terror and forced collectivisation, mass executions and deportations inspired many against the Soviets, including the paramilitary Hilfsfreiwillige, while within the German Army a Russian army was created (Vlasov Army). In Greece, Ioannis Rallis’ Greek Security Battalions fought communist ELAS partisans.

Greek Security Battalions

The fourth reason for ideology-driven collaboration was the nationalistic desire for establishing an independent fascist state. Conscripts from the Occupied Eastern countries subsumed by Waffen SS divisions where ideology-driven sympathies festered, hoped to establish an independent fascist country to partner with Nazi Germany. These include Vidkun Quisling in Norway, Ferenc Szálasi in Hungary, Anton Mossert in the Netherlands, Pierre Laval in France, and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. Estonian conscripts began as a means to defend the Occupied Eastern countries as the Third Reich crumbled. Auxiliaries as in the Estonian Auxiliary Police, paramilitary forces (Einsatzgruppen) and Feldgendarmerie were responsible for containing resistance. In the Balkans, Georgios Tsolakoglou of Greece's collaborationist government and the allies of the Axis, such as Slovakia and Croatia, from dismembered Yugoslavia, sought independent fascist states. The Croatian Handschar Waffen-SS and Moslems from Bosnia, Yugoslavian, and Greek Security Battalions engaged communists. POWs, either semi-voluntarily or compulsory, collaborated.

Resistance

Further information: Resistance during World War II

Maquisards

Resistance by local populations took place in occupied countries due to the repressive nature of the occupiers. A resister was anyone who resisted by a) not cooperating with their occupiers or b) endangering themselves or others; either passively or actively. Resisters came from all walks of life where the “changes at the battle front made resisters out of collaborators,” empowered by Axis defeats incurred at El Alamein, Stalingrad and the simultaneous invasion of North Africa by the United States. Resisters printed illegal newspapers or used the wireless to communicate and receive radio messages from London. Widespread partisan movements kept German divisions engaged, such as the French, Norwegian, Greek, Yugoslavian, and Russians, including the Italians who changed sides and joined the Allies in 1943. German policies in Byelorussia resulted in the second-largest resistance group in Europe, following Tito's resistance in Yugoslavia. Noteworthy was the Polish Underground's “monumental undertaking of the Warsaw Uprising” and Europe’s only underground organisation dedicated to assisting the Jews (Żegota). At times, resistance was complicated depending on one’s nationality, religion, or ethnicity, particularly in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

Jedburghs in front of a B-24 Liberator prior to departure for occupied France

Allied-assisted partisan warfare was the aim of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), which Churchill said “would set Europe ablaze.” The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) adapted the British model upon Churchill's insistence to Roosevelt, who appointed “Wild Bill” Donovan as its chief. The OSS would eventually rival the SOE, setting up training camps in the United States and overseas, successfully sending thousands of agents around the globe. At times, the Allied intelligence services cooperated with resisters, such as the Jedburgh and Sussex missions, sent to Occupied France prior to the D-Day invasion. Comprised of one OSS or SOE officer, one French officer or émigré, and one British or American radio operator, they played "a crucial role." In the Balkans, both Churchill and Roosevelt aimed to keep Greece and Yugoslavia free from Stalin's attempt at control. Churchill's gamble paid off, because both never entered the Soviet bloc. On occasion, both nationalist and communist forces acted in unison under the leadership of the SOE, such as the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Bridge linking the Athens to Thessaloniki railway by EDES (nationalists) and ELAS (communists).

Hồ Chí Minh (third from left, standing) with OSS agents in 1945

In Southeast Asia, resistance was more complex as the dynamics were different than in Europe. The Japanese also presented themselves as liberators of colonial peoples, and this was accepted by at least parts of the local independence movements. In reality it was much different, since the Japanese sought its own colonial empire and intended to subjugate every country they invaded. However, in the last weeks of the war, the Indonesian independence movement was able to leverage its limited collaboration with the Japanese to gain their support; enough to declare the Netherlands East Indies free, which doomed the Dutch attempts to resume control after World War II ended. In French Indochina, the communist Viet Minh gave rise to an anti-Axis partisan movement. This initiated Vietnam’s anti-colonial movement, in which the American OSS became a key player.

Collaboration and Resistance

Collaboration

Further information: Collaboration during World War II

Further information: Collaboration with the Axis Powers

During the war, large territories were under Axis occupation since the German Army required local collaboration for some degree of control. Collaboration consisted primarily in participation of hostilities by the Axis. Nazi ideology-driven collaboration was a factor, of which there were four main reasons: 1) support for Nazi-fascist culture, 2) antisemitism, 3) anticommunism, and 4) a national desire for an independent fascist state. At times, there was a combination of shared beliefs in antisemitism, hatred of Soviet communism, enthusiasm for National Socialist ideology, and hope for a united Europe under German Supremacy. Auxiliary forces patrolled the shores (Schutzkommandos), while others were concentration camp guards, low-level administrators and professionals. Waffen-SS volunteers formed divisions, brigades, legions, or battalions bearing the names of historical heroes, as in the Croatian/Bosnian Muslim, Scandinavian, Dutch, Belgian, and French. The vast majority of the population were accommodators. Laborers worked in factories, docks, train stations and airfields. Economically, British (Singapore) and American (Philippines) colonies collaborated.

Pétain and Hitler

The first reason for ideology-driven collaboration, Nazi-inspired symapthies, evolved after World War I with the dissolution of the Central Powers, multi-nationalism, the collapsed German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires, the partitions of Poland, and the rise of communism that sowed the seeds for deep resentment. Collaboration by paramilitary groups which supported Nazi ideology, particularly in Western Europe were France's Marcel Déat and Milice française, the 33rd Waffen SS in France, Belgium's Léon Degrelle and the Légion Wallonie, Norway's Vidkun Quisling, Nordic "Panzers", and Dutch Waffen-SS units in the Netherlands.

The second reason for ideology-driven collaboration was antisemitism and the identification and killing of ethnic and religious groups or “undesirables” throughout Europe, particularly in Western Ukraine, Lithuania, and Byelorussia. The Holocaust, the Third Reich’s determination to murder all the Jews of Europe, developed over time and could not have been accomplished with the efficiency and completeness that it was without the assistance of many non-German Europeans. Conversely, the survival of many Jews would have been inconceivable without the opposition of many non-Germans who were executed for sheltering Jews. Operation Barbarossa initiated collaboration on a scale which could not be compared to in Northern or Western Europe. Ukrainians, the Baltic states, Caucasians, Russians and members of some Asian nationalities assembled ethnic units and served the Germans as armed militiamen, or Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian policemen. Mass killing of Jews after Operation Barbarossa was perpetrated by specialised troops composed of local volunteers who could not have succeeded without the collaboration of many non-German Europeans. The Trawniki, Soviet POW’s trained in Western Ukraine, tortured and shot hundreds of thousands of Jews under German supervision. Yet, even the Channel Islands collaborated with the Germans who handed the Jews over to the Gestapo. Ultimately, those who collaborated in Hitler’s Final Solution did so as “collaborators, cooperators, or as accommodators.” The Judenrat served in the Jewish police as spies of German intelligence, however, they “sought to escape their doomed fate and were not committed collaborators.” Waffen-SS divisions implicated in the persecution and execution of the Roma (Gypsy) and Jews were seen in Eastern European collaborators, Western Ukraine, Byelorussia, Lithuania, and France, where the highest German-recorded number of Jews were sent to concentration camps, including the Latvian Waffen SS, Estonian Waffen-SS, the paramilitary, and Einsatzgruppen.

Ukrainian SS-Galizien Division

The third reason for ideology-driven collaboration was communism, manipulated by German propagandists and igniting ethnic unrest as in the Baltic countries, Ukraine and Russia. Bronislav Kaminski in Russia’s autonomous Lokot Republic administered an entire district for the Germans. Former military and police fought the communist threat as in Latvia’s 2nd SS Infantry Brigade and the Ukrainian Galician Division. Fear of Stalin terror and forced collectivisation, mass executions and deportations inspired many against the Soviets, including the paramilitary Hilfsfreiwillige, while within the German Army a Russian army was created (Vlasov Army). In Greece, Ioannis Rallis’ Greek Security Battalions fought communist ELAS partisans.

The fourth reason for ideology-driven collaboration was the nationalistic desire for establishing an independent fascist state. Conscripts from the Occupied Eastern countries subsumed by Waffen SS divisions where ideology-driven sympathies festered, hoped to establish an independent fascist country to partner with Nazi Germany. These include Vidkun Quisling in Norway, Ferenc Szálasi in Hungary, Anton Mossert in the Netherlands, Pierre Laval in France, and Stepan Bandera in Ukraine. Estonian conscripts began as a means to defend the Occupied Eastern countries as the Third Reich crumbled. Auxiliaries as in the Estonian Auxiliary Police, paramilitary forces (Einsatzgruppen) and Feldgendarmerie were responsible for containing resistance. In the Balkans, Georgios Tsolakoglou of Greece's collaborationist government and the allies of the Axis, such as Slovakia and Croatia, from dismembered Yugoslavia, sought independent fascist states. The Croatian Handschar Waffen-SS and Moslems from Bosnia, Yugoslavian, and Greek Security Battalions engaged communists. POWs, either semi-voluntarily or compulsory, collaborated.

Resistance

Further information: Resistance during World War II

Maquisards

Resistance by local populations took place in occupied countries due to the repressive nature of the occupiers. A resister was anyone who resisted by a) not cooperating with their occupiers or b) endangering themselves or others; either passively or actively. Resisters came from all walks of life where the “changes at the battle front made resisters out of collaborators,” empowered by Axis defeats incurred at El Alamein, Stalingrad and the simultaneous invasion of North Africa by the United States. Resisters printed illegal newspapers or used the wireless to communicate and receive radio messages from London. Widespread partisan movements kept German divisions engaged, such as the French, Norwegian, Greek, Yugoslavian, and Russians, including the Italians who changed sides and joined the Allies in 1943. German policies in Byelorussia resulted in the second-largest resistance group in Europe, following Tito's resistance in Yugoslavia. Noteworthy was the Polish Underground's “monumental undertaking of the Warsaw Uprising” and Europe’s only underground organisation dedicated to assisting the Jews (Żegota). At times, resistance was complicated depending on one’s nationality, religion, or ethnicity, particularly in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

Allied-assisted partisan warfare was the aim of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), which Churchill said “would set Europe ablaze.” The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) adapted the British model upon Churchill's insistence to Roosevelt, who appointed “Wild Bill” Donovan as its chief. The OSS would eventually rival the SOE, setting up training camps in the United States and overseas, successfully sending thousands of agents around the globe. At times, the Allied intelligence services cooperated with resisters, such as the Jedburgh and Sussex missions, sent to Occupied France prior to the D-Day invasion. Comprised of one OSS or SOE officer, one French officer or émigré, and one British or American radio operator, they played "a crucial role." In the Balkans, both Churchill and Roosevelt aimed to keep Greece and Yugoslavia free from Stalin's attempt at control. Churchill's gamble paid off, because both never entered the Soviet bloc. On occasion, both nationalist and communist forces acted in unison under the leadership of the SOE, such as the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Bridge linking the Athens to Thessaloniki railway by EDES (nationalists) and ELAS (communists).

Hồ Chí Minh (third from left, standing) with OSS agents in 1945

In Southeast Asia, resistance was more complex as the dynamics were different than in Europe. The Japanese also presented themselves as liberators of colonial peoples, and this was accepted by at least parts of the local independence movements. In reality it was much different, since the Japanese sought its own colonial empire and intended to subjugate every country they invaded. However, in the last weeks of the war, the Indonesian independence movement was able to leverage its limited collaboration with the Japanese to gain their support; enough to declare the Netherlands East Indies free, which doomed the Dutch attempts to resume control after World War II ended. In French Indochina, the communist Viet Minh gave rise to an anti-Axis partisan movement. This initiated Vietnam’s anti-colonial movement, in which the American OSS became a key player.

References