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A Ballerina Who Stabbed an SS Guard With a Stiletto and Other Historic Rebels

Khalid Elhassan August 10, 2020 34 min

3. Resistance Movements in Eastern vs Western Europe

Soviet Partisans. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

It is true that Eastern European resistance movements, such as the Soviet and Yugoslav partisans, contributed materially to victory with intense and widespread sabotage and guerrilla activities. By contrast, the greatest contribution of Western Europe’s resistance lay in intelligence gathering: their sabotage and guerrilla efforts were negligible.

It took great courage, and the men and women of the Western European resistance risked their lives on a daily basis. Nonetheless, their impact was more symbolic than substantive. The actual impact lay in contributing more to Western Europeans’ pride and self-esteem after the war for having done something, not in having greatly contributed to the actual winning of the war.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.