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Fabricated Stories About World War II Still Known by Many

Khalid Elhassan November 15, 2019 35 min

Collaborationist Vichy French police, the Milice, in Paris during the German occupation. Pintrest

5. Different Incentives Led to Different Levels of Ferocity in Resisting the Germans

Because they were not brutalized as badly as were, e.g.; Soviet or Yugoslav civilians, Western Europeans’ backs were not as much against the wall as were Eastern Europeans, where they felt they had nothing to lose. So those in the West never flocked to the Resistance in large enough numbers to transform it into a mass popular movement, as happened in the Balkans and the USSR.

During the war, the resistance in Western Europe was not as widespread or intense as is often depicted in film or fiction. Far more people were willing to accept German occupation and make the best of a bad situation, than were willing to resist and risk German vengeance. E.g.; far greater numbers of Frenchmen collaborated with the German occupiers than joined the Resistance, whose numbers only boomed following the successful D-Day landings, after which late arrivals swelled the ranks.

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.