# Resistance Groups - How Effective?



## Negative Creep (Mar 11, 2009)

In every country the Germans occupied there were various levels of resistance. This could take many forms; assassination, sabotage, go slows, escape networks and so forth. However I've been wondering just how much of a difference did such groups make? Whilst they undoubtedly made a contribution is there now a myth surrounding resistance fighters?

If we take France as an example, and estimate seems to be that 10% of the population were directly involved with the resistance movements. The number involved in collaboration however would have been much higher but this appears to be something that is glossed over. So were resistance groups more of a myth than an effective movement?


----------



## Arsenal VG-33 (Mar 11, 2009)

I suggest you read "Soldiers of the Night" by David Schoenbrun. And no, the Collaboration hasn't been glossed over, but has been widely studied in France especially in the past 20 years. 

It is very hard to gauge the effectivness of underground movements because while all may be fighting for a common goal, they're often doing so in various ways, sometimes at odds with eachother because of their political nature. One thing is certain, most people today have absolutely no idea how hard it is to take up arms against a foreign occupying power, especially when the consequences may involve family members.

I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that:
1-The Allies would have won the war without the Resistance
2-The Allies would have suffered many more casualties without the Resistance.
3-I believe the resistance of the different occupied countries all contributed to bringing about a quicker end to the war.


----------



## Amsel (Mar 11, 2009)

The resistance in France was effective at sabatouge. In the U-boat yards they were plagued by sabatour workers.


----------



## timshatz (Mar 11, 2009)

Depends on which resistance you are talking about. Most were effective in intelligence gathering, in Western Europe (the French probably being the best) while incidences of sabotage tended to be less so. Most countries had limited resistance early in the war but this tended to grow as the tide turned. 

It really was a mixed bag. The Dutch Underground was seriously compromised by the Gestapo, as was the Danish. In fact, it is one of the reasons the warnings on the Arnhem operation were ignored (though the Dutch Resistance didn't know what was coming, the information they sent back was pretty much accurate about who and what was waiting). The French underground was larger, better organized and broken down into politically or locally motivated groups. The Communist tended to be pretty good, the SOE supported was smaller but well focused and centered on intelligence gathering. Most large scale sabotage was focused after the invasion. Before, the Allied Command was more interested in information.

The Italian Partisans were half fighting a civil war and half fighting the Germans. They increased in size from the Surrender in 1943 to the end of the war. The Italian Facist and Partisans went at it big time towards the end of the war. At that point, and this is my understanding from the limited amount of reading I have found on the subject, the Italian Partisans left the Germans alone (for the most part) as they were just trying to get out of Italy anyway. An example is the group of Partisans that captured Mussolini. He was in a German Column making a run for Switzerland. The Partisans stopped it, told the Germans if they handed over Mussolini and his people, they wouldn't stop them from getting to Switzerland. Otherwise, they'd fight it out. The Germans handed over Benito and went on their way. 

Balkans, serious, serious Partisan activity. Only country in WW2 that liberated itself. Gotta wonder if the Germans were just happy to get the hell out of there. Civil war was running at the same time the Partisans were fighting the Germans. Similar to Italy, but without the Allied Armies involved and a lot of old blood fueds, old hatreds and general score settling tossed in. A brutal, ugly war finally ended (for a short time anyway) with the rise of Tito. When he died, they went back at it again.


----------



## timshatz (Mar 11, 2009)

One other point. Some of these Resistance Groups were little more than criminal operations running under the cloak of resistance to the Germans. Not all of them were doing it for King and Country. Some were just opportunist who saw a way to take advantage of the situation.

But then again, if you're ripping off the Nazis, who cares?


----------



## tomo pauk (Mar 11, 2009)

timshatz said:


> ...
> 
> Balkans, serious, serious Partisan activity. Only country in WW2 that liberated itself. Gotta wonder if the Germans were just happy to get the hell out of there. Civil war was running at the same time the Partisans were fighting the Germans. Similar to Italy, but without the Allied Armies involved and a lot of old blood fueds, old hatreds and general score settling tossed in. A brutal, ugly war finally ended (for a short time anyway) with the rise of Tito. When he died, they went back at it again.



Hi, timshatz,
Balkans is not equal to ex-Yugoslavia.

The other balkan countries did have partisan groups, most notably Albania and Greece. While Tito's partisans did have strong Red army suport(with tanks, planes, infantry etc) from octber 1944, the other two did the job on their own. Sure, the spec op from Western allies' agencies was beneficial in Balkan states.

Again, before the second part of 1943, Tito's partisns were on their own.


----------



## marshall (Mar 11, 2009)

I'm not an expert in that matter but one of the largest resistance groups was in Poland. In 1944 about 400,000 members.

You can read more here Armia Krajowa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Or if someone wants to know more, a lot more, then I recommend a book "Raising '44 - The Battle for Warsaw" by Norman Davies



Edit: Some statistics from wikipedia

"List of confirmed sabotage-diversionary actions of the Union of Armed Combat (ZWZ) and Home Army (AK) from 1 January 1941 to 30 June 1944 

Sabotage / Diversionary Action Type Totals
Damaged locomotives 6,930
Delayed repairs to locomotives 803
Derailed transports 732
Transports set on fire 443
Damage to railway wagons 19,058
Blown up railway bridges 38
Disruptions to electricity supplies in the Warsaw grid 638
Army vehicles damaged or destroyed 4,326
Damaged aeroplanes 28
Fuel tanks destroyed 1,167
Fuel destroyed (in tonnes) 4,674
Blocked oil wells  5
Wagons of wood wool destroyed 150
Military stores burned down 130
Disruptions of production in factories 7
Built-in faults in parts for aircraft engines 4,710
Built-in faults into cannon muzzles 203
Built-in faults into artillery missiles 92,000
Built-in faults into air traffic radio stations 107
Built-in faults into condensers 70,000
Built-in faults into (electro-industrial) lathes 1,700
Damage to important factory machinery 2,872
Various acts of sabotage performed 25,145
Planned assassinations of Germans 5,733"


----------



## timshatz (Mar 11, 2009)

tomo pauk said:


> Hi, timshatz,
> Balkans is not equal to ex-Yugoslavia.
> 
> The other balkan countries did have partisan groups, most notably Albania and Greece. While Tito's partisans did have strong Red army suport(with tanks, planes, infantry etc) from octber 1944, the other two did the job on their own. Sure, the spec op from Western allies' agencies was beneficial in Balkan states.
> ...



Tomo, Didn't mean to leave the Greeks and Albanians out of the mix. Was thinking more along the lines of the Balkans being everything east of the Adriatic and West of the Turkish side of the Bosphorus. A lot of countries in there,Ex-Yugoslavia being just one of them. Didn't mean to put them in as the sole participant but they are a good reprentation of what went on. 

Was writing quick, posting fast. My mistake for leaving them out.


----------



## tomo pauk (Mar 11, 2009)

No problem, my intention was not to attack you


----------



## timshatz (Mar 11, 2009)

Didn't figure you were. Just pointing out a gap in my post. No worries, as they say.

I think it is pretty impressive that the Balkans were the only part of Europe that liberated itself from full occupation. Pretty impressive really. Germans just quit. Left. Not something they are known for doing.

Speaks volumes.


----------



## davebender (Mar 11, 2009)

I'd hazard a guess that Ukraine and the Baltic States had more people fighting against the Soviet Union then against Germany. People from these areas volunteered by the 10s of thousands to work inside Germany rather then be subject to "liberation" by the Red Army during 1943 to 1944. In 1945 the Soviet Union rounded up all they could catch and sent them to the Gulags to die.

In other areas of the Soviet Union a lot of "Resistance Groups" were simply bypassed Red Army soldiers struggling to survive. Stalin routinely sent such men to the die in the Gulag if they made it back to Soviet lines. If captured Hitler sent them to his own version of a Gulag to die of exposure and starvation. So they had nowhere to go.

In Yugoslavia it was more of a civil war. Croatia, Bosnia etc. were fighting to break free from Serbian rule. 

The French resistance was pretty small prior to 1944. In fact most of them joined after the Normandy invasion. I guess joining the resistance a few days prior to liberation was a way to insure the "Free French" did not accuse you of collaboration with the enemy.


----------



## lesofprimus (Mar 11, 2009)

What no one has mentioned is how many troops the Germans had to pull out of major combat with the Allies to tackle the resistance movements across the Reichs' new boundries....

Thousands and thousands of Germans were tasked with rooting these guys out, Germans that would have otherwise been on the fronts....

That in and of itself made it worthwhile....


----------



## Njaco (Mar 11, 2009)

I agree Les. Germany even had an operation in the Balkans/Greece/Ex-yugoslavia (apologies - like Tim, I'm no expert in that area) to deal strictly with the partisans. And the Allies even had air operations in support of the Western Front partisans late '43/early '44. I would say thats a big impact.


----------



## lesofprimus (Mar 11, 2009)

And dont forget the Jedburghs that dropped into France to help the Partisians organize and plan/execute some of these "diversions"...


----------



## parsifal (Mar 11, 2009)

Russian partisans did not work in the same manner as many of the western controlled partisans, though it has to be said that even in western europe, the backbone to the organizing of resistance movements came largely from the various left wing and communist underground elements, who had prewar experience in these matters. There were exceptions to this, like the czetniks (the serbian right wing monarchists under Mihailovic), which meant that where there were left and right wing elements in the country, that the factions tended to fight each other as much as the Germans. This was particularly true in Greece and Yugolsavia. In Yugolsavia, Tito was more successful, because he appealed to the gras roots better than Mihailovic, and because in the end Mihailovic was seen as siding with the germans.

Russian partisans never had this problem, because they were not based on popular support so much, and remained tightly controlled and supplied from Moscow. They typically were built around army remnants left behind after the initial invasion. Thats why Russian partisans operated very successfully in places like the ukraine, where support for the central regime was not strong. whilst that is true, hatred of the germans was even stronger. The Germans were hated even by their own allies, who never missed opportunities to make them suffer for the many broken promises that were the trademark of german foreign relations during the war..... 


as a footnote, after the war Stalin had most of the partisans leaders(and the pows captured in the war) shot or "re-educated" because he feared that they might have fallen under decadent western influences. Some things never change.........


----------



## Yozimbo (Mar 12, 2009)

Hi all,
particularly in Greece where I am from, the resistance groups were divided between several political factions each serving it's own hidden agenda (royalists, democrats, communists etc).
Hence as early as 1943 the focus shifted from hitting German/Italian/Bulgarian targets to fighting each other in a bid to be in control when the Germans would withdraw from Greece (which was obvious by then). This eventually led to the full scale civil war of 1947.
There are historical cases where small "independent" resistance groups were literally wiped out particularly from the biggest in numbers resistance group, the communist led ELAS. 

Having said that, there is a big historical question whether some of the action undertaken was of any military point. I will give you an average example based on numerous historical cases. In a remote mountainous area we have a village (of no strategic importance due to location etc). In this village is posted a German army platoon consisting mainly of older age or non-combat efficient troops (as these were in the fronts). A squad of resistance hits the village killing the some or all of them and then retreats in the surrounding mountains. In retaliation the Germans execute the villagers. This was one of the favorite tactics of ELAS. The reasoning being to "force" the village population to join them in the mountains in order to avoid the German retaliation. This led to rural people sometimes being more afraid of the ELAS than the Germans themselves. Another reason being that if people did not helped them out they would be branded as traitors and often executed. So a lot of people found themselves between a rock and a hard place...
A similar point, strictly from an historian point of view, is whether the action from the French resistance against the Das Reich elements in June 1944 was necessary and worthwhile in regard to the (easily anticipated) retaliation against the local population (such as the Oradour-sur-Glane case).


----------



## timshatz (Mar 12, 2009)

Yozimbo said:


> A similar point, strictly from an historian point of view, is whether the action from the French resistance against the Das Reich elements in June 1944 was necessary and worthwhile in regard to the (easily anticipated) retaliation against the local population (such as the Oradour-sur-Glane case).



Yozimbo, good post. Have read about the Greek Civil War. It was, by anybody's account, a truely nasty and bloody event. Similar to what happened throughout the Balkans after WW2 ended. In some cases, it was worse than the war itself. 

As to your point about Oradour-sur-Glane, there is a very good book on the subject by Max Hastings. Pretty old now, written in the early 70s, it tells about the march of the 2nd SS Panzer from it's bases in central France to the invasion beaches. The attrocity at OsG was committed on that march (as were other less famous acts). It mentions that the act was committed in retaliation for the death of an SS Capt, that the men who committed the act were part of the SS Alsace detachment and the SS Capt. who directed the massacre was astonished when later in June, he was told there was an inquiry going on into his actions that would probably lead to him being court martialed. He soon after died in action and the inquiry was dropped.

It is an excellent book and anyone who wants to know about the actions of the French Partisans and their affect on the Germans should read it. 

But the name escapes me now.


----------



## davebender (Mar 12, 2009)

> Germans that would have otherwise been on the fronts


German combat units were not normally tasked with securing lines of communications. That was a job for locally raised militia and cavalry. Cosacks, Croatians and people from the Baltic states were employed in large numbers for this type work. In France it was largely the job of national police forces that reported to the French government.


----------



## Yozimbo (Mar 12, 2009)

Indeed a very good book on the subject (i have it in 2 different editions)...
Apparently according to historical records and testimonies the event was triggered when Major Helmut Kaempfe was captured and executed by the local resistance under the orders of Georges Guingouin. Following the discovery of his remains the I. Battalion, 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment under the command of Major Adolf Diekmann (a personal friend to Kaempfe) retaliated on OsG. 
In all aspects the act of execution of a high profile officer belonging to a unit that is known for it's fierceness and which is evacuating the area in a hurry, can only be attributed to personal glory chase and small politics at the expense of others...
And it is widely accepted that this action didn't made any difference in the time the division took to reach the Normandy area...


----------



## Negative Creep (Mar 12, 2009)

I'll admit that I do have an ulterior motive for asking as I'm writing an essay on the French Resistance. To be more specific it's asking if the French Resistance was more a myth than an effective force.

The problem is it's impossible to know how many were in the resistance as it took so many forms. There seems to be a minority (10% according to one source, but that would have fluctuated with the war) but even passive resistance was effective. For example, I read about the conscripted labourers in the Atlantic wall and how they were told they must doff their caps when Rommel arrived to inspect the works. Within a few minutes everyone had taken off their hats. A tiny effort that made no difference to the war, but resistance nonetheless.

From what I've seen there were more involved with collaboration than resistance. It would seem the majority in any country, after the initial shock of defeat, just wanted to get on with their lives. However nothing I've seen thus far would describe resistance as a myth and there were certainly very brave people of all ages and beliefs involved. The Liberation of Paris must be a key event, but am I right in thinking the Germans had largely evacuated and had no air support, tanks or heavy artillery?


----------



## timshatz (Mar 12, 2009)

Yozimbo said:


> Following the discovery of his remains the I. Battalion, 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment under the command of Major Adolf Diekmann (a personal friend to Kaempfe) retaliated on OsG.
> QUOTE]
> 
> May've confused my Nazis. I was thinking of the Capt. who was last seen with his driver that the Resistance captured. He was never seen again (although it doesn't take much to figure out what happened to him).


----------



## davebender (Mar 13, 2009)

How do you define "collaboration"?

After WWII the people of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romainia and Ukraine were occupied by the Soviet Union for a period of about 45 years. There was no immediate hope of liberation from enemy occupation. A few tough cases chose to die fighting rather then submit to Stalin's rule. Most of the population just went on living and waited for times to get better. It was the same in France during 1940 to 1944. Only they didn't have to wait so long for their freedom from enemy occupation.


----------



## Negative Creep (Mar 13, 2009)

Agreed with you, collaboration is just as hard to define as resistance. Looking back with hindsight is very easy, but if I was a Frenchman in late 1940 I wouldn't hold out much hope of ever being liberated. As the war progressed more and more people joined, some out of hope, some realising which way the wind was blowing. I'm sure that right after the war the numbers of people who had been in the resistance increased significantly!


----------



## timshatz (Mar 13, 2009)

Negative Creep said:


> Agreed with you, collaboration is just as hard to define as resistance. Looking back with hindsight is very easy, but if I was a Frenchman in late 1940 I wouldn't hold out much hope of ever being liberated. As the war progressed more and more people joined, some out of hope, some realising which way the wind was blowing. I'm sure that right after the war the numbers of people who had been in the resistance increased significantly!



Probably nailed it on the head. Most people stay out of the way until the occupiers look like they're losing. Then, they probably give passive assistance to the cause. The guys that actually went out and did something were a small minority. Single digit percentage, that is just my guess. 

On a related note, I was in Paris back in 1994 just before the 50th Anniversary of the Liberation of Paris. Saw an exhibit of pictures showing the liberation. There were about 100 to 120 shots. All of the shots, showed French Resistance types in Paris. There were two shots of Americans (no Brits, Canadians, Poles,ect) and those shots were two from Cappa on Omaha. 

But the shots of the French Resistance in Paris were actually pretty funny. I wasn't going to laugh out loud (bad form in a foriegn country) but it showed a bunch of guys who looked like they'd come out of a poetry reading. None of them had the same weapons (design, caliber or useage) as another. One has a rifle from the Franco Prussian war, another with a British Webley Revolver, last might have a German Mauser. It was all over the place. And, true to form, there were pictures of them "manning the barricades" (to answer your question, there were no pics of German Armor or Artillery). 

If you took the exhibition as a whole, you got the impression that the Poets, Communist, Anarchist and just about every socialist nutjob from the Left Bank rose up and overthrew their Nazi oppressors. Which is close to how it happened....

...when you add in the 2nd French Armored Division, US 4th ID and other assorted units. But, given the stuff I saw, the regular army forces just showed up for the parade.


----------



## Negative Creep (Mar 13, 2009)

timshatz said:


> (to answer your question, there were no pics of German Armor or Artillery).




Actually scrap my previous statement, I've now read in three different sources the Germans did have tanks


----------



## timshatz (Mar 13, 2009)

I've read there were some SPs in Paris, but not many. There is a story of a gunner in a French Sherman knocking out an SP under the Arc de Triumph (sp?) with a single shot when he remembered his grade school geography and dialed in the distance at one click. Sounds a little far fetched but still, that was the story. 

Also have heard that captured French tanks of 1940 vintage were out an about, used by the Germans. 

From what I've read of the Liberation of Paris ("Is Paris Burning" by Larry Collins is one of the books on the subject), the Germans had no combat troops to speak of in the city. Further, the demolitions that were ordered by Hitler were ignored by the commander. He pretty much didn't do anyting. The troops he did have were paper pushers and the odd unit caught in the city when the FFI went active. It wasn't much of a fight, no Stalingrad. Isolated pockets of resistance at best.


----------



## Negative Creep (Mar 13, 2009)

Wiki actually has a picture







"German tank (Hotchkiss H35) moving in downtown Paris on August 19 1944 during the battle for Paris. Screenshot from La Liberation de Paris, September 1st, 1944."


----------



## timshatz (Mar 13, 2009)

Don't imagine they gave the French 2nd much trouble when they showed up with M4s. If they engaged at all. 

Have seen pictures of M4 Shermans and M10 TDs in the fighting. Also some Greyhounds and Halftracks. But the only tank on tank stuff I read about was that action at the Arch de Triump. I don't believe an M4, with a short barreled 75, could get a round through the front armor of a Stug at 1,000 yards (assuming it was an M4 vs Stug shoot out). Somebody else on the board with a better knowledge of that combo would know.


----------



## Negative Creep (Mar 13, 2009)

I'm not sure how the event is viewed in France, but it certainly wasn't a massive uprising and dramatic battle against battle against battle hardened troops a la Warsaw. That being said, we shouldn't take away from those who did fight as a lot of them lost their lives in the process


----------



## timshatz (Mar 13, 2009)

Very true. In Paris, the Germans were on their way out. In Warsaw, the Germans stayed and fought it out, destroying the city after they were done. Two totally different fights. 

Which brings up an interesting point about the Polish Resistance and their battle against the Germans. It would seem the Resistance in the East was on an altogether greater scale than that in the West. Same could be said of the Balkans. Three seperate theatres of resistance.


----------



## Yozimbo (Mar 14, 2009)

Also regarding the Polish case, there is another major factor that must be taken into account... 
The Polish needed to liberate their capital and by extension their country in order to have a legitimate case of independence post-war, as the red army was literally at the gates and it's political leadership had not shown the best of intentions in the past. 
It is now widely accepted now that they were actually played by them (red army). Believing that the red army was actually going to enter Warsaw any minute now (thus driving off the Germans) they hasted into an all out uprising to beat them to the liberation of the city (as well as putting into effect Operation Tempest -Akcja Burza- that had the end of achieving political control of Poland before the Soviets arived). 
However as we all know the red army (who was informed at the last minute by Polands PM Stanisław Mikołajczyk) stopped dead on its tracks right of the Vistula, providing thus a dubious form of ceasefire to the Germans and allowing them to take out the uprising with no other pressure from them (in the all times classic axiom - the enemy of my enemy is my friend...).

The French resistance in Paris now on the other hand, did not had these kind of troubles to worry about, so they had a rather different approach in terms of fighting and urgency of matters. To be honest from what I've read so far in most cases the majority of fighters that were photographed at the time of liberation with guns blazing only picked them up when the German army was already miles away...and they exhausted their fighting skills and prowess in hunting down civilians accused of collaboration with a vengeance...


----------



## Arsenal VG-33 (Mar 15, 2009)

Well, where do I begin with this? I've pulled however many books from my own library to peruse over the questions/statments made here and I'll answer a few here:



davebender said:


> The French resistance was pretty small prior to 1944. In fact most of them joined after the Normandy invasion. I guess joining the resistance a few days prior to liberation was a way to insure the "Free French" did not accuse you of collaboration with the enemy.



The French Resistance, while mainly localized and individualistic at first, really came of age in late 1942 early 1943, when the forced labor draft was implemented (*STO*, _Service Travail Obligatoire_), so in reality it grew exponentially during that period.



davebender said:


> In France it was largely the job of national police forces that reported to the French government.



By 1943, there were actually few Milice left, most having jioned the LVF to fight on the Russian front. After that point, it was mostly Polizei, or small Wermacht/SS detachments that were used to root out Resistance bands. A few Milice units may have left around, mostly wash-outs of the *LVF*, but by 1944, most of them realized which way the war was going and went into hiding themselves. It's interesting to know that most of these _Miliciens_ were actually common criminals and convicts who were quickly hunted down and rid of during the _Epuration_ immediately following the liberation of the region.

Of the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre, I too have Max Hasting's work on this subject. He makes it quite clear that while the Alsatians of the Das Reich unti that was there and commited the atrocities, perhaps 2 or 3 actually participated in the murders, the remainder having been positioned on the outskirts of the town to guard roadd entries, where they even prevented outsiders from entering town and becoming potential victims themselves. The reason is that many of the Alsatians, having been formerly citizens of France, then having been made citizens of the Reich via annexation, protested the orders they were given, to the point that at least one of their NCOs was threatened with execution by his superiors. Hastings give clear evidence that this is in fact the closest thing to mutiny ever seen in the Das Reich Division during the whole course of the war.



timshatz said:


> But the shots of the French Resistance in Paris were actually pretty funny. I wasn't going to laugh out loud (bad form in a foriegn country) but it showed a bunch of guys who looked like they'd come out of a poetry reading.



What were they supposed to look like...army soldiers? After over 4 years of wearing the same clothes with few means to replace them, they're obviously going to look like a band of troubadours. 



timshatz said:


> But the shots of the French Resistance in Paris were actually pretty funny. I wasn't going to laugh out loud (bad form in a foriegn country) but it showed a bunch of guys who looked like they'd come out of a poetry reading. None of them had the same weapons (design, caliber or useage) as another. One has a rifle from the Franco Prussian war, another with a British Webley Revolver, last might have a German Mauser. It was all over the place. And, true to form, there were pictures of them "manning the barricades" (to answer your question, there were no pics of German Armor or Artillery).



There is a good explanation for this: Gen. de Gaulle explicitly asked that weapons drops did not occur over large metropolitan areas as these were the areas that were predominately controlled by Communist factions of the Resistance. A post-Liberation Communist government in France would have spelled disaster for the Allies in regards to clearing France of the Germans, as they were more liable to take orders from Moscow than the western Allies. The fact that most of the Paris Resistance were armed with the odd assortment of weapons is no surprise when this fact is taken into account. 



timshatz said:


> If you took the exhibition as a whole, you got the impression that the Poets, Communist, Anarchist and just about every socialist nutjob from the Left Bank rose up and overthrew their Nazi oppressors. Which is close to how it happened....



Most of the intelligencia/anarchist/"peots" had already been deported to the death camps, executed, or were in hiding by mid 1944, writing underground leaflets. The Paris insurectionists were more or less evenly split between Communists and Gaullist factions by August 1944, with a slightly larger majority going to the Gaullist (FFI) forces.

As for the French DB, they lost approx. 45-55 killed when entering Paris, with almost twice that many wounded and many vehicles destroyed, so it wasn't all "parade" for them. As for German artillery, I belive you're correct on this, there appears to have been none in the near viscinity, though immediately after the lberation of Paris there was a Luftwaffe raid which killed about 250 people, wounded a further 1,000, and destroyed several blocks of the city. Additionally ( and unknown to most, V-2 rockets did strike Paris as well).



timshatz said:


> I've read there were some SPs in Paris, but not many. There is a story of a gunner in a French Sherman knocking out an SP under the Arc de Triumph (sp?) with a single shot when he remembered his grade school geography and dialed in the distance at one click. Sounds a little far fetched but still, that was the story.



Nothing far-fetched at all, it was witnessed by many people. A slight correction however, the French tank gunner (a tank destroyer) did not knock out the Panther, but he disabled it by hitting one of it's tracks. The Panther's gun was then blocked by a lamp post. A second French tank (a Sherman) then appeared on the Place de la Concorde and rammed the Panther, setting it ablaze but not before it's crew escaped.



timshatz said:


> Also have heard that captured French tanks of 1940 vintage were out an about, used by the Germans.



True. How many exactly I'm not sure, but I think they were mostly the M-35 Hotchkiss types, though there was a Char-B in their possesion which was later recaptured by the FFI and parked at the southern end of the Grosskommandanture (Hotel Crillon) and used as a stationary gun, shooting at whatever German transport came through the wide intersection.

By the way, the lat time I went to Paris, I inspected closely the area where the Panther was first disabled and then rammed. The curb side where the Panther was pushed onto is still caved in a bit.



timshatz said:


> From what I've read of the Liberation of Paris ("Is Paris Burning" by Larry Collins is one of the books on the subject), the Germans had no combat troops to speak of in the city. Further, the demolitions that were ordered by Hitler were ignored by the commander. He pretty much didn't do anyting. The troops he did have were paper pushers and the odd unit caught in the city when the FFI went active. It wasn't much of a fight, no Stalingrad. Isolated pockets of resistance at best.



Since this book was written, it's been since proven that Cholitz had every intention of destroying as much of Paris as possible. The only reason he didn't is because he lacked the means to do it. He actually had far less expolive charges than he was led to believe. I disagree with you on the level of fighting: While most sections of the city saw "sporadic" fighting, there were some areas which saw pitched battles, included Place de l'Etoile, Jardin de Luxembourg, and Place Saint Michel. The Senate building in the Luxembourg gardens actually had an SS detachment, and there was quite a bit of blood letting there.



timshatz said:


> Don't imagine they gave the French 2nd much trouble when they showed up with M4s. If they engaged at all.



Gen. Leclerc's 2e DB lost most of their vehichles in the suburbs of Paris prior to entering Paris via _Porte d'Orleans_. A well placed German 88 gun ensured this.



Negative Creep said:


> I'm not sure how the event is viewed in France, but it certainly wasn't a massive uprising and dramatic battle against battle against battle hardened troops a la Warsaw. That being said, we shouldn't take away from those who did fight as a lot of them lost their lives in the process



I think it's a mistake to make this comparison for one very important fact: The Paris Uprising was no less dramatic or popular as that of Warsaw's. The difference here lies in the fact that at Warsaw, the Red Army sat on the other side to allow the Nazis to get rid of the resistance there. The Western Allies were thankfully, much more humanitarian and understanding than the Russians and rushed to the aid of the Parisians. The Nazis destroyed Warsaw because the Red Army allowed them to do it, which in turn meant less political resistance to Stalin. The two uprisings were thus not determined from within, but their destinies were determined from outsides influences.


----------



## Arsenal VG-33 (Mar 15, 2009)

Yozimbo said:


> The French resistance in Paris now on the other hand, did not had these kind of troubles to worry about, so they had a rather different approach in terms of fighting and urgency of matters. To be honest from what I've read so far in most cases the majority of fighters that were photographed at the time of liberation with guns blazing only picked them up when the German army was already miles away...and they exhausted their fighting skills and prowess in hunting down civilians accused of collaboration with a vengeance...



If this were true, then over 1,500 FFI and civilians and over 2,500 Germans should not have been killed. Your statement is a slap in the face of their memories.


----------



## Yozimbo (Mar 15, 2009)

Unfortunately there are a lot of slaps in the face for France regarding a lot of aspects that they prefer to forget about during the second world war and this is one of them...

I am not arguing that there were people that fought and died against the Germans and I meant no disrespect to their sacrifice. My argument is that the sacrifice of those brave people has been appropriated on a national level for political reasons and as a consequence until recently everyone in France was in the Maquis... It is understandable from a national pride point of view. After all France had lost a war in a shockingly quick way, one of it's foremost great war heroes collaborated with the enemy, half of it's territory was given a mock independence, and state collaboration achieved record levels in various aspects... So in post war France something was needed urgently to restore a sense of national pride...and everybody participating in the Maquis was a good start...
I do apologize if my thesis may be offensive to some but I am a firm believer that things should be presented as they were (according to historical documents often declassified only recently) and not as we would like them to be...


----------



## Arsenal VG-33 (Mar 15, 2009)

Yozimbo said:


> Unfortunately there are a lot of slaps in the face for France regarding a lot of aspects that they prefer to forget about during the second world war and this is one of them...



Of all the countries occupied by the Nazis, the French have done the most to examine and atone for their past over the last 25-30 years. There are few who are "preferring" to forget this past. You certainly don't see this kind of self-examination by other countries. It's only outsiders who are learning about these things for the first time who make such silly assesments. Again, I ask you, if the Paris underground only waited until all the Germans had left as you say they did , why all the casualties? Maybe you'd prefer to think they jumped from windows? Have you read Collin's and Lapierre's book?


----------



## v2 (Mar 15, 2009)

Polish Home Army...
Polish Home Army underground


----------



## Yozimbo (Mar 15, 2009)

Arsenal VG-33 said:


> Of all the countries occupied by the Nazis, the French have done the most to examine and atone for their past over the last 25-30 years. There are few who are "preferring" to forget this past. You certainly don't see this kind of self-examination by other countries. It's only outsiders who are learning about these things for the first time who make such silly assesments. Again, I ask you, if the Paris underground only waited until all the Germans had left as you say they did , why all the casualties? Maybe you'd prefer to think they jumped from windows? Have you read Collin's and Lapierre's book?



From a historian point of view it was again small politics...
De Gaule needed urgently to legitimize his provisional government. In order to do that he HAD to "liberate" Paris. And to achieve that he had to literally blackmail the Allied High Command to help him out. Because Eisenhower wanted to bypass Paris and get inside German land asap knowing that this was what the Allies needed to do in order to maintain momentum. 
If that happened Paris would sooner than later be evacuated by the Germans.
In the aftermath Paris was liberated by the FFL and the US 4th Infantry Division. 

I do apologize for my ignorance, as I am learning about those things for the first time, after all i am nothing but a humble post-doc history researcher passing my days digging into the National Archives at Kew....


----------



## pbfoot (Mar 15, 2009)

Arsenal VG-33 said:


> Of all the countries occupied by the Nazis, the French have done the most to examine and atone for their past over the last 25-30 years. ?


maybe they are the only ones that bent and followed the germans to such a degree


----------



## parsifal (Mar 15, 2009)

The casualty list forthe liberation was unquestionably much smaller than the actions in Warsaw. The Home army, from memory lost about a third of its strength, which I believe was about 60000 combatants, plus there were about another 200-300000 civilan casualties. I believe german casualties came to about 37000. When you look at the two actions in terms of the casulaty lists, there is no comparison between the two.

However, I think it unfair to try and belittle the importance of the liberation of Paris on the basis of the relatively small butchers bill. The liberation was a politically significant milestone in the downfall of the Nazis.

Also, you dont see the same criticisms being levelled at the Allied armies in general. During the war, 80% of German military casulaties occurred on the Eastern Front. Even the whole of the Normandy camapaign , and the subsequent advance across western Europe was small change compared to what was happening on the Eastern Front. In that same time period, Axis casualties on the western front were running at about 240000 give or take. On the eastern front they had lost over a million, including dead, wounded, mia and prisoners.

None of us are prepared to acknowledge the true workhorses of wwii, and the debt we still owe them.....the russians


----------



## Watanbe (Mar 17, 2009)

I think most of us on the forums are prepared to acknowledge that the Eastern Front was what really wrecked the Germans! I also believe that we discuss and argue more about the Western Theatre because it applies more to us and we find it more interesting. It doesn't necessarily mean we are ignorant!


----------



## timshatz (Mar 18, 2009)

VG, couple of points noted below.




What were they supposed to look like...army soldiers? After over 4 years of wearing the same clothes with few means to replace them, they're obviously going to look like a band of troubadours. 

 See note below. It is not what the exhibit showed, it was what it excluded.



There is a good explanation for this: Gen. de Gaulle explicitly asked that weapons drops did not occur over large metropolitan areas as these were the areas that were predominately controlled by Communist factions of the Resistance. A post-Liberation Communist government in France would have spelled disaster for the Allies in regards to clearing France of the Germans, as they were more liable to take orders from Moscow than the western Allies. The fact that most of the Paris Resistance were armed with the odd assortment of weapons is no surprise when this fact is taken into account. 



Most of the intelligencia/anarchist/"peots" had already been deported to the death camps, executed, or were in hiding by mid 1944, writing underground leaflets. The Paris insurectionists were more or less evenly split between Communists and Gaullist factions by August 1944, with a slightly larger majority going to the Gaullist (FFI) forces.


Actually, there were plenty of them left, if this exhibit was anything to go on. As noted, there were something on the order of 125-150 pictures in the exhibit and none of them showed the French 2nd or US 4th. Just the two shots from Omaha Beach. If you saw the exhibit, it looked as though the people of Paris rose up, overthrough their oppressors and drove to the beaches to help the landings. It was truely funny. 

As for the French DB, they lost approx. 45-55 killed when entering Paris, with almost twice that many wounded and many vehicles destroyed, so it wasn't all "parade" for them. As for German artillery, I belive you're correct on this, there appears to have been none in the near viscinity, though immediately after the lberation of Paris there was a Luftwaffe raid which killed about 250 people, wounded a further 1,000, and destroyed several blocks of the city. Additionally ( and unknown to most, V-2 rockets did strike Paris as well).



Nothing far-fetched at all, it was witnessed by many people. A slight correction however, the French tank gunner (a tank destroyer) did not knock out the Panther, but he disabled it by hitting one of it's tracks. The Panther's gun was then blocked by a lamp post. A second French tank (a Sherman) then appeared on the Place de la Concorde and rammed the Panther, setting it ablaze but not before it's crew escaped.



True. How many exactly I'm not sure, but I think they were mostly the M-35 Hotchkiss types, though there was a Char-B in their possesion which was later recaptured by the FFI and parked at the southern end of the Grosskommandanture (Hotel Crillon) and used as a stationary gun, shooting at whatever German transport came through the wide intersection.

By the way, the lat time I went to Paris, I inspected closely the area where the Panther was first disabled and then rammed. The curb side where the Panther was pushed onto is still caved in a bit.



Since this book was written, it's been since proven that Cholitz had every intention of destroying as much of Paris as possible. The only reason he didn't is because he lacked the means to do it. He actually had far less expolive charges than he was led to believe. I disagree with you on the level of fighting: While most sections of the city saw "sporadic" fighting, there were some areas which saw pitched battles, included Place de l'Etoile, Jardin de Luxembourg, and Place Saint Michel. The Senate building in the Luxembourg gardens actually had an SS detachment, and there was quite a bit of blood letting there.

While I agree there were parts of Paris that saw fighting, that is the definition of sporatic. If we look at the fighting in other cities that was serious, the fighting in Paris was minor in comparison. If the Germans wanted to make a show of it, they could've. This was no Warsaw, Manila, Berlin, ect. It was a place they were clearing out of, for the most part.

I'll conceed your point on Cholitz but think he could've done a job of it he wanted to. Have heard statements made from him after capture, between himself and other German officers that were recorded where he points out they German Army should've shown moral standards greater than they did. In this, he was pretty isolated amongst the Generals in captivity. Most were of the line of "just following orders". I consider it a factor in the non-event that was the destruction of Paris. 



Gen. Leclerc's 2e DB lost most of their vehichles in the suburbs of Paris prior to entering Paris via _Porte d'Orleans_. A well placed German 88 gun ensured this.



I think it's a mistake to make this comparison for one very important fact: The Paris Uprising was no less dramatic or popular as that of Warsaw's. The difference here lies in the fact that at Warsaw, the Red Army sat on the other side to allow the Nazis to get rid of the resistance there. The Western Allies were thankfully, much more humanitarian and understanding than the Russians and rushed to the aid of the Parisians. The Nazis destroyed Warsaw because the Red Army allowed them to do it, which in turn meant less political resistance to Stalin. The two uprisings were thus not determined from within, but their destinies were determined from outsides influences.[/QUOTE]


----------

