The French Resistance myth
Jesse
about the effect of the French Resistance. He replied, "What French
Resistance?"
That about sums it up.
French self esteem was at rock bottom for her historic, smashing defeat
in 1940 and the subsequent years long collaboration with history's most
notorious dictator.
The Russian bear was knocking from the east, empires were teetering in
Asia, turmoil and revolt in the middle east ,,,, What to do ?
Boost the esteem of France by creating the myth that 1,000's heroically
resisted the occupation, such as actually happened in Yugoslavia and Russia.
It was hoped that a reinvigorated France, given a seat at the victors
table even though she did nothing to deserve it, and having a heroic
resistance created out of whole cloth, would stand by the side of the
Allies in the coming struggles in Europe, and maintain her positions in
IndoChina and Africa.
Of course, France managed to do none of those.
Booted out of Indochina by barefoot peasants, the USA had to try to pick
up the pieces, which of course resulted in the Vietnam war.
At the same time, she was unceremoniously ejected from Africa, then
walked out on NATO.
France was given an apple cart, and returned it full of shit.
A hard read for Frenchman, I know ... Especially the rockheads like RLM,
who will no doubt post links to a pile of dead jews in reply, ignoring
his countries pathetic performance on the worlds stage from 1939 until
today.
(01-21) 04:00 PDT FRANCE -- THE HEROIC French Resistance, the
underground movement against the Nazis in World War II that we recall
from countless movies, never existed except as a myth embellished by
Hollywood.
One of the most persistent wartime images has selfless French men and
women in berets and leather jackets blowing up bridges and ambushing
columns of German soldiers on lonely country roads.
But a new book by historian Douglas Porch, "The French Secret Services,"
contends almost nothing of the sort actually happened. His account has
set the French seething - all the more so since many of them are aware
that what he says is absolutely true.
According to the book, even those few French who helped downed airmen
often did so for the money. The standard reward for getting an escapee
into Spain was about $50,000 in today's money.
Porch notes that, contrary to the myth, the French Resistance didn't
rise up after D-Day, June 6, 1944, to attack Germans behind the front
lines. Sabotage of the Nazi war machine was minimal.
Only about 5 percent of the French were even nominally members of the
underground. Of these, scarcely any ever fired a shot in anger,
dynamited a train or sent a clandestine radio message.
Albert Speer, who headed German war production, was asked after the war
about the effect of the French Resistance. He replied, "What French
Resistance?"
Porch's work is significant because the yawning gap between wartime
reality and myth is at the center of the self-doubt that has nagged the
French psyche for the last 50 years. To reassure themselves about their
national merit, the French have deliberately become extremely tough
customers - especially when dealing with Americans.
As was remarked by Charles Bohlen, onetime U.S. ambassador to France:
"The French have never forgiven us for liberating them."
The Resistance legend was almost entirely the work of Charles de Gaulle,
wartime leader of the Free French government in London, and of the
French Communists. He needed to build up his otherwise weak position in
the eyes of the allies.
Porch says de Gaulle persuaded Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied supreme
commander, to praise the Resistance as worth an "extra six divisions."
Both men knew the claim was false, the historian contends. Eisenhower
wanted to please de Gaulle and felt the French leader had been treated
roughly by Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
French Communists coined a slogan - "the party of the 70,000 martyrs" -
the number they claimed to have been executed by the Germans. The true
figure, according to Porch, was fewer than 350.
RLM
> Albert Speer, who headed German war production, was asked after the war
> about the effect of the French Resistance. He replied, "What French
> Resistance?"
= Speer , a good reference for a nazi...
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/french_resistance.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FRresistanceC.JPG
Jesse
What French Resistance?
Posting cartoons is no help, the lie has been exposed.
Albert Speer, who headed German war production, was asked after the war
about the effect of the French Resistance. He replied, "What French
Resistance?"
That about sums it up.
Albert Speer, who headed German war production, was asked after the war
about the effect of the French Resistance. He replied, "What French
Resistance?"
Porch's work is significant because the yawning gap between wartime
RLM
> RLM wrote:
>> Jesse a écrit :
>>> Albert Speer, who headed German war production, was asked after the
>>> war about the effect of the French Resistance. He replied, "What
>>> French Resistance?"
>>
>> = Speer , a good reference for a nazi...
>>
>> http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/french_resistance.htm
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance
>> http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FRresistanceC.JPG
>>
>>
>
> What French Resistance?
= This one, nazi :
" By the spring of 1944, there were 60 intelligence cells whose task was solely to collect
intelligence as opposed to carrying out acts of sabotage. In the build upto D-Day, the
intelligence
they gathered was vital. In May 1944 alone, they sent 3,000 written reports to the Allies
and 700
wireless reports. Between April and May, the resistance destroyed 1,800 railway engines.
When this
figure is added to the 2,400 destroyed by Allied bombers, it is easy to understand why the
Germans
had such difficulty transporting equipment across France."
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/french_resistance.htm
French Resistance
When Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain came to power in France he immediatelybegan negotiations
with Adolf Hitler and on 22nd June signed an armistice with Germany. The terms of the
agreement
divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones, with a rigid demarcation line between the
two. The Germans would directly control three-fifths of the country, an area that included
northern and western France and the entire Atlantic coast. The remaining section of the
country
would be administered by the French government at Vichy under Petain.
Other provisions of the armistice included the surrender of all Jews living in France to the
Germans. The French Army was disbanded except for a force of 100,000 men to maintain domestic
order. The 1.5 million French soldiers captured by the Germans were to remain prisoners of
war.
The French government also agreed to stop members of its armed forces from leaving the
country
and instructed its citizens not to fight against the Germans. Finally, France had to pay the
occupation costs of the German troops.
Some members of the French Army led by General Charles De Gaulle managed to escape to
England.
Soon after arriving he made a speech where he argued that "whatever happens, the flame of
French Resistance must not and will not be extinguished."
At first, humiliated by Germany's easy victory, few French people sought to continue the war.
There were scattered acts of sabotage but these people were unorganized and in most cases
were
quickly arrested by the authorities.
Liberation of Paris
Voices from the Dark Years
One of the first acts of public resistance to German occupation was a small public
demonstration of secondary school students at the Arc de Triomphe on 11thNovember 1940, when
they celebrated the Allied victory over Germany in the First World War.
A group of scientists and lawyers working in Paris led by Boris Vilde began publishing a
clandestine newspaper calling on the French people to resist the German occupation. The Musée
de L'Homme group was infiltrated by a supporter of the Vichy government and as a result
virtually all of the men and women involved with producing the newspaper were arrested and
executed. It is claimed that one member of the group, Valentin Feldman, shouted at the moment
of execution: "Imbeciles, it's for you, too that I die."
In occupied France the Gestapo began hunting down members of the Communist Party and
Socialist
Party. Most of them went into hiding. The obvious place to go was in the forests of the
unoccupied zones. Escaped soldiers from the French Army also fled to these forests. These men
and women gradually formed themselves into units based on political beliefs and geographical
area. Eventually these people joined together to form the Maquis. As the organization grew in
strength it began to organize attacks on German forces. They also helped to get Allied
airman,
whose aircraft had been shot down in France, to get back to Britain.
Radical members of the Socialist Party, including Pierre Brossolette and Daniel Mayer, formed
one of the first resistance groups in France when they established the Comité d'Action
Socialiste in January, 1941.
The Communist Party also became involved in the struggle against the German occupation. As
they
had been working in secret since 1939 they were ideally suited for clandestine activities. In
its newspaper, L'Humanité, edited by Pierre Villon, the Communist Partycalled for a "National
front for the independence of France." In May 1942, Villon established the resistance group,
Front National.
Some early supporters of Henri-Philippe Petain and the Vichy government had become
disillusioned and joined the resistance. Henry Frenay, who had initially worked for the Vichy
administration, became active in the resistance in February 1941. He published underground
newspapers such as Les Petities Ailes and Vérités, before forming Combat in November, 1941.
During this period, three important resistance leaders, Jean Moulin, Jean-Pierre Lévy and
Emmanuel d'Astier, emerged in France. At first Levy and d'Astier concentrated on producing
underground newspapers but eventually established the resistance groups, Francs-Tireur and
Liberation-sud. However, both these groups only had a few thousand members.
In the spring of 1942, communist militants, acting independently of the leadership of the
French Communist Party, organized the first Maquis units in the Limousin and the Puy-de-Dôme.
Marquis groups were established in other regions of France. As the Maquisgrew in strength it
began to organize attacks on German forces. They also helped to get Allied airman, whose
aircraft had been shot down in France, to get back to Britain.
General Charles De Gaulle was keen to unite these different resistance groups under his
leadership. Jean Moulin, who had spent time in London with De Gaulle, wassent back to France
and was given the task of uniting the various groups into one organization. He arranged
meetings with people such as Henry Frenay (Combat), Emmanuel d'Astier (Liberation-sud),
Jean-Pierre Lévy (Francs-Tireur), Pierre Villon (Front National), Daniel Mayer and Pierre
Brossolette (Comité d'Action Socialiste), Charles Tillon and Pierre Fabien (Frances-Tireurs
Partisans).
After much discussion Jean Moulin persuaded the eight major resistance groups to form the
Conseil National de la Resistance (CNR) and the first joint meeting underMoulin's
chairmanship
took place in Paris on 27th May 1943.
On 7th June 1943, René Hardy, an important member of the resistance in France, was
arrested and
tortured by Klaus Barbie and the Gestapo. They eventually obtained enoughinformation to
arrest
Jean Moulin, Pierre Brossolette and Charles Delestraint. Moulin and Brossolette both died
while
being tortured and Delestraint was sent to Dachau where he was killed near the end of the war.
In December, 1943, Joseph Darnard, an fanatical anti-Communist, became chief of secret police
in Vichy. Called the Milice, its 35,000 members, many of them fascists, played an important
role in investigating the French resistance. Like the Gestapo, the miliciens were willing to
use torture to gain information.
On 15th March, 1944, the Conseil National de la Resistance published a charter that
demanded a
series of social and economic reforms should be implemented after the liberation of France.
This included the establishment of universal suffrage and the equality ofall citizens. The
charter claimed that to ensure true equality it would be necessary to nationalize the large
industrial and financial companies. It also called for a minimum wage, independent trade
unions, comprehensive social security, worker participation in management, educational
equality, and the extension of political, social and economic rights to colonial citizens.
Later that month the German Army began a campaign of repression throughout France. This
included a policy of reprisals against civilians living in towns and villages close to the
scene of attacks carried out by members of the French Resistance. As one official wrote on
15th
April, 1944 that the authorities "wanted to strike fear into the population and change their
opinion by showing them that the evils they were suffering were the direct consequence of the
existence of the marquis and that they had made the mistake of toleratingthem."
On 5th June, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower asked the BBC sent out coded messages to the
resistance asking them to carry out acts of resistance during the D-day landings in order to
help Allied forces establish a beachhead on the Normandy coast.
This included attacks on the occupied garrisons in the towns of Tulle andGueret. In revenge
for the French attack on the German garrison 120 men were hanged in Tulleon 9th June. Later
that day another 67 were murdered in Argenton.
These armed resistance groups were able to slow down the attempt by the 2nd SS Panzer
Division
to get to the Normandy beaches. It was decided to carry out a revenge attack that would
frighten the French people into submission. On 10th June a group of soldiers led by Major
Otto
Dickmann, entered Oradour-sur-Glane, a village in the Haute-Vienne regionof France. He
ordered
the execution of more than 600 men, women and children before setting fire to the village.
Despite these atrocities the French Resistance continued to take up arms against the German
Army. After the war General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote: *"Throughout France the Resistance
had
been of inestimable value in the campaign. Without their great assistancethe liberation of
France would have consumed a much longer time and meant greater losses toourselves."*
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FRresistance.htm
*and during this period jeSSe's "proud warriors" parents as he says were fighting in the
nazi army...*
Jesse
> Jesse a écrit :
>> RLM wrote:
>>> Jesse a écrit :
>>>> Albert Speer, who headed German war production, was asked after the
>>>> war about the effect of the French Resistance. He replied, "What
>>>> French Resistance?"
>>>
>>> = Speer , a good reference for a nazi...
>>>
>>> http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/french_resistance.htm
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance
>>> http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FRresistanceC.JPG
>>>
>>>
>>
>> What French Resistance?
>
> = This one, nazi :
Pure crap, as is all the crap you post.
> *and during this period jeSSe's "proud warriors" parents as he says were
> fighting in the
> nazi army...*
While yours were either hiding in cellars or escaping in chimneys.
RLM
= You don't deny that your parents were fighting in the nazi army ? against the Allied and
then against America ?
After reading your posts it was easy to guess...
Jesse
Another attempted cross post, good to put you in the doggy house until June.