Resistance during World War II


During World War II, resistance movements operated in German-occupied Europe by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation to propaganda, hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns. In many countries, resistance movements were sometimes also referred to as The Underground.
While resistance groups played a significant auxiliary role in harassing the enemy, their military impact was limited, and they were incapable of liberating their nations alone. Overall, the effectiveness of resistance movements during World War II is generally measured more by their political and moral impact than their decisive military contribution to the overall Allied victory.

Assessment

By 1941, British assessment of Allied resistance groups suggested that although Nazi Germany now controlled much of Europe, only Czechoslovakia, Poland and China had considerable resistance networks. Although by 1942 resistance groups formed in most occupied territories, the assessments of effectiveness of large resistance networks such as Soviet partisans and French Resistance suggests that they did not significantly hamper German operations until late 1943. All resistance movemements were also significantly dependent on support from Allied powers.
Resistance also encompassed activities beyond armed combat, such as sabotage, espionage, assisting escapees from Nazis, and other activities.
Overall assessment of resistance effectivness is a matter of debate among historians. argued that resistance activities "influenced the course of the War decisively in the psychological sector". According to Evan Mawdsley, however, in military terms, "the resistance did not do a great deal to achieve the strategic objectives" of major Allied powers, failing to regain territory or tie-down frontline German troops. J. R. Seeger notes that in specific campaigns, the resistance was considered highly valuable, and on the "rare occasions" resistance forces were able to tie down German troops, this benefited conventional Allied forces in that theater, but often resulted in "horrific Nazi reprisals". Mawdsley does, however, acknowledge that the resistance movements played "a significant auxiliary role in the area of sabotage and the gathering of intelligence", and that the movements had "great political and moral importance", translating to their subsequent significant impact on collective memory.

By affiliation

The resistance movements in World War II can be broken down into two primary politically polarized camps:
  • the internationalist and usually Communist Party-led anti-fascist resistance that existed in nearly every country in the world; and
  • the various nationalist groups in German- or Soviet-occupied countries, such as the Republic of Poland, that opposed both Nazi Germany and the Communists.

    By territory

Among the most notable resistance movements were:

Europe

And the politically persecuted opposition in Germany itself.

Far East

Many countries had resistance movements dedicated to fighting or undermining the Axis invaders, and Nazi Germany itself also had an anti-Nazi movement. Although Britain was not occupied during the war, the British made complex preparations for a British resistance movement. The main organisation was created by the Secret Intelligence Service and is now known as Section VII. In addition there was a short-term secret commando force called the Auxiliary Units. Various organizations were also formed to establish foreign resistance cells or support existing resistance movements, like the British Special Operations Executive and the American Office of Strategic Services. There were also resistance movements fighting against Allied invaders. In Italian East Africa, after the Italians were defeated during the East African Campaign, some Italian soldiers and settlers participated in a guerrilla war against the Allies from 1941 to 1943. Though the Werwolf Nazi German resistance movement never amounted to much, the German Volkssturm played an extensive role in the Battle of Berlin. The "Forest Brothers" of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania included many fighters who operated against the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States into the 1960s. During or after the war, similar anti-Soviet resistance rose up in places like Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Chechnya.

Organization

After the first shock following the Blitzkrieg, people slowly started organizing, both locally and on a larger scale, especially when Jews and other groups began to be deported and used as Arbeitseinsatz. Organization was dangerous, so most resistance actions were performed by individuals. The possibilities heavily depended on the terrain; where there were large tracts of uninhabited land, especially hills and forests, resistance forces could more easily organise undetected; this particularly favoured Soviet partisans in Eastern Europe. In more densely populated countries such as the Netherlands, the Biesbosch wilderness was used. In northern Italy, both the Alps and the Apennines offered shelter to partisan brigades, though many groups operated directly inside the major cities.
There were many different types of groups, ranging in activity from humanitarian aid to armed resistance, who sometimes cooperated in varying degrees. Resistance usually arose spontaneously, but was encouraged and helped along by London and Moscow.

Size

While historians and governments of some European countries have attempted to portray resistance to Nazi occupation as widespread among their populations, only a small minority of people participated in organized resistance, estimated at one to three percent of the population of countries in western Europe. In eastern Europe where Nazi rule was more oppressive, a larger percentage of people were in organized resistance movements, for example, an estimated 10-15 percent of the Polish population. Passive resistance by non-cooperation with the occupiers was much more common. Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland, and Ukraine had large numbers of resistors to the German occupation. In western Europe, where the German hand was less oppressive, the resistors were fewer. However, in the west, according to historian Tony Judt, the "myth of resistance mattered most."
A number of sources note that the Polish Home Army was the largest resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe. Norman Davies writes that the "Armia Krajowa, the AK,... could fairly claim to be the largest of European resistance ." Gregor Dallas writes that the "Home Army in late 1943 numbered around 400,000, making it the largest resistance organization in Europe." Mark Wyman writes that the "Armia Krajowa was considered the largest underground resistance unit in wartime Europe." However, the numbers of Soviet partisans were very similar to those of the Polish resistance, as were the numbers of Yugoslav Partisans. For the French Resistance, François Marcot ventured an estimate of 200,000 activists and a further 300,000 with substantial involvement in Resistance operations. For the Resistance in Italy, Giovanni di Capua estimates that, by August 1944, the number of partisans reached around 100,000, and it escalated to more than 250,000 with the final insurrection in April 1945.

Forms of resistance

Various forms of resistance were:
  • Armed
  • * raids on distribution offices to get food coupons or various documents such as Ausweise or on birth registry offices to get rid of information about Jews and others to whom the Nazis paid special attention
  • * assassinations
  • * temporary liberation of areas, such as in Yugoslavia, Paris, and northern Italy, occasionally in cooperation with the Allied forces
  • * uprisings such as in Warsaw in 1943 and 1944, and in extermination camps such as in Sobibor in 1943 and Auschwitz in 1944
  • * continuing battle and guerrilla warfare, such as the partisans in the USSR and Yugoslavia and the Maquis in France
  • Non-violent
  • * Sabotage – a wide range of covert and irregular operations undertaken by resistance movements, intelligence agencies, and military special forces
  • * Strikes and demonstrations
  • * Espionage, including sending reports of military importance
  • * Underground press to counter Nazi propaganda and spread Anti-Nazi propaganda
  • * Covert listening to BBC broadcasts for news bulletins and coded messages
  • * Political resistance to prepare for the reorganization after the war
  • * Helping people to go into hiding —this was one of the main activities in the Netherlands, due to the large number of Jews and the high level of administration, which made it easy for the Germans to identify Jews.
  • * Escape and evasion lines to help Allied military personnel caught behind Axis lines and helping POWs with illegal supplies, breakouts, communication, etc.
  • * Forgery of documents
  • * Assistance to resistance operatives
  • * Gathering and provision of supplies to families of victims of Axis repression

    Resistance operations

1939–1940

On 15 September 1939, a member of the Czech resistance movement, Ctibor Novák, planted explosive devices in Berlin. His first bomb detonated in front of the Ministry of Aeronautics, and the second detonated in front of police headquarters. Both buildings were damaged and many Germans were injured.
On 28 October 1939, there were large demonstrations against Nazi occupation in Prague, with about 100,000 Czechs. Demonstrators crowded the streets in the city. German police had to disperse the demonstrators, and began shooting in the evening. The first victim was baker Václav Sedláček, who was shot dead. The second victim was student Jan Opletal, who was critically injured, and died on 11 November. Another 15 people were badly injured and hundreds of people sustained minor injuries. About 400 people were arrested.
In March 1940, a partisan unit of the first guerilla organization of the Second World War in Europe, the Detached Unit of the Polish Army, led by Major Henryk Dobrzański, defeated a battalion of German infantry in a skirmish near the Polish village of Hucisko. A few days later in an ambush near the village of Szałasy it inflicted heavy casualties upon another German unit. As time progressed, resistance forces grew in size and number. To counter this threat, the German authorities formed a special 1,000 man-strong anti-partisan unit of combined SS-Wehrmacht forces, including a Panzer group. Although Dobrzański's unit never exceeded 300 men, the Germans fielded at least 8,000 men in the area to secure it.
In 1940, Witold Pilecki, of the Polish resistance, presented to his superiors a plan to enter Germany's Auschwitz concentration camp, gather intelligence on the camp from the inside, and organize inmate resistance. The Home Army approved this plan and provided him with a false identity card, and on 19 September 1940 he deliberately went out during a street roundup in Warsaw-łapanka, and was caught by the Germans along with other civilians and sent to Auschwitz. In the camp he organized the underground organization Związek Organizacji Wojskowej.
From October 1940, ZOW sent the first reports about the camp and its genocide to Home Army Headquarters in Warsaw through the resistance network organized in Auschwitz.
On the night of January 21–22, 1940, in the Soviet-occupied Podolian town of Czortków, the Czortków Uprising started. It was the first Polish uprising and the first anti-Soviet uprising of World War II. Anti-Soviet Poles, most of them teenagers from local high schools, stormed the local Red Army barracks and a prison, in order to release Polish soldiers kept there.
1940 was the year of establishing the Warsaw Ghetto and the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp by the German Nazis in occupied Poland.
Among the many activities of Polish resistance and Polish people was helping endangered Jews. Polish citizens have the world's highest count of individuals who have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem as non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination during the Holocaust.
One of the events that helped the growth of the French Resistance was the targeting of the French Jews, Communists, Romani, homosexuals, Catholics, and others, forcing many into hiding. This in turn gave the French Resistance new people to incorporate into their political structures.
Around May 1940, a resistance group formed around the Austrian priest Heinrich Maier, who until 1944 very successfully passed on the plans and production locations for V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks and airplanes to the Allies so that they could target these important factories for destruction; the group also planned for the Central European states' post-war. Very early on they passed on information about the mass murder of the Jews to the Allies.
The Special Operations Executive was a British World War II organisation. With Cabinet approval, it was officially formed by Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to develop a spirit of resistance in the occupied countries and to prepare a fifth column of resistance fighters to engage in open opposition to the occupiers when the United Kingdom was able to return to the continent. To aid in the transport of agents and the supply of the resistance fighters, a Royal Air Force Special Duty Service was developed. Whereas the SIS was primarily involved in espionage, the SOE and the resistance fighters were geared toward reconnaissance of German defenses and sabotage. In England the SOE was also involved in the formation of the Auxiliary Units, a top secret stay-behind resistance organisation which would have been activated in the event of a German invasion of Britain. The SOE operated in all countries or former countries occupied by or attacked by the Axis forces, except where demarcation lines were agreed with Britain's principal allies.
The organisation was officially dissolved on 15 January 1946.