Mussolini's Army in the French Riviera by Emanuele Sica

Author:Emanuele Sica [Sica, Emanuele]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Military, World War II, Europe, Italy, France
ISBN: 9780252097966
Google: HcFWCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2015-12-30T00:40:06+00:00

CHAPTER 9

COLLABORATION AND ACCOMMODATION

No military occupation rests solely on repressive measures alone; it also seeks a modus vivendi with the local population, whether coerced or not. These “collaborations” happened at various levels in occupied Europe, and their degree and extent certainly depended on the occupiers’ policy. It was more difficult for a Pole and a Russian to collaborate with the German occupier than for a Dutch or Dane, as the former ranked at the bottom of the Nazi racial ladder. In other words, they were deemed unfit to live in the Nazi New Order, let alone to participate in its expansion.1 On the other hand, Western Europeans occupied by Axis forces enjoyed much more room for maneuver, and thus were able, if willing, to enter, in Pétain's words, the “path of collaboration.” Indeed, since the publication of Robert Paxton's groundbreaking book Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–1944, it became much of a truism that the Vichy government, including not only its prime minister, Pierre Laval, but also Pétain himself, fully embraced the Collaboration d’État (state-level collaboration), whereby Vichy actively sought a collaboration beyond the armistice treaty in order to be considered a reliable partner in the prospective Nazi New Order.2

However, ordinary French also interacted with various degrees with the occupier, be it German or Italian. Philippe Burrin has divided these relationships into roughly three categories, which he labeled “accommodations.”3 The first accommodation is “a structural one imposed by the need to have public services that continue to function and an economy that does not collapse.” That could be the case of French civil servants, such as the mayors who were asked to remain in office and take care of routine administration, and of entrepreneurs who were threatened to have their factories closed and their workers sent to forced labor in Germany if they did not comply with German demands. Those Frenchmen, cast by Werner Rings as “neutral collaborators,” perfunctorily complied with the occupation authorities, not only for their own sake but also in the interest of the local community.4 Theirs was an attitude with little ideological or political undertones and dictated by mere survival in a bleak wartime period, which, nonetheless, considerably helped the Axis war effort.

However, the desire to anticipate the needs of the occupier in return for material or social benefits was tempting for some. Those entering into “opportunist accommodations” sought to build sturdier bonds with the occupier, as, for instance, by participating in his celebrations, learning his language, or partaking in any other relationship not essential to someone's survival. The last category was probably the rarest of the three, if not the most outspoken and visible. “Political accommodations” entailed a firm belief in Axis propaganda and ideas, to the point of fully embracing its ideology, however morally despicable. This category encompassed people with different responsibilities, from Prime Minister Laval, who infamously proclaimed that he “hoped for German victory because without it tomorrow Bolshevism will be everywhere,” to various individuals who willingly joined the German war

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