If anything, the inflated mythology that today surrounds the French Resistance only profanes the memory of those who really did serve bravely. The people in the countries occupied by Germany in World War II often tried to resist the invasion. … The French Resistance movement is an umbrella term which covered numerous anti-German resistance movements that were based within France. The ‘ France honours six-year-old WW2 Resistance agent. The disruption to the Germans ability to move equipment was massive. Some Frenchmen went so far as to fight on the German side: more than 7,000 Frenchmen volunteered for the Wehrmacht and eventually formed the Charlemagne Division, which fought on the Eastern Front and in Berlin. They put their lives on the line as at no other time in the Second World War, risking everything to help the professional soldiers. To Jodl, the French Resistance was irrelevant. Audible Audiobook $0.00 $ 0. By contrast, when the Germans invaded Greece and flew their garish banner from the Acropolis, resisters tore it down within days. Britain, via the SOE, supplied the French with equipment and trained agents. 99. Clandestine publishing also made good use of the talents of these early French partisans, for many were intellectuals and had no idea how to fire a gun. Andrea Smith. The German attack on Russia – Operation Barbarossa – led to many French communists joining the resistance movement. After the war, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe General Dwight D. Eisenhower grandly estimated the French Resistance had been worth “an extra six divisions.” It was a rare bit of Eisenhower hyperbole likely foisted upon him by de Gaulle, but Ike certainly never meant the resisters were the equal of 90,000 fully armed and trained troops. The non-occupied region of France, known as Vichy France, was set up by the Germans and governed by Marshall Pétain. This article is about the French Resistance fighters. The Resistance, for example, claimed it had killed 6,000 members of the vicious Das Reich Division. The French Resistance supplied the Allies with vital intelligence reports as well as doing a huge amount of work to disrupt the German supply and communication lines within France. P-O Life Life in the Pyrénées-Orientales. In the north, the target was simply the Germans while in the south, the Vichy government was a target as well as the Germans. Still, for those of us who have never experienced enemy occupation or ill-equipped, marginal guerrilla warfare—criticism comes too easily in retrospect. T2. By September 1943, this had increased to 530. There had always been a strong undercurrent of doubt, particularly among the Americans, regarding the veracity of the intel the amateurs provided. Among the most caustic comments on the Resistance was uttered by German Reichminister for Armaments and War Production Albert Speer. So, was the French Resistance effective? He declared that the war on France was not yet over, and rallied the country in support of the “Resistance”. The first resistance movements were in the north, such as the OCM (Organisation Civile et Militaire) and by the end of 1940, six underground newspapers were being regularly printed in the north. In: Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung. 3.7 out of 5 stars 31. Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s fledgling Free French forces, but among those few remaining in France, guerrilla warfare was something they neither understood nor wanted any part of. For other uses, see Maquis. Much more was transmitted by radio. In May 1944 alone, they sent 3,000 written reports to the Allies and 700 wireless reports. Then, most strikingly, we see a woman in shorts, a patterned top, and a military hat in the center. In France during World War II, Rene Artois runs a small café where Resistance fighters, Gestapo men, German Army officers and escaped Allied POWs interact daily, ignorant of one another's true identity or presence, exasperating Rene. Cary Grant, U.S. film actor (Gunga Din, Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, North by Northwest). The French Resistance (or Maquis in the countryside), were an organized resistance movement in France during Nazi Germany's occupation and the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II. With the August 1944 Liberation of Paris, spearheaded by General Philippe Leclerc and his Free French 2nd Armored Division, the work of the Resistance was essentially finished, yet it also augured its darkest hour: Resisters were not the only citizens to indulge in the orgy of lynchings and summary executions that followed the liberation, but many were enthusiastic participants. When this figure is added to the 2,400 destroyed by Allied bombers, it is easy to understand why the Germans had such difficulty transporting equipment across France.eval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'historylearningsite_co_uk-leader-1','ezslot_16',115,'0','0'])); Post-war analysis of the success of the resistance shows that the 150 most successful acts of sabotage against factories in France between 1943 and 1944, used just 3,000 lbs of explosives – the equivalent of the bomb load of one single Mosquito plane. The French Resistance, the covert volunteers who had been struggling against the Nazis since 1940, leaped into action. While some Resistance mythologizers have compared this network to the 19th century Underground Railroad, others say it bore more similarities to the “coyotes” who today prey on illegal immigrants, as many of the passeurs who guided the escapees over the Pyrenees were well paid for their work. Some of the intel made its way to England in the hands of British agents, picked up at night in pastures and fields by slow, black-painted Westland Lysanders of the Royal Air Force. Members of the French Resistance are photographed in the midst of a battle against German troops during the Liberation of Paris. close. de Gaulle set up a Central Intelligence and Operations Agency with the support of the British. Because of the peculiar political complexities of France, the resistance movement got off to a difficult start. At first the Germans chose victims from among existing prisoners—communists, anarchists, Gaullists and other categories of offenders. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the French Resistance like never before, in no time at all. Daniel Webster, congressman from New Hampshire, Massachusetts senator, and secretary of state before the Civil War. The Parti Communiste Fran- çais was at the core of much of the early Resistance movement. But the Hemingwayesque view of resistance in For Whom the Bell Tolls (set during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War) bears little semblance to the real-life French Resistance. The creation of a Nazi-approved Vichy government, primarily in the centreand south of the country, was, in the minds of many, further proof that politicians had let down France. Lucie Aubrac, who has become a symbol of the French Resistance within France, never had a clearly defined role in the hierarchy of the movement, which in her case involved the regional Southern Liberation. To many, collaboration meant making the best of an awkward situation, sharing space (and sometimes beds) with fellow Europeans, albeit ones in gray Wehrmacht and black SS uniforms. They called themselves the Maquis, a word that loosely translates to “the bush.”. The French Resistance supplied the Allies with vital intelligence reports as well as doing a huge amount of work to disrupt the German supply and communication lines within France.eval(ez_write_tag([[580,400],'historylearningsite_co_uk-medrectangle-3','ezslot_2',129,'0','0'])); The surrender of France in June 1940, was a major blow to many French people in terms of their pride. In May 1941, the first SOE agent was dropped into northern France to assist the work of the resistance. The first violent act of armed resistance to the occupation of France is generally thought to have been the shooting of Alfons Moser, a low-level German naval adjutant, in the Paris Métro on Aug. 21, 1941. This was their chance to liberate their country, and they seized it with both hands. On 8 th June 1940, De Gaulle spoke to the French people from London after the “fall of France”. In England, de Gaulle, who had controversially and single-handedly established the Free French government in exile, claimed credit for instigating the Resistance, but that was a considerable exaggeration. Kindle $0.00 $ 0. Many French people joined as the support for Vichy quickly waned. Perhaps, in some places at some times, but its value was often grossly exaggerated. “In countless postwar films and novels, shadowy agents whispered information vital to the war effort, while resisters intrepidly derailed trains, machine-gunned convoys of sinister, Gestapo-stuffed Citroëns or sent motorcycles of the Feldpolizei and their sidecar passengers careening into ditches along lonely French roads,” wrote Porch in The French Secret Services. The Resistance also sometimes charged fees for its intelligence, saying “the cause” needed the money. However, when the Vichy government began to openly collaborate with the Germans, attitudes hardened. “So powerful was the Resistance myth, so important did it become to French self-esteem, that only gradually, and not without controversy, have historians been able to assess its size and significance.”, Citizen resistance works well, Porch points out, when a populace is deeply committed to the cause. Related Topics. The Resistance first revealed itself as underground publishers of anti-Nazi broadsides and mimeographed mini-newspapers. He had been betrayed to … Between April and May, the resistance destroyed 1,800 railway engines. British historian Max Hastings, however, examined the unit’s records for his book Das Reich: The March of the Second SS Panzer Division Through France, June 1944 and concluded the French were responsible for the death of approximately 35 soldiers out of the division’s 15,000. Through much of the four years of German occupation the maquis was composed of comprised groups and individuals often following their own agendas. Regardless, few early resisters ever heard the de Gaulle speech. Published. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. The truth, however, was that the German unit had been ordered to move deliberately and pulverize the Maquis in the region through which it passed, which it did. Copy link. The French Resistance was never a homogeneous organization. Therefore, there was no immediate drive to create a resistance movement en masse in central and southern France.eval(ez_write_tag([[580,400],'historylearningsite_co_uk-medrectangle-4','ezslot_3',114,'0','0'])); On June 18th, 1940, Charles de Gaulle addressed the people of France from London. The resisters also learned they didn’t even need explosives and the accompanying danger. Get it as soon as Thu, Jan 21. French Resistance fighters confer with American troops during their advance in France. Paperback $9.99 $ 9. Most civilians evidently no longer wanted to be part of any war, and many French soldiers lacked the will to continue the fight. Moulin, given the task of uniting the Resistance by the leader of Free French forces in London, was killed on 8 July 1943. Toggle text. The Resistance initially had few weapons—obsolete World War I pistols, a few hunting rifles and shotguns—and even fewer people who knew how to use them. German soldiers were stunned when some of the French they captured in June 1940 danced jigs and sang folksongs, delighted to be done with warfighting. This lawless, post-liberation purge was called l’Épuration légale (“the legal purification”). Initially, at least, the French were far more interested in getting along with the Germans than in challenging them. 00 $6.95 $6.95. The French have long boasted the Resistance so harried that division that it took the Germans more than three weeks to move from Strasbourg to Caen after the Normandy Invasion, normally a three-day slog for an armored division. He called on the French people to continue the fight against the Germans. A measure of enmity also existed between the Free French and the Resistance. Agents sent into France started a general re-grouping of all resistance movements and a Conseil National de la Résistance movement was established which was subordinated to de Gaulle. The country compensated for that shame by sometimes exaggerating the accomplishments of those partisans who did propagandize, spy upon, sabotage and even openly fight the Germans. The intelligence, maps, photos and reports they sent to England were helpful to invasion planners and would have been even more useful had the Allies fully trusted the resisters. After all, the thinking went, national socialism at least looked preferable to the communism that was already a powerful force among French workers. It was the intelligence they provided he felt was priceless. This remained a problem for the Resistance. When asked by British economic historian Alan Milward to comment upon the effectiveness of the Resistance in hampering German wartime efforts, Speer responded, “What French Resistance?” And when General Alfred Jodl, operations chief of the German Armed Forces High Command, in November 1943 outlined for Heinrich Himmler the military situation on the Western Front, the only guerrilla group Jodl saw fit to mention was the Yugoslav partisans. Stars: Gorden Kaye, Carmen Silvera, … The French Resistance: The History of the Opposition Against Nazi Germany's Occupation of France During World War II. The truth may never be known. Fully 90 percent of France’s population either supported the collaborationist Vichy regime or were too frightened to have anything to do with the underground. Such mythmaking abounds in French, British and American postwar accounts. French Resistance. They simply removed the bolts holding track lengths together. Lonely Planet Writer. In: La France des années noires. Mobile German radio direction finders could triangulate their positions as the French made their slow transmissions, virtually ensuring their capture. This acted independently but planning was carried out in co-operation with the SOE which supplied equipment. The French Resistance, in turn, supplied vital intelligence reports. by Charles River Editors and Kevin Kollins. Resistance in France began as soon as the Germans invaded in May 1940. The Real Story of the French Resistance Paris Martyrisé, Paris Libéré The most effective resistance in WWII was disproportionately made up of immigrants, students, and Spanish communists. The most valuable work the French Resistance did was to provide, for the British and later the Americans, pre-invasion intelligence about German troop movements and coastal defenses, as well as accurate maps and photos to be used by D-Day planners. Though the British government and de Gaulle could have a difficult relationship at times, in October 1941, both reached a compromise with regards to resistance operations in France. The shooter was Pierre Georges, a communist. This was done in many ways, from speaking out against the Nazis to taking up weapons and fighting. Just one year earlier, there were just 40,000 members.. By the spring of 1944, there were 60 intelligence cells whose task was solely to collect intelligence as opposed to carrying out acts of sabotage. 00. Home; Contact us; Log In; Search; Search for: Menu . Ulla Plener: Frauen aus Deutschland in der französischen Resistance. Director: Gillian Armstrong | Stars: Cate Blanchett , James Fleet , Abigail Cruttenden , Charlotte McDougall But official French government numbers say 220,000, while Porch’s research shows 75,000. Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1993. In 1940, French soldiers were overwhelmed by Nazi forces and the government sought for peace with Germany. Women were generally confined to underground roles in the French Resistance network. It went even further in its 1940 Statute on Jews, denaturalizing several thousand French-born Jews and then rounding them up for deportation to concentration camps. The resistance movement developed to provide the Allies with intelligence, attack the Germans when possible and to assist the escape of Allied airmen. Hélène Viannay, more highly educated than her husband Philippe Viannay, the founder of the Défense de la France, did not write one single article for the clandestine newspaper of the same name, nor did the other companions … The Resistance reportedly destroyed 1,800 railway targets in the months before and after the invasion, versus 2,400 hit by Allied bombers. A.A. [Alan Alexander] Milne, novelist, humorist and journalist (Winnie the Pooh). Heft III/2007. Nor was there any way to get more guns until the British began air-dropping weapons, ammunition, explosives and other supplies in 1943. Entirely separate cells and cadres formed spontaneously among such disparate groups as Paris museum curators and angry café esthetes. “The French, understandably, reacted [after liberation] to their ordeal by retreating into a myth,” writes Ian Ousby in Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940–1944. A WWII French Resistance museum in Paris has re-opened with access to an original underground bunker. The French Resistance: The History of the Opposition Against Nazi Germany’s Occupation of France during World War II looks at the legendary Resistance and its efforts to undermine Vichy France. A museum with a very long name has just re-opened in a brand new location in Paris and it will tell the story of the people who risked their lives to join the French Resistance. They weren’t particularly skillful amateurs, and their radios were bulky, hard-to-hide units. FREE Shipping on orders over $25 shipped by Amazon. The murder on the Métro elicited from the Germans a brutal but effective response: reprisal executions. The French Resistance played a vital part in aiding the Allies to success in Western Europe – especially leading up to D-Day in June 1944. Homegrown resistance, especially not under his command, was not his intent. As an example, the British attack on the radio base at Bruneval in 1942 could have been a lot more costly in terms of lives lost, if the British had not received intelligence reports from the resistance with regards to the building of new blockhouses there. Many believed that the government had let the people down. Paris and much of the rest of occupied France flew swastika flags on every hotel and public building until the August 1944 liberation. At that point the communist resisters took it upon themselves to commit as much mayhem as possible, particularly in metropolitan areas, and force the Germans to deploy additional troops against them, thus diverting soldiers from service in war zones.”. The Germans did their part by being polite to the French populace, giving up Métro seats to old people, handing candy to children and spending freely at Paris cabarets, restaurants and couturiers. The latter network comprised safe houses and trekking guides who would deliver the downed airmen to Allied submarines off French beaches or to safety in neutral Spain and Portugal. The speed and severity of Blitzkrieg had shocked the French people. Resistance leaders soon realized these maquisards were not only numerous but desperate, brave, trainable and useful. Although the Hollywood image is one of vast derailments, with entire trains and their cargoes tumbling down mountainsides, such sabotage was more annoying than disruptive to the Germans, who usually made repairs and resumed service within hours. Some groups were violent in nature, aiming to hurt or kill the German occupiers; these were called maquis . The French Resistance refers to the many groups of French citizens who fought German occupation of France during WWII. This message hit hard in occupied France but initially it was less well received in Vichy France. Also in the days after the British attack on Mers el Kébir, there was a degree of anti-British sentiment in France. In such reprisals the Germans killed an estimated 30,000 innocent French men and women by the time of the liberation. French Resistance has been represented and commemorated in the epic mode.” (Nathan Bracher, “Remembering the French Resistance; Ethics and Poetics of the Epic” History and Memory, v.19, spring/summer 2007, p. 39) As you will learn in this presentation, some of the deeds undertaken by French women during the Nazi occupation are Frenchmen who made their way to England often discounted resisters as those who had cravenly “stayed behind,” while the resisters considered the expatriates Frenchmen who had “fled to safety.” Few understood or respected the other’s motive. 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