Collaboration in Europe occupied by the Nazis

During the period 1940 - 1945, the German Nazi S were in position to dominate a certain number of European countries. The collaboration indicates the fact of having knowingly helped Germany in its tasks of domination. That could be done by the means of Gouvernement S in place, as Norway or France, of Administration S obeying the authorities of occupation Nazis, Political parties and newspapers favorable to the Nazi S, or of private initiatives (in the company, the world of art and the spectacle, etc).

the collaborationnism goes beyond the act of collaboration. This term indicates the support of principle, the apology and the promotion of collaboration on all the plans, including military alliance. They are doubled of an adhesion Idéologique with the local forms or allemande of National-socialisme.

Various types of collaboration according to Werner Boxing rings

Neutral collaboration

The collaborator known as: “I accept that the life continues. In all knowledge, and because it is my interest, I work directly or indirectly for the occupying power, without to adhere to the political and ideological principles National-Socialisme. My attitude is dictated by circumstances which escape my capacity. The only alternative would be the bankruptcy, unemployment, the famine, chaos and the ruin. As far as my means, I want to survive the war and the defeat of my country”.

The author Werner Rings places in this category the action of the administrations of country like Belgium and the Netherlands whose governments took refuge in Great Britain. He arranges also the economic collaboration of the countries like France or Denmark.

In theory, the winner can impose all that he wants, with the need by the force, but he also knows that a country peaceful and reconciling is easier to direct and more productive than a country in revolt. According to Boxing rings, for this reason Germany recognizes sovereignty etla neutrality of France and Denmark which preserve a government.

For Boxing rings, not only the industrialists who make deals with the occupants practice a “neutral collaboration”, but also, on their level, the workers who leave to earn their living in Germany.

Unconditional collaboration

The said unconditional collaborator: “I unite my forces with those of the occupant because I approve his principles and his ideal. My attitude is not the fruit of the circumstances, but the consequence of an allegiance to National-Socialisme. I am ready to make sacrifices as a long time for the occupying power as I will be able to serve our common cause. ”.

It is typically the attitude of Vidkun Quisling which settles with the capacity in Norway in 1942. In all the Western countries, one lives to appear what Rings calls of the “Hitler in miniature” and which could or liked have played the same part as Quisling, but that the Germans do not put at the capacity. It is the case of Anton Mussert in the Netherlands and of Fried Clausen in Denmark. Quisling, Mussert and Clausen are local the Nazis heads of party. They can assert Nazis authentically because they are regarded as close relations of the German race by the German Nazis. In the other countries, there are also parties very close to National-Socialisme and which would like that their countries become allied truths of the Germans. They are generally called “collaborationists”.

Among the collaborationnists, one can quote the left national Fleming (VNV) Staf De Clercq, the left rexist Leon Degrelle to Wallonia, the popular national Rassemblement of Marcel Déat and PF of Jacques Doriot.

According to Rings, none of these leaders that he is a pure Nazi or simply a fascist forever obtained the confidence of Hitler. Only exception, it Russian Bronislaw Kaminski which profits from the full confidence of the occupants in his “République of Lokoty”, close to Briansk.

Conditional collaboration

The said conditional collaborator: “I cooperate with the occupying power although I approve only some of the aspects of the doctrines Nazi. With reserve, I am ready to collaborate accurately because I want to change the circumstances which led me to this attitude”.

According to Boxing rings, conditional collaboration is the official policy of the France of Vichy and the Danish government the practice partially. In October 1940, Pétain proposes a collaboration that Hitler had not claimed. In a broadcast speech, he explains to the French, why

“… to maintain the unit French,…, within the framework of a constructive activity of the new European order, which I enter today the way of collaboration. Thus, in a nearest future, could be reduced the weight of the sufferings of our country, improved the fate of our prisoners, attenuated the charge of the expenses of Ainsi occupation could be softened the line of demarcation and facilities the administration and the supply of the territory. ”

For Boxing rings, the attitude of Vlassov, founder of the Russian Committee of release and Russian Army of release, also arises from “conditional Collaboration”

Tactical collaboration

The said tactical collaborator:

“I agree to collaborate in spite of my hostility with respect to National-Socialisme and of the Nazi Germany. I do it for a certain number of reasons: to release the country of the foreign yoke and to recover my freedom, to avoid, as much as possible, the massacre of mass of innocent people,… collaboration dissimulates resistance and the shape of combat. ”.

To illustrate this form of collaboration, Rings quotes the example of employees of railroad who could make circulate trains the day and practice sabotage the night. Another example of this kind of collaboration: in January 1941, after the Germans threatened to block the supply coal of Denmark, this last agrees to deliver motor torpedo boats, but after having made them practically unusable. Such an attitude was also that of the president Emil Hácha of Bohemia-Moravie, which continues, in 1939, to remain in contact with Edvard Beneš, taken refuge in London.

According to Boxing rings, certain groups or organizations are brought to practice tactical collaboration: Jewish consistories, to save time, the Communist parties before June 1941, to exist politically.

Sometimes also, certain groups of resistant are brought to negotiate with the occupant: Tito, in March 1943, for an prisoner exchange, the Tchetniks, in a way more repeated much, as well with the Germans as with the Italians. In France, in 1944, OCM of Bordeaux, agrees to deliver to the Germans 45 tons of weapons parachuted from London in exchange of the release of 300 prisoners. In April 1942, just after its escape, the general Giraud agrees to meet Otto Abetz but will refuse the proposals which are made to him.

Boxing rings stresses that, under the pressure of the events, tactical collaboration cannot last a long time: Well quickly, the government of Emil Hácha must pass from tactical collaboration to conditional collaboration, then, unconditional as from the summer 1940. The Communist parties pass straightforwardly to resistance starting from June 1941, and even in Denmark, careful collaboration Danish government must end in August 1943 goes back to its dissolution.

Collaboration in France

In France, the Politique of collaboration was installation by the Maréchal Pétain under the German Occupation, during the Second world war, and it is Pétain itself which launched this term in its broadcast speech of October 30th 1940, where it invited the French to collaborate with the enemy.

See also: Collaboration in France (1940-44), Mode of Vichy

The Petain marshal, who was then approximately four twenty years old, had grown under the authoritarian regimes of the Second Empire and the presidency of the General Mac Mahon. It is thus hardly surprising that it reacted to the defeat of 1940 according to an ideology reactionary and passeist who turned the back on all the Third Republic. It should here be quoted words that it had pronounced on June 25th, 1940: " Our defeat came from our relaxations. The spirit of pleasure destroys what the spirit of sacrifice built. It is a intellectual and moral rectification which initially I invite you. French will achieve it to you and you will see, I swear it, new France to emerge from your ferveur". If the marshal considered to be the Third Republic guilty of " relâchement" , it was undoubtedly also attracted by the appearance of order and rigor which the Nazi Germany presented. It has perhaps be allured by action of Hitler against Communists and against freemason (what he called judeo-masonry), as by the national raising successful by the Nazis in their own country (although this rectification has in fact started earlier under the Weimar Republic).

From 1940 to 1943, the vision of the national rectification proposed by Pétain in France received the approval of a broad part of the population, because in spite of their major hostility towards Hitler and even towards the collaborators, French was then in the search of a revival. In a political context where the elites of the Third Republic were very largely discredited by the defeat, Pétain, the former winner of the Bataille of Verdun, represented paradoxically a new man likely to regenerate the country, or in any case, to protect it.

According to Yves Durand the collaborationism is " engagement at the side of the occupant, not by need or adaption with the circumstances, but by voluntary adhesion with the ideology Nazi and research with Germany of an alliance étroite". In these terms, Pétain is a collaborator, even if it never adhered explicitly to the ideals Nazis, as Laval did it. Indeed, he never denounced the intrigues of the occupant differently than in manner symbolic system, and to in no case systematically. Admittedly, Pétain emitted official protests, but without effect, during expulsion of Alsatian-Lorraine out of their territories. And it guaranteed, would be this only tacitly, the policy " of alliance étroite" with the Nazis carried out by Laval and Darlan, until in its worst excesses. The fate of the Jews left it indifferent, the Régime of Vichy promulgant under its authority of the laws anti-semites as hard as those of Germany.

Collaboration in Belgium

In Belgium, the government Hubert Pierlot share in exile in London, dissension with the decided capitulation on May 28th, 1940 by the king Léopold III being considered as prisoner of war, but without giving its support for the government in exile. Dividing for better reigning, the Germans try to cause the collaborationism of the Flemings as a practitioner the Flamenpolitik, while ingéniant themselves to oppose this movement to Rexistes Wallons of Leon Degrelle.

See also: Collaboration in Belgium (1940-44), History of Belgium of 1914 to 1945

Collaboration with the Netherlands

Collaboration in Yugoslavia

Collaboration with the Denmark

Collaboration in Poland

Collaboration with the Czechoslovakia

Collaboration in Norway

the Norway, directed by Vidkun Quisling, whose name was used during the war to appoint the collaborator leaders qualified by the allies and the resistant ones of “Quislings”

Collaboration in Greece

the Greece, Hitler names Prime Minister on April 30th with the Georgios Tsolakoglou. The other Greek collaborator leaders being civil who compose the government pro-Nazi, thus Kontantinos Logothetopoulos and Ioannis Rallis.

Collaboration in Soviet Union

In Soviet Union, in the zones controlled by the Wehrmacht, of many people helped the new occupants that it is by antistalinism or patriotism for the areas as in the Baltic States annexed in 1940 by the USSR, one calls them the Hiwi.

Allied countries of Germany

The Romania

The Hungary

The Bulgaria

Internal bonds

Europe under domination Nazi

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