The Resistance in Western Europe vs in Eastern Europe and the Balkans
Western Europe’s communists made a drastic turn from acquiescence to German occupation during the period of Russo-German friendship, to fierce resistance after Hitler attacked the USSR. The rest of the civilian populations in the main did not exhibit a willingness to risk the horrific reprisals and atrocities the Germans were prepared to inflict upon restive subjects. It was not due to lack of courage, but lack of incentive. Because they were not treated as atrociously as were, e.g.; Soviet or Yugoslav civilians, Western Europeans’ backs were not as much against the wall to where they felt they had nothing to lose. So they never flocked to the resistance in the kinds of numbers that transformed 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. For example, far greater numbers of Frenchmen collaborated with the German occupiers than joined the Resistance. Indeed, membership boomed only after the successful D-Day landings, after which late arrivals swelled the resistance ranks.
