:07: to the French Resistance and their heroic acts of sabotage and “industrial terrorism” against fascism.
One of the most radicalizing things was learning that a vast majority of French Resistance fighters were communists and that the liberals did comparatively far less to resist the Nazis
Same story about the Danish resistance, the communists were the most active and organised. After the war this was glossed over in mainstream discourse and resistance fighters were presented in a depoliticised vaguely liberal patriotic context.
Today, when talking about communists in the resistance liberals even have the insolence to ponder over how "ironic" it was that communists fought nazis as both were "totalitarian".
Communists and Anarchists, yeah. Liberals were relatively… happy with France’s nazi government.
In fairness, there was still sizable liberal and even some right wing elements (ie. reactionaries who hated the Germans more than they hated gommunism).
Conversely, there were even some "Socialists" who collaborated with the Nazis .
:stirner-shocked: who'd a thunk?
You got any source for that? Sounds like a good read.
Or that the US needed to meddle in French and Italian politics because the commies were so popular. Makes you think...
Wearing a french beret while rigging up explosives is aesthetic goals.
damn covered by a tripod machine gun they weren't playing around
I don’t have any other info about this image besides that it shows the French Resistance setting railway tracks so they would explode when a train went over them.
Anyone who has more deets, please share.
A lot of sabotage was made using DIY bombs cooked from fertiliser in people's kitchens. Good old-fashioned arson was also easy to do when you didn't have access to explosives. Later on in the war the allies (at least the British) began air dropping guns and explosives to the resistance movements in occupied Europe. For many resistance fighters receiving and storing these deliveries were their main contribution to the cause. As the war kept going and the resistance became better organised clandestine factories around occupied Europe began producing simple weapons like Sten guns.
a large contingent of the resistance were fighters from the spanish civil war, i wonder if they had material or connections from that war going into ww2
