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Resistance


Resistance by local populations took place in occupied countries due to the repression by the occupier. Resistance took many forms such as intelligence gathering and sabotage (railway sabotage, industrial sabotage, etc.), printing illegal newspapers or broadcasting radio announcements. Widespread resistance kept German troops engaged in Poland, Norway, Holland, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, the Soviet Union and later Italy. In Poland, the Polish Resistance formed the Underground State, the Home Army and Żegota, Europe’s only government-founded and sponsored underground organisation dedicated to the rescue of the Jews. In Yugoslavia, Tito's Partisans were Europe's most effective anti-Axis resistance movement, who succeeded in retaking control of large areas of Yugoslav territory. Western Europe’s French communists and nationalists joined forces against the Axis after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Allied-assisted partisan warfare was the aim of British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In Asia, communist movements in China — the New Fourth Army and Eighth Route Army — battled the Japanese, as did the Kuomintang nationalists who defeated the Japanese in the last major battle of the Sino-Japanese War. In French Indochina, the communist Viet Minh gave rise to an anti-Axis partisan movement. This initiated Vietnam’s anti-colonial movement where the OSS became a key player. In Southeast Asia, resistance was still more complex. In the last weeks of the war, the Indonesian independence movement was able to leverage its limited collaboration with the Japanese to gain their support to declare the Netherlands East Indies free and SOE was successful in Burma and in Malaysia, persuading the Burmese to switch sides and trap the Japanese Army.

Collaboration


During the war, huge territories in the Pacific and Europe were under Axis authority. The Japanese and German armies required some level of collaboration in order to exert a degree of control over the occupied territories. The Japanese presented themselves as liberators of colonial people using an ideological underpinning known as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. This satisfied Japan’s claim of fighting a war of liberation. It was accepted by some of the local independence movements, but in reality it was bogus as Japan aimed to form its own colonial empire. In the Pacific, collaborators exercised power under pressure from the Japanese. In China, after Manchuria or Manchukuo, Beijing, and Nanjing fell, military conquest shifted to collaboration with minor elites to exercise power, while Wang Jingwei led a new reformed government and army. Communists also colluded with the Japanese and Chinese collaborators. Local nationalist leaders as in Burma and in the Philippines established collaborationist governments. India and Burma each had armies which fought alongside the Japanese. In Europe, collaboration consisted in participation with Nazi Germany. Nazi ideology-driven collaboration was the prime factor, including fascism, antisemitism, anticommunism, or national independence. Collaboration by those who supported Nazi doctrine included Anton Mussert in Netherlands, Marcel Déat in Vichy France, Vidkun Quisling in Norway or Georgios Tsolakoglou in Greece. Another reason for collaboration was antisemitism. Members of the Trawnikimänner or volunteers of the Schutzmannschaft partook in the capture and murder of Jews, and served as guards at Nazi concentration camps. Anti-communism was another reason for collaboration; Soviet atrocities committed in the Baltic states and Ukraine were exploited by German propagandists. Also, foreign volunteers formed Waffen SS divisions. The final reason for collaboration was the desire for independence. Stepan Bandera in Ukraine, and allies of the Axis like Slovakia and Croatia sought independent fascist states.