Vercors 1944

Download or read book Vercors 1944 written by Peter Lieb and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-12-20 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly illustrated account of the conflict between the German Army and security forces and the French resistance in the Alps. Fighting insurgents has always been one of the greatest challenges for regular armed forces during the 20th century. The war between the Germans and the French resistance, also called FFI (Forces Françaises d'Intérieur), during World War II has remained a near-forgotten chapter in the history of these 'Small Wars'. This is all the more astonishing as agencies like the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) and the American OSS (Office of Strategic Services) pumped a good amount of their resources into the support of the French resistance movement. By diversionary attacks on German forces in the occupied hinterland the Allies hoped the FFI could provide assistance in disrupting German supply lines as well as crumbling their morale. The mountain plateau of the Vercors south-west of Grenoble was the main stronghold of the FFI, and in July 1944 some 8,000 German soldiers mounted an operation on the plateau and destroyed the insurgent groups there. This compact volume examines the battle of the Vercors, the largest operation against the FFI during World War II, and shows how the Germans' suit and crushing victory has caused traumatic memories for the French that persist to the present day.

Download or read book Tears of Glory written by Michael Pearson and published by Doubleday Books. This book was released on 1979 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Resistance and Liberation written by Douglas Porch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New history of la France libre, Vichy collaboration, and the resistance from the campaigns in Tunisia and Italy to Liberation.

Download or read book Fighters in the Shadows written by Robert Gildea and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The French Resistance has an iconic status in the struggle to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe, but its story is entangled in myths. Gaining a true understanding of the Resistance means recognizing how its image has been carefully curated through a combination of French politics and pride, ever since jubilant crowds celebrated Paris’s liberation in August 1944. Robert Gildea’s penetrating history of resistance in France during World War II sweeps aside “the French Resistance” of a thousand clichés, showing that much more was at stake than freeing a single nation from Nazi tyranny. As Fighters in the Shadows makes clear, French resistance was part of a Europe-wide struggle against fascism, carried out by an extraordinarily diverse group: not only French men and women but Spanish Republicans, Italian anti-fascists, French and foreign Jews, British and American agents, and even German opponents of Hitler. In France, resistance skirted the edge of civil war between right and left, pitting non-communists who wanted to drive out the Germans and eliminate the Vichy regime while avoiding social revolution at all costs against communist advocates of national insurrection. In French colonial Africa and the Near East, battle was joined between de Gaulle’s Free French and forces loyal to Vichy before they combined to liberate France. Based on a riveting reading of diaries, memoirs, letters, and interviews of contemporaries, Fighters in the Shadows gives authentic voice to the resisters themselves, revealing the diversity of their struggles for freedom in the darkest hours of occupation and collaboration.

Download or read book The Resistance in Western Europe, 1940–1945 written by Olivier Wieviorka and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In just three months in 1940, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France fell to the Nazis. The German occupation of Western Europe had begun—but a brave few rose up in defiance. National resistance has long been celebrated in remembrances of World War II, depicted as making significant contributions to the defeat of Nazi Germany. However, the so-called army of shadows drew heavily on the support of London and Washington, a fact often forgotten in postwar Europe. The Resistance in Western Europe, 1940–1945 is a sweeping analytical history of the underground anti-Nazi forces during World War II. Examining clandestine organizations in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Italy, Olivier Wieviorka sheds new light on the factors that shaped the resistance and its place in the grand scheme of Anglo-American military strategy. While national actors played a leading role in fomenting resistance, British and American intelligence services and propaganda as well as financial, material, and logistical support were crucial to its activities and growth. Wieviorka illuminates the policies of governments in exile and resistance actors regarding cooperation with the British and Americans, pointing to the persistence of national self-interest and long-standing historical tensions. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources and bringing together the political, diplomatic, and military dimensions of the conflict, this book is the first account of the resistance on a continental scale and from a trans-European perspective.

Download or read book Scarred Landscapes written by C. Pearson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-10-31 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on detailed archival research and site visits, Scarred Landscapes is the first environmental history of Vichy France. From mountains and marshlands to foresters and resisters, it examines the intricate and often surprising connections between war, history, and the 'natural' environment during these turbulent years.

Download or read book The French Resistance and its Legacy written by Rod Kedward and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With personal and colourful reflections on tracking down resisters to the Nazi occupation of France, The French Resistance and its Legacy offers a captivating set of insights into the very substance of resistance, and the challenges it poses. The book uses a wealth of stories and testimonies to foreground the importance of imagination and inventiveness at the heart of resistance. The book insists on the primacy of context, not just the contexts of the creation and development of resistance but also those of historical debate at different moments since the war. The language in which we talk about resistance is shown to be enriched and challenged by Holocaust research, by the necessity of gender studies, and by the significance of place and time, of myth, legend and exile. Disguise and secrecy were necessities for those creating resistance in France and still have an alluring mystery, but this book is designed to open up that mystery, and not allow it to be used to keep resistance in the footnotes of military history. Rod Kedward argues with conviction that emergence from the shadows is a vital role of resistance research and, not least, of resistance testimony, whether written or spoken. The scattered extracts from the author's interviews to be found throughout are a pointer towards specific personalities and circumstance at both the time of resistance and the time of the testimony. Kedward does not interrogate the importance of this time distinction. Instead he implicitly suggests that there is an oral history to all events, whether captured at the time or later, and this should be seen as relevant to our talking and our understanding. The book as a whole celebrates where history, literature, film and testimony interact, to make talking about resistance both an art and a discovery. It ends with a challenging conclusion that is of seminal importance for the history of resistance in and beyond France, across both time and place.