Halik Kochanski - Resistance: The Underground War Against Hitler, 1939-1945

HALIK KOCHANSKI

Resistance

The Underground War Against Hitler, 19391945

Copyright 2022 by Halik Kochanski

First American Edition 2022

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books,

under the title RESISTANCE: The Underground War in Europe, 19391945

All rights reserved

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Jacket photographs: (left) Colin Waters / Alamy Stock Photo; (right) SPUTNIK / Alamy Stock Photo

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Kochanski, Halik, author.

Title: Resistance : the underground war against Hitler, 19391945 / Halik Kochanski.

Other titles: Underground war against Hitler, 19391945

Description: First American edition. | New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation,

A Division of W. W. Norton & Company, Independent Publishers Since 1923, 2022. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021060824 | ISBN 9781324091653 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781324091660 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: World War, 19391945Underground movements. | World War, 19391945Occupied territories. | World War, 19391945Jewish resistance.

Classification: LCC D802.A2 K63 2022 | DDC 940.53/36dc23/eng/20220118

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060824

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To my brother Martin

Contents

PART ONE
Why Resist?

PART TWO
Growing the Resistance

PART THREE
Resistance in Action

I am grateful to the following for allowing me to examine and quote from archival material in their collections: The Trustees of the Imperial War Museum; The National Archives; Yale University, The Avalon Project; The Keeper of Archives, Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum; and St Antonys College Library, Oxford. I also wish to thank the hard-working librarians at The London Library, The British Library, the University College London Library, and the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library.

I am also grateful to Professor Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi, Andrzej Suchcitz, and Declan OReilly for sharing with me the results of their as yet unpublished research. I would also like to thank Marek Stella-Sawicki for allowing me access to a recently discovered and authenticated Polish document.

Many people have helped me in other ways with my research, by offering advice, support, and encouragement. I had the privilege of talking to a former member of the Dutch resistance, Anton Tek, shortly before he died, and he shared some of his memories of that time. My brother Martin, to whom this book is dedicated, read endless drafts of the manuscript; former British Army officers who are now members of the British Commission for Military History shared with me their struggles in understanding the background to the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s which they were attempting to resolve, many of which had their roots in the Second World War; and members of the Military History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research offered much advice and encouragement, especially David French, Philip Blood, and Major General John Sutherell. My agent Robert Dudley has been very supportive throughout the whole process of writing this book; my editor Simon Winder provided many wise, constructive, and pertinent comments; Guillaume Piketty reviewed the entire manuscript and made some useful comments; the eagle eyes of my copy-editor Richard Mason saved me from many minor errors. Any errors that remain are, of course, my own.

Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to amend in any future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.

.German troops entering Prague, March 1939. World History Archive/agefotostock

.Ptain meets Hitler at Montoire. Imperial War Museum HU 76027

.The clandestine press. Beeldbank WO2 NIOD

.Graffiti in support of the Norwegian King Haakon VII . Kraftmuseet / Levanger Photo Museum

.Mlle Andre de Jongh. Imperial War Museum HU 55451

.Virginia Hall. National Archives HS 9/647/4

.German invasion barges in Boulogne harbour, June 1940. Imperial War Museum MH 6657

.Soviet partisans. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War.

.Captain David Smiley and Major Billy McLean. Imperial War Museum HU 65071

.Hostages executed at Fort de Vincennes. Getty Images / Photo12

.Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Getty Images / Photo12 /Universal Images Group

.A French Maquis encampment. Getty Images / Art Media/ Print Collector

.Jewish children hidden in Chambon-sur-Lignon. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Peter Feigl

.Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration , College Park

15.Vidkun Quisling and General Ludwig Wolff. Renbjr, Per / Levanger Photo Museum

.The Milice. Getty Images / Keystone-France

.Draa Mihailovi. UtCon Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

.An SOE radio. INTERFOTO / Alamy Stock Photo

.The Ardeatine Caves. Getty Images / Archivio Cicconi

.Sabotage of the Pindstofte Maskinfabrik in Copenhagen. Nationalmuseet Denmark, FHM-179017

.Marshal Tito. Imperial War Museum NA 15129

.Members of the 27th division of the Armia Krajowa in the woods. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jerzy Tomaszewski

.A V2 rocket. Imperial War Museum CL 3405

.Maquis collecting supplies. Imperial War Museum HU 53231

.A train blown up by SOE . National Archives HS 7/135

.Port of Antwerp. Imperial War Museum A26594

.Sewers in Warsaw Uprising. Imperial War Museum HU 86081

.The bridge at Arnhem. Imperial War Museum MH 2061

. SOE with EDES in the Greek mountains. Imperial War Museum 102141

.British paratroopers under fire in Athens. Imperial War Museum NA 20862

.Partisans parade through Milan. Getty Images / Keystone-France

.Former SS officer Erich Priebke. Getty Images / Stefano Montesi - Corbis

The aim of this book is to present a clear, balanced, and unified picture of the resistance in every country occupied by Germany or Italy during the Second World War. The advantage of looking at Europe as a whole is that it is possible to avoid the pitfalls of nationalism. It is natural for every nation that was occupied to take its own resistance story and retrospectively magnify its achievements: in a sense it was necessary for the post-war restoration of nationhood and self-respect. But this does tend to inflate the genuine heroism of the resistance into an epic myth, as in General Charles de Gaulles famous speech in August 1944 which spoke of Paris, and indeed France, having been liberated by itself. Moreover, a national perspective leads inevitably to claims that x country was the only one to do a certain thing, or y country was the first to do something, and this is what a Europe-wide history is able to correct. There was not, of course, a European resistance as such this would have been impossible but there were common themes across the continent, and the balance between them varies from country to country. There were lessons to be learned, but the isolation of the conquered meant that each country or region had to decide how to respond to its occupation on its own, and the lessons it learned often could not be shared and had to be relearned elsewhere afresh. The only country which could really learn widely applicable lessons from the resistance was Germany, through its efforts to crush it.