French Attitudes

[Dave Leonard]

Am currently reading the book Das Reich, the march of the 2nd SS Pz Div through France, June 1944.

In this book it gives a detailed veiw of the French Resistance and portrays it as being fairly disorganised, many personal agendas etc. One point that struck me as interesting was the reluctance of the 'stable' classes of people to involve themselves with resistance. It offered the explination that they had the most to loose and to a degree welcomed the stability that the Germans brought with them. It then discussed that the bulk of the early resistance came from the undesireable elements of society. The less educated, economicaly stable etc. In fact, generally the kind of people that you would cross the street to avoid. It also discussed the social feeligns of the day, particualrly the fear of communisim and the strong anti semitisim.

The impression that this book gave me was that the early resistance were really bandits that now had a pretext to wage personal wars against anyone and everyone in the name of patriotisim. It was only leading up to June 44 that the resistance gained any credible momentum.

Any thoughts?

[Kiwiwriter]

I can't answer as to the nature of the French Underground being personal wars and vendettas, but it was not extremely coherent until mid-1944.

Most of the French maquisards were apparently initially Vichy French troops who took to the hills in 1942 when Hitler took over the "Free Zone" in a bloodless invasion. As the war droned on, they became more and more organized.

The French Resistance got heavy play in wartime propaganda and postwar movies, and it was a major operation. French resistants slowed down the 2nd SS Panzer Division, as seen, and sabotaged vast stretches of the national railway system. But it was not as gigantic as movies would have it.

The unfortunate truth is that most people in France simply tried to get on with their lives as best as they could during the occupation. For the first couple of years, it was not especially harsh, and French bigshots actually lived well -- Jean Paul Sartre had his black market booze, Coco Chanel had a German officer as a boyfriend, and Pablo Picasso toiled away at his art. With the Reichmark pegged artificially high and German troops buying up everything in sight, some French businesses enjoyed prosperity.

In addition, Marshal Petain, the hero of Verdun, was the popular and uniting leader that France had lacked since...well, Marshal Petain had been the hero of Verdun. Vichy rule was everything the Third Republic was not -- orderly, obedient, and committed to eliminating Jews, Communists, and the British. The result was the French Legion Voluntaire, the 638th Regiment, which went to Russia as part of the German Army, and the SS Charlemagne Division.

But as the war went on, German occupation became increasingly heavy-handed. French POWs did not come home from German factories. German troops stopped paying for things and started simply requisitioning them. Petain was discredited as a weak and senile collaborationist.

Another factor was that the French resistance was dominated by Communists, and they only became anti-German after the invasion of Russia in 1941. That was a major purpose of the Paris revolt in 1944 -- to install a "Commune" before De Gaulle could arrive.

Bottom line: if you occupy a nation, but leave the people alone, they will go about their business and leave you alone.

[angie999]

One of the major reasons for the rapid growth of the Maquis was the STO - compulsory labour in Germany - and many young people took to the hills rather than go to Germany. The Maquis was mainly a southern development and also to an extent in Brittany, as much of the countryside in the north was not suitable for this kind of activity. Their participation in active resistance was variable, from nil through to the major fighting on the Vercors plateau.

Resistance operated in a number of ways, starting, of course, from a nil base in 1940.

The early resistance was politically based and mainly took the form of producing underground newspapers and other publicity. Of course, up to November 1942 this was a more clear cut issue in the occupied zone than in Vichy France, where resistance before the Germans occupied the zone involved taking a position of opposition to the Vichy government, or at least the worst of Vichy collaboration.

Even this was not that clear cut. The resistance groups could hardly set up recruiting offices, so people might join a group which might not really represent their views as it was the only one they were in contact with. The Communist led FTP, for instance, might not have tolerated anti-Communists, but the majority of its members were not members of the PCF.

Jean Moulin's task was to unite the various resistance groups which were largely formed on a political basis into a more unified body under the direction of the Free French in London.

At the same time, more active networks were set up both by the groups in being and by SOE's F and RF sections. these might be tasked with intelligence gathering, sabotage, running escape networks and so on. There were, of course, some major setbacks when some of these networks were broken by the Germans.

Finally, there was the Secret Army. The Communist led groups engaged in armed resistance from the entry of the USSR into the war, but the policy of the Free French was to wait for the invasion.

Much of Brittany and southern France was liberated by the resistance before allied troops arrived, but this was to an extent because there were no major German units to confront.

[Gerry Chester]

Probably the most definitive information on the French Resistance is to be found in documents relative to the exploits of 'The White Rabbit' (the code name of Wing Commander F.F.E. Yeo-Thomas) who was paraXchuted into France (several times) as a member of the Special Operations Executive. He was responsible for organising all the separate factions of the French Resistance into one combined 'secret army'.

The Wing Commander, "Tommy" as he was known, was awarded the G.C., M.C. and Bar, Legion d'Honneur, Croix de Guerre with Palms, and the Polish Gold Cross of Merit for his efforts. Additionally he was offered the D.S.O which he turned down as the big-wigs would not let him wear his M.C. when he was France. An extract from the 'London Gazette':
The KING has been graciously pleased to award the George Cross to Acting Wing Commander Forest Frederick Edward YEO-THOMAS, M.C. (89215), Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve."

Captured by the Gestapo, for months he was submitted to the most horrific torture in an attempt to get him to spill his unparalleled knowledge of the Resistance, but he refused to crack. Finally he was sentenced to death, and sent to Buchenwald, one of the most infamous German concentration camps. The story of his endurance, and his survival against all the odds - as originally published in 1952, by Cassell & Co, "The White Rabbit" and reprinted in 2001 - is well worth a read being an inspiring study in the triumph of the human spirit over the most terrible adversity.

[Dave Leonard]

So you could possibly argue that if the Germans had treated France as an ally, and not a conquered territory, they would have had less to worry about?

[angie999]

Originally posted by Dave Leonard@Sep 19 2004, 05:00 AM
So you could possibly argue that if the Germans had treated France as an ally, and not a conquered territory, they would have had less to worry about?

Quoted post

Well, German occupation was initially not too oppressive, but still by the end of 1940 some level of resistance was beginning to form. Although the majority of the French population accepted the situation as it was, there were elements who never did.

I don't see how France could have been raised to the status of full blown Axis ally. Collaboration and benign neutality, yes, but not the same thing.

And the demands of the German war economy meant that they had to take more and more from the occupied countries, so conditions progressively deteriorated.