Resistance

I3BrigPvSk

I3BrigPvSk

The Viking
I only say this once.....sorry. The forum has been pretty slow so I toss out a query. The resistances/partisans in the Nazi-occupied countries. Did they contribute to the allies victory or not?

Tito's boys and gals provided with locking German resources and not mentioning the Russian/Ukrainian partisans, even if they fought against each other as well.
 
Tito's partisan forces liberated Yugoslavia without outside troops assisting, a fact not lost on Stalin. Years later when Tito broke with the Soviet Union some hardliners in Moscow wanted to invade. Stalin vetoed the idea, saying it would be more trouble than it was worth.
The French resistance assisted the D-Day landings by destruction of the French railway and telephone systems. General Eisenhower credited their aid as invaluable. In fact they did too good a job. The damage was so severe that it handicapped the later Allied advance to the German border.
In the Byelorus and Ukraine Soviet partisans conducted rail sabotage prior to the Soviet massive offensive in June 1944. ( Operation Bagration).
I would have to say that partisan/guerrilla operations were an important component in Allied victory to the point that the principal mission of U.S. Army Special Forces is training and support of "liberation" forces.
In Britain, Auxiliary Forces were raised and equipped separate from the Home Guard to act as Stay - Behind units to conduct sabotage and guerrilla warfare against the Nazis in case Britain was successfully invaded and occupied.
So, some authorities seem to be convinced of the impact of these groups. However, I am of the personal opinion that except for rare instances a defeat of a conventional military force can rarely be achieved by partisan/guerrillas alone, without assistance of a regular army.
There have been a few instances where guerrillas beat a standing army all by themselves; Cuba, Bolivia and Yugo.
 
Personally from Western Europes point of view the military successes of resistence movements were almost negligable, the true value of resistance groups came from the intelligence they supplied.
 
Monty B, I see that your posting is a personal viewpoint and you are certainly entitled to a personal view, however I would point out that during WWII considerable resources were devoted to the support of partisan/guerrilla forces. Certainly they were in a good position to supply useful intelligence but they served other purposes as well.
In the case of France. the nation had been defeated and humiliated by the Nazis and the Resistance provided a means for the French to restore their pride and confidence. This happened in all the nations where resistance groups took action against the occupiers.
A similar psychological reaction occurred among the occupiers. German soldiers were forbidden to travel alone and had to walk about in groups accompanied by an NCO armed with a pistol. You can see the enormous range of pistols used by the Germans. That's why!
Rail and telephone sabotage were important to impede mobility and to force the Germans to use radio which could be intercepted.
In Denmark, the Nazis actually surrendered to the Resistance, there being no Allied forces in the country. The Danish Resistance was able to maintain order and repatriate German troops to their home country.
In France today you will find numerous museums and monuments devoted to the Resistance. Whether the contributions of the French Resistance were that critical or whether is is part of a national myth is immaterial. Every nation needs it's heroes.
 
As there should be museums and memorials to these movements, I am not arguing that their bravery and tenacity should not be lauded.

However from a combat stand point they simply were not that successful or worrying to the Germans (Eastern Europe is a slightly different story) where the Germans devoted considerable resources to fighting them, the Resistance movements in the West were an indispensable source of intelligence and little else.
 
The Germans devoted no fewer than 8 SS divisions to the Partisan war in the Soviet Union by 43. So harsh were the German occupiers that the ranks of the Soviet partisans grew to > 1/2 million. Not only did they perform multiple acts of sabotage but they actually bolstered the Red Army by 44. The Soviet people paid dearly for their resistance to the German invader with thousands of villages burned to the ground most as a result of nearby partisan activity and most complete with inhabitants.

Would the Red army have defeated the Germans w/o the aid of the partisans the answer is yes. But that victory was hastened by the destruction and chaos perpetrated by the Soviet Guerrillas.
 
I spoke with a member of the Dutch resistance many years ago in UK, he and I chatted for quite a few hours.

I asked him if he was ever frightened, he said much of the time he was terrified, because if he caught it wasnt only him would be executed, but his entire family.
 
BritinAfrica said:
I spoke with a member of the Dutch resistance many years ago in UK, he and I chatted for quite a few hours.

I asked him if he was ever frightened, he said much of the time he was terrified, because if he caught it wasnt only him would be executed, but his entire family.
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The Germans did that from time to time. The reaction to the assassination of Heydrich is a pretty good example of what happened to people close to an event. The Resistance wasn't responsible for the assassination, but still. The 2nd SS behavior in France when they were harassed by the French resistance is another example.
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
The Germans did that from time to time. The reaction to the assassination of Heydrich is a pretty good example of what happened to people close to an event. The Resistance wasn't responsible for the assassination, but still. The 2nd SS behavior in France when they were harassed by the French resistance is another example.
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In the east it was standard practice i.e. mass executions 1:10 to 1:100 for every German killed. But more often the reprisal took the form of forcing the people into barns - etc. and setting them ablaze w machine guns setup outside in case anyone managed to break from the smoke and flames. Millions were killed in this way behind the German lines.

The same occurred in all of occupied Europe but the large scale massive reprisals were more common in the East, where the inhabitants lives were considered of little value. Thousands of Frenchman, Italians, Dutch, Belgium's and more gave their lives in the resistance - guerilla movements that sprung up all across Europe.
 
Millions may be a bit of an exaggeration don't you think?
Certainly thousands, probably even 10s of thousands but millions probably not.

I think these days we have a duty to put accuracy over emotion when making statements like this as the standard of investigation in todays students will no doubt lead to a report of millions of people being burnt alive in a barn during WW2.

I do not believe we should ever downplay the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany but at the same time lets not forget that we also committed the similar crimes, shooting Japanese sailors in the water and demolishing towns in Germany that showed any sign of resistance for example and lets face it had there been a German or Japanese resistance after the war I doubt we would have operated much different.

We have the benefit of being the victors to justify our actions but that does not mean we were all that much better.
 
MontyB said:
Millions may be a bit of an exaggeration don't you think?
Certainly thousands, probably even 10s of thousands but millions probably not.

I think these days we have a duty to put accuracy over emotion when making statements like this as the standard of investigation in todays students will no doubt lead to a report of millions of people being burnt alive in a barn during WW2.

I do not believe we should ever downplay the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany but at the same time lets not forget that we also committed the similar crimes, shooting Japanese sailors in the water and demolishing towns in Germany that showed any sign of resistance for example and lets face it had there been a German or Japanese resistance after the war I doubt we would have operated much different.

We have the benefit of being the victors to justify our actions but that does not mean we were all that much better.
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More than 209 cities and towns (out of 270 total) and 9,000 villages were destroyed many for reprisal due to partisan activity.

7.1 million Soviet victims were murdered directly as a result of the Nazi's many for reprisals from partisan activity.

Ref: Vadim Erlikman

Note: The crimes committed by the allies pale when compared to the horrors committed by the 3rd Reich.
 
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So your contention is that to be the murderer of 100 people is better than 1000?

A crime is a crime it doesn't matter who commits it only who is around at the end to justify it, had the war gone the other way I am sure our history books would have had different hero's and villains.

As for 7.1 million Soviet victims, my understanding is that there are several counts and all of them different, varying between 4 million and 14 million these numbers are of all deaths from both at German hands and by Stalins team and include forced labour camp deaths which can not be considered "reprisal" related deaths.

For Example
Deaths caused by the result of direct, intentional actions of violence 7,420,379
Deaths of forced laborers in Germany 2,164,313
Deaths due to famine and disease in the occupied regions 4,100,000
Total 13,684,692

Source: Russian Academy of Science

Further examples would be the siege of Lenningrad where close on 1 million civilians died of starvation, disease or direct fire but that again is not related to reprisals.

As you can see the numbers vary wildly but in all cases the numbers include both enemy and friendly killings and the murder of Jewish populations which again do not fall into the reprisals category.

Also was the number of towns destroyed all German action or does it include Stalins scorched earth policy as well?
 
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NoI was talking only about Soviet losses at the hands of the Germans, nothing todo with Stalin. I thought this was made clear in the post as indicted that mostwere reprisal in nature.

Thecruelty of General Commissars such as Adolf Footman in the Ukraine and WilhelmKube in Belorussia was notoriously legendary. They openly boasted about thedestruction of towns and villages in reprisals at even the slightest sign ofpartisan activity. Berating their officers if any of the inhabitants survived thereprisals (slipped true the net).

TotalSoviet civilian deaths at the hands of the Germans only at least ~15 millionincluding several million Jews. As high as 19 million according to Gorbachev.

Stalinin order to gain the backing of own people greatly toned down the murdering ofown people during the war. Opening up the churches and mosques, reducing thepower of the political commissar's, etc. The people soon forget about theterrors of Stalin and but their sights on the new oppressors Germany, just asStalin planned.


Orat least until the ultimate victory was in sight in late 44 he began to takerevenge against the peoples he saw as collective enemies: Chechens, Tartars,Cossacks, etc.
 
JOC said:
NoI was talking only about Soviet losses at the hands of the Germans, nothing todo with Stalin. I thought this was made clear in the post as indicted that mostwere reprisal in nature.

Thecruelty of General Commissars such as Adolf Footman in the Ukraine and WilhelmKube in Belorussia was notoriously legendary. They openly boasted about thedestruction of towns and villages in reprisals at even the slightest sign ofpartisan activity. Berating their officers if any of the inhabitants survived thereprisals (slipped true the net).

TotalSoviet civilian deaths at the hands of the Germans only at least ~15 millionincluding several million Jews. As high as 19 million according to Gorbachev.

Stalinin order to gain the backing of own people greatly toned down the murdering ofown people during the war. Opening up the churches and mosques, reducing thepower of the political commissar's, etc. The people soon forget about theterrors of Stalin and but their sights on the new oppressors Germany, just asStalin planned.


Orat least until the ultimate victory was in sight in late 44 he began to takerevenge against the peoples he saw as collective enemies: Chechens, Tartars,Cossacks, etc.
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Not to mention Stalin's perception of Russian PoW, they were all traitors. Those volunteering to fight on the German side were punished badly after the war. Stalin treated the Balts pretty bad after the Soviets recapturing the Baltic states. Some Balts viewed the Germans as liberators after being occupied by the Russians.
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
Not to mention Stalin's perception of Russian PoW, they were all traitors. Those volunteering to fight on the German side were punished badly after the war. Stalin treated the Balts pretty bad after the Soviets recapturing the Baltic states. Some Balts viewed the Germans as liberators after being occupied by the Russians.
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But remember Stalin wisely waited to near wars end to begin these large scale persecutions. In all likelihood the Crimean Tartars and Chechens got the worse of it over 1/2 the populations of these areas was killed or died as result of the deportations.


Many of the Soviet POW's that were fortunate enough to have survived German captivity "3.5 million out of ~ 5 million didn't" were imprisoned and sent to be reeducated, since Stalin considered them to have polluted minds for having been in contact with the enemy.


Of the Russians that deserted to fight for Germany few were trusted with front line service roles. A major exception was the Don Cossacks. Many most of these Cossacks that fought for Germany were executed outright by the NKVD at wars end.
 
JOC said:
But remember Stalin wisely waited to near wars end to begin these large scale persecutions. In all likelihood the Crimean Tartars and Chechens got the worse of it over 1/2 the populations of these areas was killed or died as result of the deportations.


Many of the Soviet POW's that were fortunate enough to have survived German captivity "3.5 million out of ~ 5 million didn't" were imprisoned and sent to be reeducated, since Stalin considered them to have polluted minds for having been in contact with the enemy.


Of the Russians that deserted to fight for Germany few were trusted with front line service roles. A major exception was the Don Cossacks. Many most of these Cossacks that fought for Germany were executed outright by the NKVD at wars end.
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The Don Cossacks, were they members of the Vlasov army? How shall we perceive those men who volunteered to fight with the Germans? One approach can be as traitors and they were traitors, although, they might have done that to survive the PoW camps and the ensuing starvation
 
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