06 JUNE 1944 " on this day in history " - OPERATION OVERLORD

a reply to: alldaylong

Indeed.
There were collaborators all over France.
Collaborators far outnumbered active members of the various Resistance groups - who frequently fought with each other.

And lets not forget that their reason for surrendering to Germany was because they didn't want to see their beautiful Paris ruined.

The story of the French Resistance is a great read with lots of intrigue, double crossing, politics, love affairs, amazing bravery and selflessness along with deceit, duplicity and treachery.

De Gaulle, who absolutely detested the British, tried to re-write history and portray the French as being uniformily behind The Resistance. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

But none of that detracts from the fact that in Normandy resistance to Germany was particularly strong and that they have never forgotten the role that The Allies played in their Liberation.

a reply to: alldaylong

The Vichy French...yeah.

Collaboration was most definitely a thing in France, and all over Occupied Europe, too. But many of them were just people trying to get by. Some were Quislings, surely, but most were not.

You do what you gotta do to feed the kids, keep a roof over their heads. I can't hate someone for that. Mostly they just kept their heads down, because, really, who wants to come to the attention of the Gestapo?? I'd have probably taken a pass at that dubious pleasure...