French Resistance

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Image:Flag of Free France.svg The French Resistance is the name used for resistance movements that fought military occupation of France by Nazi Germany and the Vichy France undemocratic regime during World War II after the government and the high command of France surrendered in 1940. Resistance groups included groups of armed men (usually referred to as the maquis), publishers of underground newspapers or even cinematography, and escape networks that helped allied soldiers. French Resistance cooperated with Allied secret services (see Office of Strategic Services and Special Operations Executive), especially in providing intelligence on the Atlantic Wall and coordinating sabotages and other actions to contribute to the success of Operation Overlord.

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Origins

On June 18th, 1940, Charles de Gaulle addressed the people of France from London. He called on the French people to continue the fight against the Germans. This message hit hard in occupied France but initially it was less well received in Vichy France. Regardless of what many thought of the Vichy government, the area they controlled was run by French people. However, when the Vichy government began to openly collaborate with the Germans, attitudes hardened.

The French Resistance movement is an umbrella term which covers numerous anti-German resistance movements that were based within France. There were resistance movements that took direct orders from the Special Operations Executive, the communist resistance, groups loyal to de Gaulle, regional resistance movements that wanted independence, etc. In the north, the target was simply the Germans while in the south, the Vichy government was a target as well as the Germans. The first resistance movements were in the north, such as the OCM (Organisation Civile et Militaire) and by the end of 1940, six underground newspapers were being regularly printed in the north. In May 1941, the first SOE agent was dropped into northern France to assist the work of the resistance.

In addition, there were Belgian, Polish and Dutch resistance networks who cooperated to defeat the Germans. Various groups organized in both occupied France and unoccupied Vichy France. Many of them were former soldiers who had escaped from the Germans or joined the resistance when they were released from prison camps. They hid weapons in preparation to fight again.

Others were former socialists and communists who had fled the Gestapo. Many of them hid in the forested regions, especially in the unoccupied zone. They joined together to form maquis bands and began to plan attacks against the occupation forces. Some groups also had Spanish members who had fought in the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. Even some 1000 Germans, that had to leave Germany because they were communists, Jews or political opponents fought for the resistance.

Because of the political complexities of France, the resistance movement got off to a difficult start. However, by June 1941, the resistance movement had become more organised and its work against the Germans increased accordingly. Two dates are important in explaining the work of the resistance movement in France.

On June 22nd 1941, all the communist groups within France joined forces to create one group. This simple act greatly increased its potency. On November 11th 1942, German forces occupied the whole of France. This meant that the whole country was occupied and the attitude of the north quickly transferred itself to the south.

The German attack on Russia - Operation Barbarossa - led to many French communists joining the resistance movement. Politics took a back step and the French communists gained a reputation for being aggressive and successful resistance fighters. Many French people joined as the support for Vichy quickly waned. Many in the south were angered by the compulsory labour service that had been brought in. But the treatment of the Jews was a major cause of resentment towards the Vichy government and many joined the resistance as a means of fighting against a policy that the vast majority found abhorrent.

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Risks involved

The German occupation authorities did not hesitate to employ brutal means in order to subdue the French population. The risks were high for those involved in resistance and also for those surrounding them, since the Germans soon established practices of retaliation against innocents to punish anti-German activity.

  • The German military authorities would execute captured resistants.
  • They would take hostages from among the general population to be executed should some act of sabotage or other act of resistance occur, executing several French people for a single German death. Sometimes, the hostages were taken within the same group as the presumed resistants or saboteurs (e.g. railroad workers for railroad sabotage); they were almost always people accused by the Germans of being communists. Otherwise, they were just random people who had the bad luck of being caught.
  • German services such as the Gestapo and the SS tortured resistants and sent them to concentration camps. Threats would also be made on the relatives of captured resistants; for instance, the Gestapo might threaten parents with torturing their children or sending off their daughters to be sex slaves in a military brothel.
  • Occasionally, German troops would engage in massacres, such as the destruction of Oradour-sur-Glane where an entire village was razed and the population killed for resistance activities in the vicinity.

In addition, the Vichy Regime had established paramilitary groups, such as the Milice, in order to fight the Resistance. These groups, collaborating closely with the Nazis, were very brutal and did not hesitate to use torture and other methods.

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List of groups

Groups include:

There were other resistance groups like Liberté and Verité (that merged with Combat) and Gloria SMH (that was betrayed). Later Combat, Franc-Tireur and Libération formed Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR) which also had armed bands of its own.

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Activities

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) began to help and supply the resistance from November 1940. Head of the independent (non Gaullist) 'F' or French section was Major subsequently Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, Intelligence Corps. They sent weapons, radios, radiomen and advisors. One of the section's agents was Peter Churchill (no relation to Winston).

The Secret Intelligence Service and the Poles, Belgians and Dutch also sent agents into France in cooperation with the French in exile.

Because the US and British governments did not always agree with him, Charles de Gaulle organized his own intelligence organization Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action (BCRA). There was also the Direction Général des Services Spéciaux (DGSS or Special Services Executive), headed by Jacques Soustelle.

The Resistance was opposed by the German Wehrmacht, Abwehr, Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst as well as the Milice, the Vichy France police force led by Joseph Darnand. Its methods were as brutal as those of the Gestapo. One particularly zealous—and successful—adversary was Abwehr Feldwebel Hugo Bleicher. He disabled the Franco-Polish Interallie intelligence network based on Paris and personally arrested its leader, Polish Air Force Major Roman Czerniawski cryptonym 'Armand' to the French and 'Walenty' to the Poles. (He ostensibly then became a German agent, cryptonymed 'Hubert' for the Germans who sent him to Britain for them but in actuality he volunteered to do this in order to become a British Double Agent; subsequently cryptonymed 'Brutus' by MI 5 after the slayer of Caesar in Shakespeare).

On January 1 1942, Jean Moulin parachuted to Arles with two other men and radio equipment and continued to Marseille. De Gaulle had sent him to coordinate activities of different resistance groups. Many groups were not enthusiastic at first.

When the Germans initiated a forced labor draft in France in the beginning of 1943, thousands of young men fled and joined the maquis. SOE helped by sending more supplies. The American organization Office of Strategic Services (OSS) also began to send its own agents to France in cooperation with SOE.

In June 1943 the RF (Gaullist cooperation) Section of SOE sent Edward Yeo-Thomas for the first time to liaise between Gaullist BCRA and SOE activities in Paris. In February 1944 he was betrayed and the Gestapo arrested him.

Eventually Jean Moulin convinced Armée Secrète, Comité d'Action Socialiste, Francs-Tireur, Front National, and Libération to unify their efforts in the Conseil National de la Resistance (CNR or National Council of the Resistance) under de Gaulle's direction. Their first common meeting was in Paris on May 27 1943. Moulin became a chairman.

Initially the American government supported Henri Giraud. However, at the Casablanca conference in June 1943, de Gaulle and Giraud were forced to reconcile and became joint presidents of the CNR. Giraud was outmaneuvered by de Gaulle and left in October 1943.

On June 7 1943 the Gestapo captured resistance member René Hardy. Klaus Barbie tortured Moulin's whereabouts out of him and Moulin was arrested (alongside others) in Caluire on June 21. Moulin died after heavy torture on July 8 1943. After that, Georges Bidault became president of CNR.

The Gestapo apparently let Hardy go. He was accused of collaboration after the war but was acquitted.

Operation Overlord was approaching. In the spring of 1943 COSSAC begun to direct SOE and OSS activities that were connected to the invasion plans. Eventually it took orders from Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). Resistance members concentrated on information collection and sabotage against transportation and communication lines. They destroyed tracks, bridges and trains.

In 1944 a London HQ, named EMFFI for the Etat Major Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur (FFI or French Forces of the Interior) was inaugurated under the command of General Marie Pierre Koenig as a part of the Allied armed forces. SOE sent three-men teams (codename Jedburgh)—planned as one US or British representative and one representative of the country concerned (although never actually achieved in practice and intended also for Holland) and including a radioman—to organize sabotage from D-day onwards. There were 93 Jedburgh teams all of which were named for English language boy's Christian names.

On June 5 1944, the BBC broadcast a group of unusual sentences. The Sicherheitsdienst knew they were code phrases—possibly for the invasion of Normandy but their correct alert was ignored due to the welter of spurious data generated by the systematic and sustained deception efforts of the Allies aimed at confusing the Wehrmacht's intelligence staffs. All over France resistance groups had been coordinated. Various groups throughout the country increased their sabotage. They derailed trains, blew up ammunition depots and attacked German garrisons. Some relayed info about German defensive positions on the beaches of Normandy to American and British commanders by radio, just prior to June 6th.

Victory did not come easily. In June and July, in the Vercors plateau a newly reinforced maquis group fought 15,000 Waffen SS soldiers under General Karl Pflaum and was defeated with 600 casualties. On June 10 Major Otto Dickmann's troops wiped out the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in retaliation.

The resistance also assisted later Allied invasions in the south of France in Operations Dragoon and Anvil.

When Allied forces began to approach Paris on August 19, its resistance cells also activated. They fought with grenades and rifles and arrested and executed collaborators. Most of the Paris police force joined them. American forces sent troops to help—the first Allied troops arrived on August 24. The last Germans surrendered on August 25.

On August 28, de Gaulle gave an order to disband Free French Forces and the resistance organizations as such with those who still wanted to fight being embodied in the new French army.

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Notable Persons

Other people involved with French Resistance include:

After the war, many Frenchmen falsely claimed to have had connections to resistance. Some—like Maurice Papon—even manufactured a false resistance past for themselves. Estimates range from 5% of the French population to about 200,000 active armed members and possibly ten times that of supporters.

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See also

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External links

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Further reading

  • Ian Ousby, Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940-44, London: Pimlico, 1999. ISBN 0712665137
  • John F. Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, 1940-1944 : A History of the Mouvements unis de la Résistance, (Dekalb, 1976)de:Résistance

fr:Résistance intérieure française it:Resistenza francese lb:Resistenz nl:Résistance ru:Движение сопротивления (Франция) sv:Franska motståndsrörelsen

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