The French Resistance

“The defensive does not fit France. France is not a shield; she is a living sword, carried by its own momentum to the throat of the enemy.”

                                                                      Jules Michelet, French historian. 1798-1874

By the autumn of 1940, a number of small autonomous resistance groups began to form. They included members of both sexes and all political persuasions. No one group had a monopoly. Members of the Socialist Party, conservative Catholics (including priests), trade unions and others, with little or no money, almost no weapons and a chronic shortage of cigarettes, began to coalesce.

A nascent cancer was growing in the body of the Third Reich.

Prior to 1941, the French Communist Party, the largest in Europe, viewed Germany as an ally. Hadn’t Hitler and Stalin signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty of 1939? The Communist Party line was that the war was simply Germany’s defense against British colonialism. The Party had, until that point, negligible resistance participation.

But when Hitler somersaulted and violated the treaty by invading the USSR in Operation Barbarossa, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin hit the ceiling. He called on all Communist Parties in Europe to attack Germans whenever and wherever they could be found. The Parti Communiste Francais (French Communist Party – PCF) jumped into the resistance with both feet. They formed a group called the Organisation Speciale (OS). They carried out attacks on German facilities; set fires to supplies bound for Germany and blocked roads. Assassination squads began to attack German officers everywhere at every opportunity.

The gloves came off.

From Chapter III, World War II Black Ops, Vol. II

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