Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-1945

by Halik Kochanski

'The best book about the subject I have ever read' Max Hastings, Sunday Times

A sweeping history of occupation and resistance in war-torn Europe, from the acclaimed author of The Eagle Unbowed

Across the whole of Nazi-ruled Europe the experience of occupation was sharply varied. Some countries - such as Denmark - were within tight limits allowed to run themselves. Others - such as France - were constrained not only by military occupation but by open collaboration. In a historical moment when Nazi victory seemed permanent and irreversible, the question 'why resist?' was therefore augmented by 'who was the enemy?'.

Resistance is an extraordinarily powerful, humane and haunting account of how and why all across Nazi-occupied Europe some people decided to resist the Third Reich. This could range from open partisan warfare in the occupied Soviet Union to dangerous acts of defiance in the Netherlands or Norway. Some of these resistance movements were entirely home-grown, others supported by the Allies.

Like no other book, Resistance shows the reader just how difficult such actions were. How could small bands of individuals undertake tasks which could lead not just to their own deaths but those of their families and their entire communities?

Filled with powerful and often little-known stories, Halik Kochanski's major new book is a fascinating examination of the convoluted challenges faced by those prepared to resist the Germans, ordinary people who carried out exceptional acts of defiance and resistance.

'A superb, myth-busting survey of the many ways in which the subjugated peoples of Europe tried to fight back' Saul David, Daily Telegraph

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, War, Germany, European History, Espionage

960 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2022

Reviews

[Marquise · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's a long, dense flyover account that aims to gather in one single volume all the disparate and spread out resistances against the Nazis that existed during WWII in all the occupied countries, as the aim stated in the introduction goes, and to that purpose it groups the historical development of resistance activities in three parts: the first deals with the motivation to resist in spite of the costs of resisting ("Why Resist?"), the second part addresses the foreign assistance, coordination and logistics support for the newborn resistances through government agencies such as SOE and OSS from the UK and US ("Growing the Resistance"), and the last part is about the resistances's full-blown scale of sabotage and cooperation bearing fruit to the benefit of the Allied war effort.

It's informative and helpful for getting a big picture view of the resistance against Nazi Germany as a whole instead of a per country basis, trying to establish a link throughout the diverse national resistances, although it's a dry account and rather limited in its scope despite its pretensions to be all-encompassing. Mainly because, for all the book's goal to avoid nationalistic bias and self-aggrandising national narratives by taking a big picture view, it's still markedly partial to Britain and it's a bias that is going to be obvious the deeper one dives into the contents, to the point you might get the impression this is a narrative of pan-European resistance filtered through the British's own lionising national narrative. And not just because of how much the SOE contributed to resistance in several countries in the continent; it's still very much an Anglo-centric narrative with little in the way of other national resistances outside this sphere. And also because the self-imposed limitations harm the objective of an all-encompassing narrative of resistance, as the book purposefully excludes anti-Soviet resistance and German opposition at home.

Whilst I agree that anti-Soviet resistance merits its own volume because it did indeed outlive the war well into and up to the fall of the Soviet Union, I don't think that excluding the part of it that took place during the war is conducive to a proper understanding of resistance to WWII totalitarian powers, and believe it could have been worked into the global picture. How can you pretend to present a global narrative and then purposely chop a big chunk off of it with the excuse that that specific resistance lasted too long? At one point, countries were fighting both the Nazis and the Soviets. I'm aware that Kochanski has written another book on the Polish case, but they weren't the only ones that found themselves in this quandary as other Eastern European countries did too, and to exclude them with such an unconvincing argument does the book no favours. Best to have given them their own separate section, and stated by the end that the section would conclude with WWII because post-WWII is beyond the scope of the book.

Another case is Jewish resistance, which Kochanski claims are "often excluded from general histories of resistance." Are they, really? I can name a few books that deal with Jewish resistance myself, it's probably the most popular topic in books about anti-Nazi resistance besides the much-lionised French Résistance. But if the implication is that they're deliberately ignored, I don't believe that's the case, because they are generally separate and have their own dedicated books because they are a special case, as Jewish resisters had sometimes to fight both the Nazis and their own countrymen who, driven by anti-Semitism, would deal harshly with them. The Holocaust affected both victims and bystanders, Kochanski also claims, when the latter were exposed to the barbarity of Nazi rule, and I'm not sure I can go along this "us too" attempt at diluting the very specific and very targeted tragedy of the Holocaust by spreading its effects to the rest of victims. There were millions of non-Jewish victims of Nazism, but they were targeted differently and had context that's different to that of the Jews. Honestly, this sounds suspiciously like the arguments over the Holocaust in Poland that walk around uncomfortable facts that don't conflate victims and perpetrators/bystanders as neatly as some would like. The Jewish case is unique, always has been, and anyhow their inclusion here isn't exactly thorough or has much onpage-time but rather an overview.

But the third aspect that was most negatively surprising was this passage:
The German ‘resistance’ is another matter and is not covered in this book. Germany was neither invaded nor occupied and in that sense there was nothing to resist. Much of the German opposition
to Hitler was not anti-German and it did not want Germany to lose the war. Indeed, the aim of the actual plots against Hitler was to make Germany win, or at least save it from losing.

If there were any remaining doubts this book doesn't hide its biases, this should make it clear. Not only is the wording unnecessarily snooty and dismissive but the claims are questionable themselves. Why put "resistance" in air quotes in the first place if you don't intend to imply there was none or none worth the mention? I would've understood it if the author had stated the internal opposition was outside the scope of her book because this book is about armed resistance to Nazi invasion, and it'd be perfectly legitimate. The author could even have said German internal opposition is not her field of expertise so she can't dive into that, and it'd also be understandable. She could even have left it at "it's a different matter" that deserves its own book, and it'd have been fine. But this display of condescension only goes to show bias and a troubling approach to fighting totalitarianism that only considers armed resistance and wanting your country to lose a war as valid resistance, as that's what the line will imply. "Nothing" to resist? We know the Germans who resisted were few, that there could've been more they should've done to oppose Hitler, but to say that there was nothing to resist just because Germany wasn't invaded is misleading and false. There was a lot to resist, and many did, more than Kochanski and others are willing to acknowledge. And furthermore, applying the case of plots by the Abwehr and the Wehrmacht officers to the entirety of resistance groups in Germany is disingenous and disinformative, as that was by no means universal to all resisters and ignores those who did want Germany to lose early on, if wanting Germany to lose is the criteria the author needs to qualify something as legitimate resistance, sans dismissive quoting marks. And I'm not sure the "nothing in common" between domestic resistance and foreign resistance is true either. Yes, they're very different, but there are points of overlap: in one passage, Kochanski is praising the resistance carried out by Danish boys, apparently oblivious to the fact that this same thing was also done by German youths, and that is just one example.

It wasn't a book that brought much new or intriguing to the table, as all of the information it contains is going to be well known to those interested in WWII resistance history, internal and by occupied populations. There's far more in-depth studies that focus on individual/national resistance that bring more to the table than this collage made of bits and pieces from here and there, and I imagine this also would answer the question of why there wasn't a general history of resistance before, a fact the blurb claims is "shocking": because the topic is complex, and as this book proves, can't exactly be contained in one single volume without falling into a number of pitfalls, omissions, overgeneralisations, and blanket judgments. My own thoughts are that a general history would've been better split in two volumes, and divided in more inclusive sections: the Anglo-assisted sphere of resistance, the Eastern resistance (and include the Soviets here), the Jewish resistance, and the German domestic resistance. Now, that would've been a great, fair, and thorough account for me.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free publisher's advance review copy, via Netgalley.

While there are countless books about the Nazi era, and many about the resistance to the Nazis and German occupation, I’m not aware of another book that attempts to cover the entire landscape of these resistance movements. This is a massive undertaking, so it’s no surprise that it takes nearly 1,000 pages to tell the tale—and that’s without taking into account resistance movements inside Germany. Kochanski takes the view that inside-Germany opposition isn’t properly categorized as resistance, so she doesn’t include that in her history. I suppose some people may object to her categorization, but I don’t she has a political agenda in her decision.

Kochanski posits that the speed of development, strength, and motivation of resistance movements was largely dependent on how Germany treated the particular country’s population. In “Aryan” countries, the German occupiers let life go on much as it had previously. In Slavic countries, they were far more heavy-handed, especially in Poland. In the better-treated countries, organized resistance grew slowly, while in Poland it was strong from the start. And, of course, as the Nazis tightened the screws, slower-to-develop resistance movements responded accordingly.

Though obviously there are these differences in how the resistance began and operated from country to country, Kochanski doesn’t organize her book by country. Her broad topics are:

Part One: Why Resist?
Part Two: Growing the Resistance
Part Three: Resistance in Action

This is essentially a chronological organization. Of course, within her chronology Kochanski focuses on the particular events within each country, but she also draws many parallels, such as in how passive resistance methods spread via graffiti that were strikingly similar across occupied countries.

Particularly interesting are the examples of how resistance movements often battled their countrymen as much as the Germans. Collaborators and resisters fought, and some resistance factions fought each other, such as communist groups against nationalist groups, Slavs against Jews. It's also notable how Kochanski presents far more information about lesser-known resistance organizations. In recent years, it seems as if the focus of many books has been Britain's Special Operations Executive and its agents, particularly their work with resistance units in France. Kochanski certainly includes much of that information, but there is also so much detailed information about the resistance in the Nordic countries, the Baltics, the Czech lands, Slovakia, the Balkans, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, and more.

Resistance is a thoroughly researched, well-documented and exhaustively detailed history. It’s a tremendous undertaking and should be a great resource for anybody doing further research.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Resistance' is an encyclopedic account of the varied resistance movements across occupied Europe between 1939 and 1945. It is not about political resistance to the Axis powers (of Italy only after Mussolini was ousted) nor of resistance to Axis empires overseas (Abyssinia and Libya are ignored).

It is more conventionally Eurocentric than, say, Overy's recent account of the Second World War but still covers some 14 countries (Luxembourg is forgotten and the last days of the Axis-allied regimes in Eastern Europe are included) in 180 pages is no mean feat.

If I have a gripe, it is not about the patronising abandonment of resistance to the expansion of the Italian Empire, but the equally and currently fashionable Westocentric weaker coverage of the Soviet partisan resistance. It is covered but as if it was a sideshow to the work of SOE.

But these limitations do not make the book any the less invaluable as a single volume compendium of resistance experiences under very different national circumstances. It is for someone else to write the more awkward story of the other side of the coin - collaboration.

Perhaps what does not come across in current historiography is that the Second World War was not only a war of empires (Overy) and a war of liberation (the preferred narrative) but a European Civil War eventually settled by a non-European and two barely European outsiders.

If we look at Europe as a whole (no country was precisely like any other in its experience) we can break the story down into regional zones of similar experience, assuming we exclude both the neutrals and the Axis core of Germany and Fascist Italy.

There were the highly politicised resistance activities in France and Italy where the forces of order and socialism contested the right to determine the nation's destiny along lines that perhaps were only diverted from civil war on the Spanish model by the skill of the occupying powers.

To the north a line of North Atlantic states sullenly disliked occupation, were broadly obedient to the dictates of allied strategy and faced (as did the French resistance) various forms of ideological collaboration negotiating its way to political power not always with the assistance of the Nazis.

In Europe's south east, resistance was sometimes tantamount to local warlordism with ethnic cleansing and social violence just below the surface when it was not manifest - Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece. Again, international war enabled civil war which the allies could not control or avert.

Above them was a bloc of often reluctant Axis allies from Bulgaria through Romania and Hungary to Slovakia where pragmatism and some very real material benefits dictated compliance until the Soviets started to arrive on their borders and priorities shifted.

Then, to their north, are the very different cases of Bohemia-Moravia and Poland where nationalist feeling often pushed resistors into traps where they misjudged their own capability. Further to their north, of course, the Baltic States and Finland had their nationalisms recognised by Germany.

Finally, there are the 'bloodlands' (still bloodlands today) where the Soviets had moved to take over Western Poland, been pushed back and then returned in force over the heads of the non-Russian identities, notably Ukrainian, to find themselves eventually masters of all Eastern Europe.

The European Union is still dealing with these very different experiences - France as balance to Germany, an unstable Italy and Balkans, the liberal democratic Atlantic, nationalism in Poland and the Baltic States, the 'bloodlands' now in a state of localised war in Ukraine.

It is thus very difficult to find something common to say about 'resistance' under all these different scenarios (just as it would be if we tried to pigeon-hole all forms of collaboration) but Kochanski gives us all the facts we need to theorise and suggests thoughts of her own.

The first general point to make is that, in general, resistance was, in military terms, fairly futile except as an affiliate operation providing intelligence and targeted sabotage for the Allies. The destruction of the heavy water facilities in Norway might have been decisive but little else was.

One exception might have been the partisan operations in Russia and Belarussia but, even here, the Germans under Bach-Zelewski and others soon learned techniques of anti-partisan activity that made behind-the-lines operations mostly an irritant rather than decisive.

More useful, as sabotage operations, were the destruction of rail supply lines in West and East as the Allied armies advanced although the Germans seem to have been adept at work-arounds. The Russians use missiles to do what resistors did and the Ukrainians no doubt work around these.

The intelligence role was vital. The Allies were wise to ensure that intelligence-gathering circuits were generally separated from active service units although the Germans seem to have been skilled at breaking these circuits.

As to the 'home armies' these were likely to be valuable only as irregulars or affiliates when Allied armies were nearby. Indeed, the tendency of over-enthusiastic resistors to demand weapons from the air to undertake premature operations seems to have been a thorn in the Allied side.

Often we find local resistance forces, keen to act out of emotional national pride, misjudging the situation and shooting off their war bolts far too soon, eliciting vicious reprisals that may have encouraged a stronger attitude of resistance but deterred much further direct action.

As the story unfolds we see a narrative in which the majority of Europeans were 'attentistes' rather than collaborators or resistors. A temporary soft form of collaboration was often encouraged by governments-in-exile in order to maintain the structures of government and avoid reprisals.

This enables us to see the Nazi regime as 'interesting' because its brutality was of two entirely different types that might be called Nazi and military, both of which centred on the permission granted to it by Adolf Hitler himself. The first was racial-ideological and the second pragmatic.

The resistance (other than the Jewish resistance) appears to have been quite detached (relatively) from the racial-ideological process of deportation and extermination although the treatment of the Jews undoubtedly contributed to decent distaste for the occupiers as time went on.

Resistance was primarily about restoring the nation and/or restoring a very particular form of the nation (monarchical, democratic-bourgeois or socialist). It was a minority sport (as was formal collaboration) while the majority simply tried to survive.

Often times, the particular form of the nation dominated the agenda to the point that the Germans could pass through a war zone while 'resisters' were more interested in killing each other. Old regime military types were also in constant tension with civilian irregulars.

Several times we come across popular resentment at over-enthusiastic irregulars bringing down on the heads of the population horrendously brutal German reprisals - massacres of whole villages, executions of hostages, mass deportations. This was simply 'technique' to the Germans.

The situation is fluid everywhere with the resistant authorities (generally in exile but still with infrastructure at home) advising restraint and as often disturbed as the Allies at premature operations of no strategic benefit.

Over time, the dynamic of growing resistance and increasing reprisals destroyed the German ability to hold the middle ground in the West (there was no middle ground in the East). Populations grew more eager for Allied victory rather than (as might have been the case) a German peace.

It could be argued that the various resistances were not so much important in deciding the Second World War as in deciding the destinies of the nations that emerged after the war (at least in the West since the Soviets were to decide the destiny of the East regardless of resistors).

Kochanski closes by suggesting that the importance of resistance should be seen as something that I might perhaps call 'spiritual' - an expression of the desire of a small and then a growing minority of a nation to 'act' and to 'be' and not simply accept conditions from outside.

It may be no accident that the philosophical school that emerged in France during and after the war was 'existentialism', a philosophy, if ever there was one, of choice and action, ironically drawn largely from two German philosophers more closely associated with the 'enemy'.

The Western allies showed much skill such as permitting France to become an accredited Ally despite it not honestly earning the right. It used what it could of the resistors, was often exhausted and frustrated by them but it engineered them into a new national democratic mythology.

This new mythology of direct participation by the people (even if a minority in practice) in their own liberation (despite the fact that the actual liberation was down to the hard power of the three Allied empires) allowed democracy to settle in again and fascist alternatives to be marginalised.

A European Civil War takes two sides. Fascist ideologies were either dominant or growing across much of Europe in the interwar period. The war of resistors against collaborators (which sadly often turned into civil war between resistors) was central to eliminating this European 'norm'.

Indeed, to the sensitive modern mind, the conduct of some resistors in victory (at least in Italy, France and the Balkans) might leave a lot to be desired ethically with extrajudicial killing a norm. The treatment of women who had sexual relations with the occupiers was deeply perverse.

But generalisms are not helpful in history, not with so many diferent national histories to deal with. There are exceptions to every possible general statement but the primacy of hard power over civil resistance in war does not diminish the role of civil uprising in setting the terms of peace.

Kochanski is a historian of Poland. This helps to explain the depth of coverage of Polish conditions where her narrative is often eye-opening about the Polish determination to resist against all the odds. The final uprising in Warsaw was an attempt to pre-empt Soviet hard power that failed.

The Paris Rising in 1944 on the other hand only succeeded because Allied hard power, much to its own strategic frustration, felt it had to intervene where Stalin clearly did not think he had to. There was, in fact, a certain brutal logic to the behaviours of all the Allies.

Warsaw and Paris were about national re-assertion in the face of the Allies. The difference was that Stalin, as an internationalist communist, did not want a strong national Poland on his Western flank whereas the Allies wanted to restore a self-confident democratic France.

Both sides (Soviet and democratic) were perfectly aware that the United Nations rested on fragile ground and that imperial spheres of influence would replace the crushing of the Axis empires. Churchill explicitly recognised this by abandoning much of Eastern Europe for Greece.

One aspect of the book is worth emphasising - the importance of SOE and the British effort to mobilise and manage European resistance. The OSS played its role but far less even if it was to become the seed from which the CIA grew.

In this narrative, the SOE and other similar British organisations (SIS, SAS and others) were ubiquitous, playing roles (albeit smaller for logistical reasons) as far as Bohemia and Poland. Being British, there are, of course, blunders alongside the triumphs.

Kochanski can barely repress her revisionist disgust at British support for Tito at the expense of Mihailovic in Yugoslavia. The Cairo Office seems at times to have been particularly stupid on occasions. British spycraft could be naive in the early days.

But the general story is one of remarkable engagement by an organisation learning the arts of subversion and the management of secret armies from the ground up. An exhausted Britain was to pass on this experience to the Americans later.

Although they recognised they could not charge Germans with war crimes related to the execution of spies, the sheer persistence of the British at Nuremburg in hunting down perpetrators of orders to kill captured commandos in uniform indicates that 'secret war' was regarded as legitimate.

Kochanski's book has merit in not hiding the blunders and the self-defeating actions of the resistance movement but only as part of a very complex and confused picture where there would never have been a perfect solution to any problem.

From the point of view of liberal democracy in Europe (whether you believe in it or not), the British commitment to building national resistance movements was almost selfless, expensive in resources and operatives and prejudiced in favour of the effective resistor regardless of their ideology.

Although it can get bogged down in detail and it is not easy to keep track of so many narratives in so many different location amidst impossible tactical and strategic complexity, the book is well worth working through. You are much wiser by the end of it.

Resistance can, and this is wisdom, be futile and not futile, destructive and constructive. It cannot win against entrenched hard power prepared to take off its gloves and do what it takes to retain power. It can, however, win the peace if it can bring external forces into play.

But deeper than that, in a world where most people are political puddings, sitting there waiting to see which way the wind blows and accepting the opinion of the last person who spoke to them (often the media), resistance demonstrates that imposed systems will find their rule costly.

Over time, the wind changes direction, the costs of maintaining rule on the puddings becomes too great and the men, women and ideas that represent the resistance may come to dominate discussion of what the nation is to be when the old order collapses.

I suppose the lesson, therefore, is that resistance is not futile after all. If our order is collapsing under second-rate leaders who cannot manage the economy and are detached increasingly even from their own puddings, then those with a language of resistance, though few, may yet triumph.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of detail and I believe exhaustively researched. It does overlap with other works I've read, but that must be accepted.

Well worth the time. It looks at many efforts of resistance in both the east and west of Europe. The failures as much as the success.

[Drew Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every little bit counts. Resist.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can well believe that this is the first volume to comprehensively look at the resistance activities in all countries in the European theater of World War II – the scholarship is exhaustive. And that may be a problem.

The author's coverage is so vast that it becomes difficult to follow the people. There are so many, and they come and go so quickly, along with the various organizations that spring up. There are innumerable acronyms to keep track of (don't confuse the ELAS of Greece with the EDES, their implacable foes).

It's singularly impressive but a very dense read. It's very rewarding, though, in viewing the contrast in resistance activities among the countries, and the attitude of the Germans (harshest in the East, more lenient (relatively speaking) in the West).

There are a couple of omissions that are intentional: Resistance within Axis countries like Germany and Austria. The scope of the book focuses on occupied countries. However, there is substantial coverage of the Allied secret agencies such as SOE and OSS that assisted the resisters.

It was disheartening to read how in some countries like Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece the resisting organizations fought each other as much, or likely more, than they fought the Germans. The Germans seemed a nuisance while the real enemy was internal. There were copious episodes of betrayal and brutality between resisters, not just the collaborators (although there's lots of coverage of them, too).

How effective was the resistance overall in the conduct of the war? A telling detail is the result of interviews the historian Liddell Hart had with German generals after the war, where they described the resistance as ineffective in changing military results, and more of a nuisance. However, the generals probably not considering the immense assistance in information that the resistance provided to the Allied military, helping them with effective targeting of key units and resources.

It is clear that the resistance's greatest effect was providing intelligence to the Allied military that they could act on effectively and with overwhelming power. That was the best legacy of the resistance, and it was provided by thousands of people throughout Europe.

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very impressive work of scholarship, covering the huge issue of resistance during the Second World War. She covers both the military and the diplomatic/political aspects of the issue, without ever losing sight of the individuals involved.

Perhaps best of all, she keeps a perspective on her topic. Resistance didn't win the war. Only after mid-1943, when it was clear that Germany was going to lose and Italy changed sides, did resistance movements really mushroom beyond German ability to control. The big contribution of the resistance movements to the defeat of the Germans was in gathering (and transmitting) intelligence.

I am impressed by the detail of her work. She mentioned one disturbance in Prague in November 1939, and I realized that one of my former professors was one of the students punished in the aftermath of that event.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in the Second World War.

[Jarrett Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kochanski effectively traces the history of the resistance in Europe from its inception after Nazi invasion to liberation. Through a plethora of well-researched, diverse examples across Europe, a few themes emerge:
1) The resistance did not emerge immediately in its final form. When it appeared the Nazis were likely to prevail, few were willing to risk their lives by engaging in outright resistance, especially in the West, where the Nazis worked through collaborationist governments.
2) The resistance experience was markedly different in the east versus the west. In the east, especially Poland, the Nazis were intent on carrying out a policy of national extermination. As such, the resistance was a necessity and emerged in greater strength early on. And the Nazi response to the resistance, accordingly, was far more severe, with mass retaliatory killings and deportations to concentration and death camps. In the west meanwhile, the Nazis first worked through collaborationist governments and refrained from retaliatory killings until later in the war, when the resistance had grown.
3) Through their brutality, the Nazis alienated potential allies and fueled the resistance. For example, when the Nazis invaded the Baltic countries and Ukraine, they were at first greeted as liberators after decades of Soviet rule. Instead of enlisting their help, the Nazis engaged in mass murder to create living space for future German settlers, fueling the partisan movement and worsening Germany’s manpower challenges.
4) The active engagement of the British SOE across Europe signaled Britain’s commitment to the resistance even when conditions appeared most dire and helped organize resistance across Europe (with more success in France and Denmark, for example, than Yugoslavia or Greece).
5) The resistance movement came into its own when the Nazis failed to capture Moscow, injecting hope into occupied countries and inspiring resistance. As the war continued and German victory appeared less likely, more men and women joined resistance movements.
6) The resistance’s greatest military contribution was intelligence. The intelligence shared by the resistance contributed to Allied military victory in concrete ways (e.g., locating Axis units before D-Day). Sabotage of railway lines and factories helped as well, though not in a deciding way.
7) The fate of resistance movements differed significantly between east and west. In the west, resisters were feted as heroes and experienced liberation as, well, liberation. When western resisters decided to launch revolts in cities like Paris before the Allied armies arrived, those Allied armies adjusted their movements to relieve them and made it possible for De Gauls to say France liberated itself. In the east, resisters like the Polish AK were disarmed and often sent to the Gulag. When the AK launched the Warsaw Uprising, Stalin refused to send them arms and blocked Allied planes from landing on Soviet airfields until public pressure mounted. By the time he sent arms, it was too late and he had never meaningfully moved to redirect the Soviet offensive to help. Instead, he let his postwar enemies be liquidated by the Nazis. Eastern European countries came to experience liberation as the beginning of a new occupation.
8) The resistance was key to rebuilding Europe’s self-image. In France, for example, the efforts of resisters and the Free French forces allowed De Gaulle to label France a nation of resisters and so whitewash the more nuanced history of Vichy collaboration.

[Dennis Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished Resistance: The Underground War Against Hitler, 1939-1945 by Halik Kochanski, a work of non fiction written in 2022 that describes in comprehensive detail the European resistance to Hitler and the Nazi’s, country by country. I found this book enormously helpful in understanding the geopolitical ramifications in Europe after WW2, even to this moment. It is an enormously long book but well worth it for history nerds. This book presents the heroics, betrayal, ghastly shootings, starvation and gassing of innocents, in essence how the Nazi/Axis conquests affected the locals. Of particular interest is the Soviet takeover of the resistance for their own conquest of Eastern Europe, in most cases delaying freedom for 50 years after the end of WW2. Fantastic book!

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

History A+, prose C+. Probablly the best and most complete record of Resistance activity in the various countries during the war years I have read. Lacking are any chapters or mention of resistance activity in Germany.

[Jessica Fyffe · Rating 1 out of 5]

so happy I have finally finished this book because I hated it so much. so dense with bits of information everywhere. should have been a chronological series instead of being slapped together in one giant book. well researched but just executed poorly

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today's nonfiction post is on Resistance: The Underground War Against Hitler, 1939-1945 by Halik Kochanski. It is 936 pages long and is published by Liveright. The cover are picture of different resistance movements. The intended reader is someone who is interested in an in-depth guide into resistance movements outside of Germany during World War 2. There is mild foul language, no sex, and some violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- It’s almost shocking to think that now, more than seventy years after the Nazi surrender in 1945, there is not a single volume that has attempted to unify the resistance movements that convulsed Europe during the brutal years of occupation. In her extraordinary work, Resistance, Halik Kochanski does just that, creating a prodigiously researched account that becomes the first to bring these disparate histories into a single narrative.
Taking us from France in the west to parts of the Soviet Union in the east, Resistance reveals why and how small bands of individuals undertook actions that could lead not merely to their own deaths, but to the destruction of their entire communities. As Kochanski demonstrates, most who joined up were ordinary people who would not have been expected—even by themselves—to become heroes. Simultaneously panoramic and heartbreakingly intimate, Resistance is an incomparable history necessary for any home library.

Review- This is an extremely in-depth book about all the different resistance movements in mainland Europe. Kochanski's research is very through and at times can be overwhelming with all the information, the names and dates. But it is also fascinating to read about all the different factions within Europe that were fighting for freedom. Starting at the very beginning of the war and then following some of the bigger names all way to death. This book is not for light reading, this is for people who want to know more about forgotten history.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.

[David Wurster · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not a casual read. It is very long and very detailed. It takes a commitment to devote the time necessary to get through it. However, I believe that it contributes substantially to an understanding of WWII to anyone who has already read extensively about the war, the Holocaust, and even the resistance. Here are a few of my takeaways:
1. Most histories of WWII focus on a particular facet of the war. That could be the eastern or western front. It could be the period from Normandy through the collapse of Germany. This book makes us realize how complicated the political structure of Europe was and still is. For centuries, the great powers dictated boundaries of nations that were not natural grouping of people who wanted to be a nation; rather, they cobbled together disparate groups that either wanted to be a smaller nation of their own or wanted to rule the whole country themselves. In many examples, the resistance organizations cared more about their group coming out on top after the war than in fighting the fascists.
2. Though this book did not break new ground on this topic, it strongly reminds us of how many nations, organizations, and individuals actively and willingly helped Hitler with the Final Solution.
3. It is depressing to think about the human capacity for murder and torture on a grand scale. It raises the question of why a country like Japan can go from being so awful in the first half of the 2oth century, and then behave so differently after their defeat in WWII. Why is it hard to imagine other people (such as the Russians) reforming their society in a responsible way.
4. Much of the writing about the resistance emphasizes the heroic actions of the resistors. This book also covers the great number of collaborators and traitors who betrayed so many resistance groups.
5. The great powers expected the resistance groups to share the goals of the great powers, while the resistance groups almost always pursued their own self-interest. In the 75 years since WWII ended, the great powers have proven not to have learned this lesson.

[Andrew Wardle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I'm glad I read it, but I'm also glad to have finished. Dr Kochanski's book is an exhaustive, and exhausting, account of the resistance to German occupation in every occupied country in WW2. It is a true magnum opus, clearly meticulously researched, but her determination to mention (often by name) every person significantly involved in resistance to the Germans, across every nation over a very long war, makes this more a work of reference than a book for the general reader. I was amused by another review on this site which criticises her decision not to include the German pacifist and anti-Nazi movements in her book. What ? You wanted MORE than 829 pages of very small print ?

The historical analysis is clear and cogently-argued, with no sentimentality or mythologising. The author discusses the varying degrees of resistance, from non-cooperation and refusal to work for the Germans through to sabotage and armed uprisings with all shades in between, and is very good on the dilemmas created - the personal risk, the threat of German reprisals against family and neighbours as well as just the need to carry on some kind of normal existence and put food on the table in wartime. The moral dimension is also starkly stated - Allied leaders' exhortation to "set Europe ablaze" was all very well as a piece of propaganda, but, stripped of the rhetorical flourish it was an invitation to civilians to become franc-tireurs subject to summary execution. She also discusses the overall aims of resistance movements, not all of which were congruent with Allied war aims. Many resistance movements spent more time and effort fighting internal enemies than the Axis, positioning themselves to "win the peace" after victories by conventional armies had compelled the Germans to withdraw from their countries.

I doubt if there is any important episode in the epic of resistance in WW2 that does not receive a mention in this book. The decision to divide the resistance war essentially chronologically into sections entitled "Why resist ?", "Growing the resistance", and "Resistance in action", then describe the process in each country in turn, inevitably leads to some repetition of arguments, but any other organisation of such a mountain of material would have created similar stylistic issues.

Faults ? When this book strays from its main subject into the wider historical context there are some questionable statements. I nearly gave it up as a bad job when in the Introduction (!) the author conflates the Paris Communards of 1871 with the Communist Party.
She states airily that "Hitler had no territorial ambitions towards central Europe and the Balkans". The Balkans, maybe. But Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, European Russia plus client states in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary ? That's pretty much all of central Europe !
Events in Italy in late August 1943 are given the backdrop that "on the Eastern Front the Battle of Kursk was reaching its climax". The Battle of Kursk was over by mid-July. The Eastern Front was beyond Kharkov by late August.
The surrendering Polish Home Army at Warsaw are praised for their courage and patriotism by the commander of "The Lower Saxony Panzer Division". Errr...not heard of that one.
The author does avoid the modern tendency to ascribe all atrocities to "the Nazis" and "the SS" when many were committed by regular German troops. But she does follow other modern historians in assigning the aristocratic prefix "von" to the surname of any senior German officer. Neither General Heinrich Kreipe nor General Johannes Blaskowitz was a "von". Both were the sons of minor German clerics.

Oh, and "The origin of the term 'maquis' to describe resistantes is obscure." Er....no it isn't. Maquis is a type of scrubland vegetation characteristic of parts of the Mediterranean. Unsuitable for agriculture, these regions tend to be remote and thinly-populated - hence ideal for bandits and outlaws to hide out in.

Stylistically some oddly-constructed and clumsy sentences were difficult to read. But then if I had to proofread 829 pages I'd probably miss a few too.

So, meticulous and encyclopaedic, but a stodgy read.

[Jean Bonilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Halik Kochanski has written a weighty tome on the resistance in Europe during WWII. She states from the start that her work does not include a discussion of resistance in Germany - as they were not an occupied country. She lays out in her introduction a sort of glossary of how she has referred to the various groups in the different countries, e.g., resistance as a whole, partisans in eastern Europe and Italy, Partisans in Yugoslavia, maquis for France, etc. She did not use the term ‘patriots’ as that term brings a value-judgement with it. Of course, the resistance was not uniform in its goals or attitudes; Kochanski emphasizes that it was not.

One of the most intriguing aspects to me of the story as she tells it is the German attitude towards the resistance. As one German officer commented, “In the east we have a mission; in the west, we are merely administrators.” Over time their approach in the west evolved, but, by the later years of the war, more citizens of those countries had ways to work against the Nazi system. The descriptions of the German regime in the east, where I knew relatively little, was wrenching. The level of killing, the vicious nature of attacks on and betrayals of families and individuals, the fact that the movement of the tide of war opened villages and towns up to reprisals - you Dutch or Greeks helped the allies, started fighting for them, or welcomed them - meant that as I read became utterly numb. I had to take breaks.

One group that had to take resistance seriously from the start was the Jews. The non-Jewish resistance could afford to wait for the right time to come out into the open and fight. The timeline of the Jewish resistance to the Holocaust was different; the Jews could not afford to wait. At the height of the deportations of the Jews and the first forced laborers, the Germans were still on the offensive on all fronts, and by the end of 1943, when most of the Jews who would perish in the holocaust had been killed, the tide of war was only starting to turn. Ultimately, Jewish resistance was doomed, and the participants knew that. When resistance was discussed by the Jews. It became clear that their choice was not that if the general resistance, submit, or die, but was rather a choice of how to die: as a passive victim of German policies, or as a fighter, either within the ghettos or in the forests. One of the leaders of the Jewish resistance in Crakow said, “We are fighting for three lines in the history books to make the world know that the Jewish youth did not go like lambs to the slaughter.”

Kochanski provides interesting information on the role played by churches in assisting the Jews. I knew that the Pope refused to give a statement of support. From the start, however, the local Catholic Church reached out to support converts. Oddly, German authorities still insisted that the Jewish converts also live in the ghettos. Many Catholic and other Christian churches provided help to Jews fleeing potential arrest or deportation, often at great risk. Kochanski doesn’t mention this story, but I’ll never forget the fact that the Presbyterian teachers of the Jewish children in Budapest went with them to die in Auschwitz. I suppose that Hungary counts as part of the Reich, so she doesn’t include them.

Problems in the Balkans included the alllies’ lack of understanding of guerrilla warfare, Moscow’s control of the communist movements in that region, and Churchill’s reluctance to accept the fact that these countries didn’t want to see a return to monarchy. Communications problems were endemic.

The individual country stories were very interesting and educational. I had known very little about the war in Greece. Kochanski dwells on that situation at length. Quite interesting to know that Churchill traded Yugoslavia for Greece. Truth be told, Stalin didn’t get as much as he expected given Tito’s early departure from the fold. Very revealing, in fact to see Tito’s determination to take as much territory as possible before the end of the conflict. Like Ho Chi Minh I think he essentially was a nationalist. Poor Ukraine! They are national victims, no question. Yet they behave horribly as with the massacre of Polish residents in the region of Volhynia. It’s clear that they feel desperate, not sure whether to trust the Soviets or to ally themselves with the Germans. Classic case of entre la espada y la pared. As I read, I thought a great deal about current events.

Poland has the most tragic story of all. The big powers felt they could walk all over her, changing her borders at will. One could argue that the only reason she existed at all after the war was that Britain had committed itself to defend her. But no commitment as to where, what, or how much territory she was defending!

De Gaulle was a handful, no question. He insisted on viewing himself as the one and only authority for the future of France. Yet, FDR didn’t like or trust him. He refused to accept resources from the rich OSS pot in southern France because he didn’t want the Americans to take over ‘his’ country. He shrewdly eliminated his rivals. His fantastically loyal deputy Henri Moulin was eventually arrested by the Gestapo and tortured to the point that he died of his injuries. He never said a word. Klaus Barbie himself said at his own trial in 1987, “He confessed nothing.” The survival of Moulin’s fellow fighters, all of whom were left in peace, is proof of that statement.

Kochanski describes the work of the SOE, SAS, OSS, and other allied intelligence and support groups. She specifically refers to the work of the French group Alliance in laying groundwork for D-Day with coastline intelligence. The network surpassed itself by producing a 55-foot-long-map, showing every German gun and beach obstacle as well as the locations of German troops and the roads along the coast from the mouth of the Dives river in Normandy to the Cotentin peninsula. Robert Douin walked or cycled along the coastline with his 14-year-old son and supplied much of this information. As a sculptor, who had worked on many of the local churches, he received permission to go up the Church towers, from where he could observe the German fortifications. The map was flown to London on March 16, 1944, well in time for D-Day. Over the next month the Germans arrested 20 of the men who had contributed information to the map, including Douin, and executed them on June 7, 1944.

Much information came out after the war about the fates of many of those taken to camps in the waning days of the war. Kochanski specifically cites the search by Vera Atkins of F Section SOE for former colleagues. She also mentions the search by Marie-Madeleine Fourcade for her former colleagues from Alliance.

Kochanski’s book is so thorough; I wish that I could elaborate a hundred more examples from it. One of the compelling sections is the final chapter, The Aftermath. She talks, among other things, about the work of the Jewish honor courts in following up on collaboration and betrayal by various Jewish leaders. She also mentions that Jews discovered that the revelations of the Holocaust had done nothing to diminish antisemitism in Europe. Of the approximately 107,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands, for example, only about 5000 survived the concentration camps and returned home. These then struggled to recover their houses, businesses, and possessions. In the immediate postwar years many chose to immigrate to the United States or to the newly formed country of Israel. The Dutch had their own narrative of resistance, and were not prepared to acknowledge the Jewish story of suffering as in any way distinct from their own. For example: Otto Frank couldn’t get his daughter’s diary published until after it came out in the U.S.!

On May 9, 1945 the Soviet army liberated Prague. It was the first capital city to be occupied and the last to be liberated.

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an impressive and lengthy recounting of resistance to the Nazis in occupied Europe that goes from just before the war began until the aftermath of its conclusion. The hazy image of pop culture is of a ragged bunch of underdogs striking back against the evil Nazis when they could. Yeah, that happened, but it wasn't overnight. Initially, people were often shocked at the collapse of their nation's armed forces. You have to organize a resistance, and that takes time. When it's not organized, it's less a matter of death by a thousand cuts and more a thousand attempts to inflict a paper cut - and early on, the latter is what occurred. It's also a matter of who do you target, as their were those colloborating in every nation. And many just wanted to live their lives as normally as possible, which allowed for slouching to collaboration, especially when open opposition could be deadly.

But you had resistance, and it grew as the war went on. Once the invasion of the Soviet Union didn't go as hoped, resistance grew the more - as maybe the Nazis might lose. Once D-Day happened, the pace of resistance again went up, as the bad guys are on the run. Even still, resistance was always dangerous and deadly, largely due to aggressive Nazi reprisals and long odds of success in your actions in the first place. And those in the resistance didn't always get along with each other, especially in communist vs. non-communist divisions. In Yugoslavia, you had fairly overt civil war occur between two factions even before the Germans departed.

One problem: Kochanski is a British historian based out of London and clearly extensively uses the archives of the British espoinage department that tried to fund, equip, and organize resistance groups. OK, they played a role - duly noted - but this book often makes them the stars of the show and the actual resistance groups secondary characters. Yeah, it's overdone.

That said, overall the book is very well done.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This long book makes a fine introduction to the role of Resistance in World War Two. Kochanski does his best to cover every country occupied by the Nazis (and/or the Italians) during World War Two and how they resisted and the role played by organisations like the SOE or the OSS.

A result of this is, obviously, he also covers the betrayals, the war crimes, the cruelty - especially in the last year of the war when the Germans are bloody mindedly continuing their mass murdering ways even though they know they're done for. There's often an attempt to make Allied actions in WW2 - bombing of civilians, for example - seem comparable to what other the Axis powers did. A war crime is, after all, a war crime. But as soon as Germany and Japan were defeated that bombing stopped. There is no doubt that the Nazis would have never stopped until they were beaten. They devoted manpower and resources to killing Jewish people until the last day. There is no comparison.

He's good on the cock-ups by SOE, but also on their courage and successes. He's good on the competition between resistance groups that in parts of Europe - Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania - became effectively civil wars or the precursor to communist takeovers.

Once more too a book about World War Two reminds you that Poland was absolutely ravaged. First by the Nazis and the USSR, the by the Nazis on their own, then by the USSR again. The treatment of the non-Communist resistance after the war is a stain on Poland - and Russia's - history. The fact that the Poles are still here is one of history's miracles. The fact that they are still civilised to the Germans is incredible.

It doesn't cover the Holocaust in detail because as Kochanski says that's a whole subject of its own but it does come up as part of the role played by the resistance and how people became members of the resistance.

Fine read.

[andré crombie · Rating 4 out of 5]

notes: a splendid, detailed, and clear-eyed academic history of european resistance, and a useful tonic to the mythologizing that dominates our collective memory of it. this paragraph, on the sabotage of the heavy-water plant at Vermork, wonderfully illustrates the one genuinely strategically important achievement of resistance sabotage:

Gunnerside were never informed why the destruction of the heavy-water plant was so important, but they were told to focus on destroying the stocks of fluid, the heavy water, in the basement regardless of what other damage they might be able to achieve. Just before they left, Tronstad told the party that the Germans would not take them prisoner but the operation was worth the risk: ‘You have no idea how important this mission is, but what you are doing will live in Norway’s history for hundreds of years to come.’

however, this one might be more indicative of the organized resistance and its allied support:

Gerry Field was in charge of the SOE Albania headquarters situated in a cave called Seaview situated at the elbow end of the Karaburun Peninsula. Field hated the Albanians of every political hue and found life in a cave, from which it took six to eight hours of climbing to reach the road, unbearably isolating. He was eventually evacuated to Italy after wounding himself while fishing with grenades.

nevertheless, there are countless acts of bravery, heroism, and selflessness in these pages, all worth honoring and remembering, whether as small as providing a meal to a Jewish refugee or escaped POW, or as large as destroying a trestle or assassinating a gestapo officer.

[Lawrence Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winner of the 2023 Wolfson History Prize. A giant tome, took me many weeks to read because 1) the appalling reprisals on almost every page - up to and over 1,000 innocent civilians shot in revenge for every German soldier assassinated - was simply hard to take 2) thousands of individuals doing unbelievably brave yet uncommemorated acts & German military staff committing unspeakable horrors - detailing what later happened to them would add another 200+ pages so I spent hours tracking them on Wikipedia 3) the book follows the resistance across Europe ie everywhere bar neutral Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, and Croatia and Hungary whose governments and citizens largely had no issue with their new overlords or their ideology, so it doesn't have much of an overarching theme (not a criticism). The author claims at the end that the book basically highlights 2 themes - who was the enemy, and that of command and control. Agreed - various 'enemies' were the collaborators, spies within the resistance, the 'liberating' Red Army, other resistance movements - certainly not just the Wehrmacht. Command and control of the resistance movements was dependant on particular month and local circumstances. But the one point that will certainly stick with me were all those humdrum folk like you and me, our children etc shot as reprisals.

[Ben Vos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable, whistlestop tour of European resistance to German domination and crimes which doesn't skimp on any country or type of resistance. Great to learn about Scandinavian resistance beyond the commonly-known tales of rescue and sabotage, in particular. The duplicity and single-mindedness of various Communist forces is well expressed (and the naivete of British and American intelligence people who facilitated their successes). With such a massive number of people to cover from innumerable backgrounds and agencies, at least one I know something of, was too lightly dealt with to the detriment of accuracy (i.e. he did some good, but much bad). The chapter on remembrance and how our nations use resistance myths as a balm for bruised egos and self-perception, was quick but effective. The only book one needs for a general survey.

(I was amazed, incidentally, that having read her book solely on Polish participation in the war (The Eagle Unbowed) that Kochanski was so restrained talking about that peculiarly horrendous side of the war in amongst, for instance, the far less bloody French, Danish and Norwegian experiences.)

[Cameron S · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real monster of a book- prepare to get lost in a sea of information here. I wouldn’t go into this looking for a narrative arc or big-picture view. This book gets into the details, especially with regard to operations. People who are into the nuts and bolts of military history, chains of command, stats and numbers and espionage will enjoy this. Personally I would have preferred a book focusing more on the pathos side of things but, there are moments here if you apply your imagination. I think the most important takeaway from this book was the sheer complexity of Resistance during WW2, with multifarious motives and effects. The country by country analysis is what really interested me, seeing the different degrees resistance took and what motivated the various actors. Of course, like any WW2 history, there is an incredible amount of death and suffering in the book that complicates the heroic, luminous pictures I had before reading it. Truly an immense scholarly effort that I doubt will be topped anytime soon.

[Mme Forte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is, as the summary says, prodigiously researched; it is also exhaustive in its detail and richly evocative of the era it covers.

I would not recommend that a novice pick this up as an introduction to the minutiae of World War II. If you've got some experience and background reading/knowledge under your belt, though, this is a must-read. Not only did I learn a ton about what was going on within the occupied nations of Europe during the war, I learned a lot about the roots of the Cold War and the descent of the Iron Curtain. This took me a big chunk of time to tackle, but I'm glad I did it. Plus I now have a lot more topics to research, people to get to know, and further reading to do.

This book is an achievement on the part of its author and her researchers, if any.

[Eithan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 2 chapters are really slow and a bit useless (the 'resistance' part is really miniscule) but after that the book picks up the pace and starts to be really interesting. This isn't a light book as it tries to encompass all of the resistances that took place during WW2 in the occupied areas- a monumental task so if you have previous knowledge you'll be able to tie down some of the stories to it, if not it'll be interesting but there's no chance to remember all of the myriad storylines after the read.
If you want the very definite summary of the book-in the west there was little to no resistance (and the Nazis didn't retaliate like crazy), in the east resistance was very stiff and the Nazis retaliated more often then not by burning whole villages/executing 100's of people etc

[Jim Bogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Massive book looking at varieties of resistance to Nazi invasion and conquest. First major point is that level of resistance surged only as Hitler began to lose. Most people’s first response was more “oh, ell, let’s see what happens.”
Second is that for most people priority was survival. Even as German power waned, it could bring deadly force to bear (even as late as in France after DDay). Moving too soon could be fatal.
There is a huge amount of information here. One intriguing point is the author’s belief that Mihailovic’s loyalists were far more effective than
Titoist propaganda later argued.
Fine book, strongly recommended.

[Neal Fandek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive. Don't think I've ever seen a book covering all the resistance movements in occupied Europe and the SOE --

Which is kind of the problem. This is a huge book, stuffed to the gills with stories and facts, many of which I never knew, such as the fact that the majority of French soldiers abroad (North Africa, Syria, etc) when captured and paroled did not want to fight with the Free French but return home to occupied France; or that millions of Europeans willingly relocated to Nazi Germany to work there.

Proof once again that history is never neat and tidy. We are just taught neat and tidy stories as morality plays. History has no morality.
g

[John Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you read one book on WWII resistance movements, read this book.
If you read two books, read this one twice.
If you read three, there are a bunch of great options depending on what area or movement you are looking for, but nothing as well researched or detailed. The amount of detail devoted to the logistics behind supplying resistance movements and the various political factions in every corner of the war is impressive and, though sometimes a bit overwhelming, 100% necessary. This is also a vital read for anyone interested in antifascism. The audiobook narration is excellent but the text is worth keeping in your personal library.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Resistance" is a thorough history of the resistance in European countries during World War II. It is extremely detailed and not all readers will find this detail interesting enough to read the book completely. I learned a lot from it, but am unlikely to remember many of the details. Kochanski effectively describes the development of resistance movements throughout Europe, the important role that the British secret service played in aidng the resistance, the struggle between resistance movements representing differing political views, and the Nazi German response to the resistance.

[Gabriel Stein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

An excellent and well written book. What is particularly good, is that it takes an overall view of the resistance in Europe. That is to say it also looks at the resistance countries which are not generally covered by most books, e.g. Belgium, Greece, Denmark, as well as in the Czech Protectorate. There is also a very good chapter on Jewish resistance which extended well beyond the Warsaw Ghetto Rising. Overall, the military impact of the resistance may have been limited. But the moral impact was substantial and important.

[Lily Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written and thoroughly researched history of resistance movements in countries occupied by the Nazi’s during WW2. I appreciated that the author limited the scope to countries that the Nazi’s occupied and did not include Germany as I think the examination of internal resistance should be a separate topic.

I particularly appreciated that this was not just limited to the (more popular? usual?) subject matter of Western European countries but also included Eastern.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good academic overview of the resistance.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was very thorough but because it was so complete got to be a bit long to get through. Most groups out of necessity operated similarly so towards the end the book began to feel like a series of repetitious chapters where only the names were changed. If one was using it as more of a reference book to understand a certain region that would not be the case. Still it was well written and covered a portion of history that is only mentioned in passing in other histories that focus on the war.