European Resistance Movements 1939 1945

During World War II, the resistance movements in the Nazi-occupied countries of Europe became a "Fourth Arm" of military action on the same level as the other three arms of Allied attack--armies, navies, and air forces. Haestrup profiles the resistance movements as an integral part of the total history of the war. He analyzes their different approaches and levels of resistance in each occupied nation--describing their organization, intelligence-gathering and sabotage achievements, labor strikes, civil disobedience, politics, supplies, external communication, assassinations, and partisan warfare.

During World War II, the resistance movements in the Nazi-occupied countries of Europe became a Fourth Arm of military action on the same level as the other three arms of Allied attack--armies, navies, and air forces. Haestrup profiles the resistance movements as an integral part of the total history of the war. He analyzes their different approaches and levels of resistance in each occupied nation--describing their organization, intelligence-gathering and sabotage achievements, labor strikes, civil disobedience, politics, supplies, external communication, assassinations, and partisan warfare.

Resistance to German-led Axis occupation occurred all the way across the European continent during the Second World War. It took a wide range of forms – non-cooperation and disinformation, sabotage, espionage, armed opposition and full-scale partisan warfare. It is an important element in the experience and the national memory of the peoples who found themselves under Axis government and control. For over thirty years there has been no systematic attempt to give readers a panoramic yet detailed view of the make-up, actions and impact of resistance movements from Scandinavia down to Greece and from France through to Russia. This authoritative and accessible survey, written by a group of the leading experts in the field, provides a reliable, in-depth, up-to-date account of the resistance in each region and country along with an assessment of its effectiveness and of the Axis reaction to it. An extensive introduction by the editors Philip Cooke and Ben H. Shepherd draws the threads of the varied movements and groups together, highlighting the many differences and similarities between them.The book will be a significant contribution to the frequently heated debates about the importance of individual resistance movements. It will be thought-provoking reading for everyone who is interested in or studying occupied Europe during the Second World War.

"This book, the first to provide an overall picture of the resistance to Nazi occupation, combines a strategic and political analysis of the phenomenon with an attempt to assess its social significance. Contributions which discusses the military effectiveness of resistance are balanced with particular accounts of different groups - local communities, detainees in Auschwitz, Catholics and Communists in France and Germany, and so on. The book discusses the ideologies that lay behind resistance, and the hopes for a new world that the various groups entertained. Above all, it shows how individual rebellion combined into a movement whose strategic value will always be disputed, but whose effort "gave back self- respect to the defeated; and kept alive ideas of dignity and originality, without which all Europe, all the world, would, be the poorer'. - Publisher.