Resistance and collaboration in the World War II took various forms in Europe. The war led to the death of very many people. Some countries, most notably Yugoslavia, resisted the urge of supporting the Germany and Italian invasion.
Marshal Petain led one of the most memorable official collaboration in France called the Vichy regime. The Third Reich signed several alliances with Denmark, Greece, Norway, and Hungary after Germany military occupation. Other countries, such as Austria were politically inclined to Germany because of the strong Nazis support by her citizens.
Countries that collaborated had to hand over Jews to the Nazis to be killed. In Poland, three million Jews disappeared in camps (Merriman 29). France was another example in which the Vichy administration handed more than seventy-five thousand Jews to the murder fields in Germany, including Auschwitz.
Other countries like Denmark showed mixed signals where the government refused to enforce certain laws against the Jews while at the same time yielding into some of the demands by the Jews.
Civilians in the nations that collaborated did odd job like washing clothes for the Germans to get food for their families. In addition to working for the Germany soldiers, the civilians were expected to give information about the Jews and other betrayers who resisted the Germany authorities.
Others were recruited to form paramilitary militias, which were used to consolidate mass murder. This was particularly in Ukraine, for instance, where the recruited civilians together with the police mercilessly killed more than thirty thousand Jews.
The citizenry resisted Germany and Italian occupation in some countries. The citizens used different means of resistance. These methods could be divided into two. There were those that used the peaceful means, for instance the Railway workers in France. These methods included bureaucratic, obstruction, go-slows at work and small-scale sabotage groups among others (Merriman 64).
These methods were more effective in countries that never experienced armed resistance. Other groups took up arms in resistance. However, they were few and existed in Spain, Greece, and Yugoslavia.
The biggest of them all were the Soviet forces in Ukraine that used guerilla tactics to fight fascism. The White Rose was another resistance movement formed by students in Germany to oppose the Nazi regime. Resistance was met with brutality from Hitler.
The Grand Alliance was signed in June 1941 and lasted for four and a half years. By the end of that period, it had succeeded in a few areas. It had brought down Hitler, his lieutenants had been charged in Numberg, and Germany was divided into four administrative units. Nations that signed were the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union. It was in fact an anti-Nazi alliance.
Britain was the first to declare her support to Russia if it was attacked by Germany when the US was still neutral. The strength of Japan and Hitler’s declaration of war against the US was what pulled them into the war. The Grand Alliance formed the foundation for the formation of the United Nations.
The US and Britain signed the Atlantic Charter that later incorporated the Soviet Union. The charter declared its support to aid any of their members if it was attacked by Germany. The Grand Alliance was to break later own because of the hidden interests of Russia. Russian did not want Poland to be an independent country. Stalin had been a master of deceit
Works cited
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: W. W Norton & Company, 2010. Print.