Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Collaboration in UK
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Grand Falcon Railroad (U3267675) on Wednesday, 6th May 2009
Hi all,
I appreciate many people won't want to answer truthfully here for whatever reason (and in some cases you probably just wouldn't know) BUT should the Wehrmacht have invaded and held the greater proportion of the UK in 1940 then do you think (a) collaboration would have occurred (b) what extent would it have been (c) would you have done so if asked (and when you think in 1940 would there have been any way back with the US out of the war?) and (d) do you think a collaborationist administration survived into the Sixties onwards?
My thoughts:
A) It would have been impossible for collaboration not to have occurred to some extent - for example I could imagine any BUF members joining what ever SS volunteer unit that was formed to "pacify" the enemies of the Reich - then low level collaboration as happened in every region of the German-occupied Europe - maybe some Armed Forces units if given good enough reasons?
B) I guess that's answered partly in (a) and would say the Met been able to resist for long calls from the Gestapo and Field Gendarmarie to hand over its files on communists/Jews?
C) Dependings on what I was involved with/where I was how could I say anything but probably - maybe not to the extent of giving away a Jewish person but if it came to point of resistance is futile (and this is UK 1940 not Warsaw 1944) and my family was at risk unless my firm did business with "the hun" then could I do anything but?
D) I can't see anything but a collaborationist " government" and I think if you'd taken someoen born in say 1985 (and the Reich was intended to last a 1000 years) and who knew nothing but German hegemony in Europe (like Fatherland) then we'd be looking at future SS men (and women). -
Message 2
Posted by Parti-NG-ton Blue (U13898629) on Wednesday, 6th May 2009
Without a doubt collaboration would have occured.
Which ever country gets invaded there will always be people sympathetic to the cause and/or people just interested in making life more comfortable for themselves (even if it means betraying their beliefs) -
Message 3
Posted by curiousdigger (U13776378) on Wednesday, 6th May 2009
D) I can't see anything but a collaborationist " government" and I think if you'd taken someoen born in say 1985 (and the Reich was intended to last a 1000 years) and who knew nothing but German hegemony in Europe (like Fatherland) then we'd be looking at future SS men (and women).
That's a worrying thought for someone like me of the 1985 generation you mention! I imagine that some collaboration would've been inevitable, but I think you might be right in saying that a collaborative government probably wouldn't have survived the full 1000 years! Though having said that, one has to wonder about the longevity of any repressive regime... The communist regimes were successful for longer than might have been expected, and still are in some areas
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Message 4
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) ** on Wednesday, 6th May 2009
C) Dependings on what I was involved with/where I was how could I say anything but probably - maybe not to the extent of giving away a Jewish person but if it came to point of resistance is futile (and this is UK 1940 not Warsaw 1944)Β
If all the above is trying to ask:
"Would the British have betrayed Jews in the UK dependent territories, had the UK fallen to the Reich?"
Then the answer is "yes", they did. In the Channel Islands, in 1941.
There is collaboration in every war.
In the USA many German families remained 'loyal' to Germany in 1917 and even in 1941. Some are still loyal to the Nazis now. Go to any biker rally in the Midwest, they are still around. The whole 'Aryan Brotherhood' thing is still there, as you very well know, GFR.
Had the Nazis invaded the US there would have been plenty of 'Quislings' around the Northern Plains and around Garrison Keillor country.
My favourite 'collaboration' story comes from US intelligence files on Italy in 1944/5.
Those rich Italians who had been so prominent in the fascist years were actually the same Italians who volunteered their servics to the US, only weeks after the Allies took power.
Some people just have to be "at the centre of power", even if it requires a complete ideological conversion. -
Message 5
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Wednesday, 6th May 2009
Very interesting thread! I think it inevitable that there would have been collaboration. And not only by Mosley's lot. I would think a significant proportion of the aristocracy would have welcomed an invasion. What intrigues me rather more is the impact of a 1940 invasion of UK mainland on the course of the war. The Dutch, French and Belgian resistance certainly had a great deal of help from British agents. That would not have been available. Moreover there would surely have been an impact on the morale of resistance fighters in those countries had Britain fallen. Would the USA have been drawn in to defend Europe? How would they have been able to do so? Without the ability to use Britain as an aircraft carrier and base from which to launch an attack on the European mainland her options would have been limited in the extreme. And British and Commonwealth involvement in other theatres - middle and far east, Africa, the Balkans - would have been prevented also. On the other hand, the Soviets would have made life very difficult for Hitler on his Eastern border and may well have had help from UK based Communists working as a "fifth column" here.
As for me - how can one know for certain what one would do in such unimagineable circumstances? One's whole ethos is so influenced by what actually did happen - my generation grew up believing that WW2 and the "settlement" that followed, from the welfare state to the European convention on human rights, was the basis for the better world we were growing up into. Were we young and impressionable in 1940 and faced with an onslaught of Nazi propaganda can we be certain that we would have been prepared to risk everything by joining the resistance?
How long would the Reich have lasted? I personally doubt it would have lasted into the '60's. With the Soviet threat as outlined above, resistance movements across the board in the occupied territories and some help - in the form of economic sanctions if nothing else - from the Commonwealth and US I suspect it would have been all over within 10 years. -
Message 6
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Wednesday, 6th May 2009
if the wehrmacht had invaded in 1940 - their would have been no such word as collaboration - it would have been Reichcitizen
we would have been an occupied state with no hope of rescue from anyone
barbarossa would have occurred with no need to leave elite divisions to face the west - the whole luftwaffe would have been thrown against russia
usa could not have joined in as they had nowhere to assemble - the ussr was the only place they could have joined a ground war and uncle joe would never agree
for germany read rome - any resistance would have meant you, your family, your village . disappeared
anglo romans would be anglo deutsch
st -
Message 7
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Thursday, 7th May 2009
Stalteriisok,
Although I do detest these 'what if' questions I will post a quick agreements with your observations. There is not a nation on earth that has not a fair share of loonies who will accept any dubious theory especially if it gives them power, nor those who will happily embrace the concept of 'My country right or wrong'.
'Man will embrace a false premise with the same enthusiastic and reckless abandonment he will the harlot - and with usually a very similar outcome.' -
Message 8
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Thursday, 7th May 2009
The Civil Service in most countries just obeyed their new masters. Ours would have done the same. Most people living under the Germans, just obeyed the rules, we would have done the same. If every French man and women who claimed to be a member of the resistance after liberation had beeb in the resistance, the whole of the German Army would have been tied up in France.
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Message 9
Posted by Grand Falcon Railroad (U3267675) on Thursday, 7th May 2009
"That's a worrying thought for someone like me of the 1985 generation you mention!"
The irony is that when older persons say they fought in the war for us what they should remember that if they lost then I wouldn't really know about it - mind you I'm still respectful of the fact they are "senior citizens". -
Message 10
Posted by ambi (U13776277) on Thursday, 7th May 2009
For an entertaining and decently written novel on precisely this subject try 'SS-GB' by Len Deighton.
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Message 11
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Thursday, 7th May 2009
you are living in a country that has just been invaded by the wehrmacht
they have also just invaded and have complete control over every neighboring country - even the powerful ones u think may come to your aid
no one is left to come to your aid - this is europe in 1940 when the uk is under german rule
what on earth is the point of resistance - u kill a german soldier - they take out a village or send an area to a concentration camp - they can kill 6 million without batting an eyelid
this is your life for maybe the next 100 years - what would you do
i know what i would do - shut my mouth - wear a lightening pin and send my kids to the aryan youth summer camp
is that collaboration ??
chedworth roman villa is a good example of what collaboration can do for u lol
st -
Message 12
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Thursday, 7th May 2009
Salteriiosk
they can kill 6 million without batting an eyelidΒ
It's 1940- nobody knows that yet, not least because they haven't done it yet! I think lots of people would inevitably carry on living their lives as normally as they were able whilst doing everything in their power to undermine the authority of the invading force. -
Message 13
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Friday, 8th May 2009
Plotinlaois,
I think Salteriiosk was in fact referring to concept of 'occupation' rather than give precise dates. He is of course, in my opinion, absolutely correct in his observations. Those that would beneficiaries would grow fat whist those that didn't would be bide their time and at the right time rise up and overthrow the yoke(if successful) and cut off the hair of those who collaborated. Such is life! -
Message 14
Posted by Grand Falcon Railroad (U3267675) on Friday, 8th May 2009
"It's 1940- nobody knows that yet, not least because they haven't done it yet!"
However Odilio Globcnik [sp] has already allowed the Selbschutz free reign in his area of Poland - it's not hard to imagine German free-booters much like the Japanese than "pillaged" Manchuria getting free reign in parts of the UK. And some sort of "Blue Shirts (maybe)" being formed by "loyal empire" Brits. -
Message 15
Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Friday, 8th May 2009
Spruggles and GFR - we are in "what if" country here, but how many ordinary Germans - even the foot soldiers who would have constituted the invading force - were aware of the brutality of some of their countrymen? Surely most were not so very different to the rest of us and would not have done the kinds of things that Salteriiosk described. I know such things did happen in continental Europe but they were not routine. Also, there are accounts from POWs who were able to form relationships with their captors that made life bearable without being anything that could be described as collaboration.
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Message 16
Posted by MB (U177470) on Friday, 8th May 2009
I remember many years ago reading a book about internees on the Isle of Man, many of these were Jews who had escaped from Germany. They were very concerned that in the event of Britain being overrun the authorities would just hand the keys over to the Germans.
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Message 17
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 8th May 2009
Interstin thread of "alternative istory". But we must not remain under impressions of "Nazi collaboration". "British collaboration" or "US collaboration" or "USSR collaboration" was absolutely one and the same thing. As mentioned very precisely by U32's mes.4 in his paradigm to Italy, in all other countries, it was exaclty the very same people that collaborated with the with the Germans that collaborated then with the British (who not only were bothered by that but actually actively protected them to use them - proven value afterall!!!). Had U32 known the case of Greece he would use that as his favourite example: even more funny: it was the very same people that had collaborated with the British that then collaborated with the Germans and then again with the British who actively protected them and even forced right-wing patriotic parties to accept them in under the threat of communism that funnily it was again the very British that had fed and financed to become a threat!!!(I have got the poison and the remedy style!).
In Britain too you would find collaborationists, the very same kind of arrivist people we saw elsewhere. You would certainly have resistance too. However, Britain is not like the lands of Greece or Serbia whose rought terrain provide the means for a long-term resistance (in 400 years Ottomans managed to apply their law rarely to more than 80% of the lands, Germans and Italians hardly had any control over 35% of the area (mainly the main cities). Therefore unless US was implicated and helping, British resistance would be short-lived. Lets not forget that the last time the British had been invaded was 1000 years earlier, but when that had happened there was not much of opposition because there was not much of a means to do so. -
Message 18
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Saturday, 9th May 2009
Greetings Plontinlaos,
The whole question centres on how the individual reacts in time of war or stress and as such it is best not to generalize. The history of WW2 is even now still being written but I think that the major difference between the Axis and the Allied powers was that whilst acts of brutality was practiced on both side, the Allied actions fell into the category of individual and usually spontaneous deeds as opposed to the Axis forces who carried out systematic atrocities. How the Waffen SS conducted itself, for example, is still a matter of debate but it must be remembered that it was extremely difficult for an individual soldier in any army to refuse to carry out the orders of their seniors.
There were Germans who showed great courage with acts of humanity(sheltering Jews and in some cases Allied escapees)but as the was progressed the stress of continued Allied bombing, for example, caused some civilians to lynch Allied airmen, a deed that most would not have even contemplated in peacetime.
There has been much posting about the French collaboration during the war but even this, in the heat of battle did not save those of the population rounded up for reprisals. See the opening shots of the splendid 'World at War' series, therefore the history of this needs careful consideration before brickbats are thrown.
As for POWs and their treatment I think you will find that in the vast majority of cases the guards were too old or unfit for military service and the officers the same and many of them were old soldiers and therefore had a somewhat different culture when it came to the enemy, who were for the most part, quite placid.
An uncle who was a guest of the Germans from Dunkirk(where incidentally he was full of praise for the French who fought the rearguard action) to close of play said quite often to me that they were for the most part friendly, funny and quite often sympathetic. Mind you, my uncle was tall, fair haired, had blue eyes and was a German speaker, so that might have something to
do with it.
But as GrumpyFred wrote about the French and the resistance so it is true of the Germans. So many have claimed not to have belonged to the Nazi Party or that the Waffen SS was in fact just a ordinary army group.
The answer lies out here among the millions who died, the millions who were dispossessed of their homes and dignity, who suffered and who are still suffering both physically and mentally and among the mendacious and the apologists who seek to excuse or deny.
Good luck in your search. An old RAF officer, now sadly dead and one of the above sufferers once said to me when I was young,'that the older you become, the more cynical you become', its true too and probably it's a safety valve for the above. -
Message 19
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 9th May 2009
For an entertaining and decently written novel on precisely this subject try 'SS-GB' by Len Deighton.Β
Good choice dukess. And Deighton's concept of a police detective novel set during Nazi rule was later ripped-off by Robert Harris in his much more famous novel 'Fatherland'.
There was also a film made about what life in Britain might have been like following a hypothetical German invasion and occupation called 'It Happened Here'. The film (made in 1966) caused a controversy because it suggested that in such a scenario it would as likely be British collaborators who would be the villains of the piece as opposed to the German occupiers.
The film follows the fortunes of an Irish nurse whose home life has been badly disrupted by partisan violence - (some of her friends are killed) - so she finds herself pushed towards the occupying forces and the collaborators who at least seem to offer the prospect of 'law and order' and also employment.
The film suggests that under occupation the people of the British Isles (whether they be English, Scottish, Welsh or even Irish like our nurse) would have been no different and would have faced the same realistic and hard choices which faced the people of France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark etc when they were occupied. -
Message 20
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Saturday, 9th May 2009
Grand Falcon Railroad,
We shouldn't forget that collaboration was already with us.
Captains of industry, bankers,and newspaper owners, were big Adolf fans, and some had assisted his rise to power.
A large chunk of the British aristocracy saw Hitler as a saviour who would maintain and improve their status, and Edward VIII was already working with Germany (although as the records of his involvement are still sealed, I'll certainly never find out exactly what he was up to).
I wouldn't be surprised if there were sympathisers in the Commons who had aspirations of power after a German victory.
Massive support would have also come from Nazi/fascist supporters in the USA. Just think of the huge opposition there was to the USA entering the war. -
Message 21
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Sunday, 10th May 2009
GFR,
I'm sorry that works of fiction continue to be cited on a 'History' message board, but besides that aside, your observations are quite in order. As I pointed out earlier there were no limitations to the influence of Hitler, nor Uncle Joe; 'I have seen Communism and it works'.
There were sympathisers both in both Britain and America as well as on the Continent, but whether they were fully aware of the real danger posed is a matter of conjecture. Kennedy and Lindberg for example are both known as pro-Nazi and anti-British but would they have actively supported the worse excesses of Hitler Germany? Industrialists are always a fair target for censure because their main motive is profit and usually pretend a naive concept of politics. Even the early versions of the Me109 had Dunlop tyres fitted.
As far as Edward VIII is concerned there is little doubt that he was a weak man(the abdication having little to do with his being unable to face his responsibilities 'without the woman I love by my side') who might have thrown in his lot with the Germans after invasion but the Royal Family en masse would have to have been chased over the Atlantic to recruit him. Still, shall we leave that scenario to the realms of fiction? -
Message 22
Posted by delrick53 (U13797078) on Sunday, 10th May 2009
Spruggles,
Your post seems to be directed at me (or GFR ?).
If so, what 'works of fiction' are you talking about ? -
Message 23
Posted by nastychestycough (U13796779) on Monday, 18th May 2009
I think collaboration, possibly on a considearable scale, would have been inevitable.
I seem to recall that there were suggestions about collaboration with the Nazis in the channel islands when they were occupied. If I remember rightly the subsequent official enquiry 'hushed' it up.
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