Resistance during World War II
Central Europe Germany Italy Spain (Spanish Civil War) Albania Austria Baltic states Belgium Bulgaria Burma China Czechia Denmark France Germany Greece Italy Japan Jewish Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Slovakia Spain Soviet Union Yugoslavia Germany Italy Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States During World War II, resistance movements operated in German-occupied Europe by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation to propaganda, hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns.
In eastern Europe where Nazi rule was more oppressive, a larger percentage of people were in organized resistance movements, for example, an estimated 10-15 percent of the Polish population.
After the first shock following the Blitzkrieg, people slowly started organizing, both locally and on a larger scale, especially when Jews and other groups began to be deported and used as Arbeitseinsatz (forced labor for the Germans).
The possibilities depended much on the terrain; where there were large tracts of uninhabited land, especially hills and forests, resistance could more easily organise undetected; this favoured in particular Soviet partisans in Eastern Europe.
To counter this threat, the German authorities formed a special 1,000 man-strong anti-partisan unit of combined SS-Wehrmacht forces, including a Panzer group.
[14] The Home Army approved this plan and provided him with a false identity card, and on 19 September 1940 he deliberately went out during a street roundup in Warsaw-łapanka, and was caught by the Germans along with other civilians and sent to Auschwitz.
Polish citizens have the world's highest count of individuals who have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem as non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination during the Holocaust.
In England the SOE was also involved in the formation of the Auxiliary Units, a top secret stay-behind resistance organisation which would have been activated in the event of a German invasion of Britain.
In July 1941, Mieczysław Słowikowski (using the codename "Rygor"—Polish for "Rigor") set up "Agency Africa," one of World War II's most successful intelligence organizations.
The Luxembourgish general strike of 1942 was a passive resistance movement organised within a short time period to protest against a directive that incorporated the Luxembourg youth into the Wehrmacht.
A national general strike, originating mainly in Wiltz, paralysed the country and forced the occupying German authorities to respond violently by sentencing 21 strikers to death.
In September 1942, the Council to Aid Jews (Żegota) was founded by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz ("Alinka") and made up of Polish Democrats as well as other Catholic activists.
On 19 April 1943, three members of the Belgian resistance movement were able to stop the Twentieth convoy, which was the 20th prisoner transport in Belgium organised by the Germans during World War II.
The exceptional action by members of the Belgian resistance occurred to free Jewish and Romani ("Gypsy") civilians who were being transported by train from the Dossin army base located in Mechelen, Belgium to the concentration camp Auschwitz.
Operation Heads started—an action of serial assassinations of the Nazi personnel sentenced to death by the Underground court for crimes against Polish citizens in occupied Poland.
In effect, some 50 kg (110 lb) of the most important parts of the captured V-2, as well as the final report, analyses, sketches and photos, were transported to Brindisi by a Royal Air Force Douglas Dakota aircraft.
The operation was led by Major Patrick Leigh Fermor, together with Captain W. Stanley Moss, Greek SOE agents and Cretan resistance fighters.
On the night of 26 April, General Kreipe left his headquarters in Archanes and headed without escort to his well-guarded residence, "Villa Ariadni", approximately 25 km outside Heraklion.
After driving some distance the British left the car, with suitable decoy material being planted that suggesting an escape off the island had been made by submarine, and with the General began a cross-country march.
Hunted by German patrols, the group moved across the mountains to reach the southern side of the island, where a British Motor Launch (ML 842, commanded by Brian Coleman) was to pick them up.
In April–May 1944, the SS launched the daring airborne Raid on Drvar aimed at capturing Marshal Josip Broz Tito, the commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav Partisans, as well as disrupting their leadership and command structure.
Elite German SS parachute commando units fought their way to Tito's cave headquarters and exchanged heavy gunfire resulting in numerous casualties on both sides.
By that time, Tito, his British guests and Partisan survivors were fêted aboard the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Blackmore and her captain Lt. Carson, RN.
Victory did not come easily; in June and July, in the Vercors plateau a newly reinforced maquis group fought more than 10,000 German soldiers (no Waffen-SS) under General Karl Pflaum and was defeated, with 840 casualties (639 fighters and 201 civilians).
In July 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) drew up plans to send a team to Chetniks led by General Draža Mihailović in the German-occupied Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia for the purpose of evacuating Allied airmen shot down over that area.
[53] According to historian Professor Jozo Tomasevich, a report submitted to the OSS showed that 417[54] Allied airmen who had been downed over occupied Yugoslavia were rescued by Mihailović's Chetniks,[55] and airlifted out by the Fifteenth Air Force.
The ferry was to carry railway cars with heavy water drums from the Vemork hydroelectric plant, where they were produced, across Lake Tinn so they could be shipped to Germany.
Since January 1945, members of the anti-fascist National Committee for a Free Germany (NKFD) had been allowed to form companies which would participate as an as an auxilary force of the Red Army in its military operations.
They pretended to be scattered Wehrmacht soldiers and attempted to enter behind the German lines, and if the latter was successful, they persuaded the troops besieged by the Red Army to surrender, and if the latter refused, they participated in combat and withdrew.
"[61] There are several testimonies of the Germans who participated in the war that they saw members of the NKFD fighting alongside the Red Army during the Battle of Berlin, however, there is no documentary evidence, at least yet, to support these claims.
