Collaboration during World War II
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Collaboration during World War II refers to the events where civilian nationals or the governments of countries occupied by foreign forces supported the goals of the occupying powers during the time of World War II (1939-1945) and the late interbellum.
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[edit] Collaboration with Nazi Germany
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- Main article: Non-German cooperation with Nazis during World War II
During World War II Germany occupied all or parts of 15 non-tripartite countries: Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, Greece, Soviet Union, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Italy.
Collaboration with Nazi Germany ranged from urging the civilian population to remain calm and accept occupation by German forces, organizing trade, production, financial and economic support, actively recruiting members for various branches of the German armed forces, officially joining the Axis powers after having been invaded, to declaring war on the Allies and actively waging war against the Allies with national armed forces.
[edit] Tripartite Pact
In the European theatre several countries signed or adhered to the Tripartite Pact particularly in Eastern Europe and Balkan.
- Slovakia entered into a treaty of protection with Germany on March 23, 1939.
- Albania joined Italy in "personal union" on April 7, 1939.
- Hungary signed the Tripartite Pact on November 20, 1940
- Bulgaria signed the Tripartite Pact on November 1, 1940.
- Romania signed the Tripartite Pact on November 23, 1940.
- Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact on March 25, 1941, but suffered coup d'état as a consequence, and therefore cannot be considered as part of the Pact.
The tripartite signatories can best be described as a whole as the "Axis Powers" which in a sense was a collaborationist effort or alliance much like the Allies. Collaboration within the Axis alliance is detailed in Axis Powers, this article will deal mostly with significant collaboration by governments or civilians in occupied territories.
[edit] Material support
Material support was the direct government sanctioned involvement in the war effort in support of the Axis powers politically, economically and materially.
The most significant support of Germany came from the European tripartite signatories of the Balkans. Albania declared war on the Allies along with the Kingdom of Italy in 1940 and later that year Slovakia declared war on Great Britain and the United States. Bulgarian, Slovakian, Albanian and Hungarian national units and armies fought with the German forces against the Soviet Union on the eastern front throughout the war.
However, significant support was also given by many countries initially at war with Germany but which subsequently elected to adopt a policy of co-operation.
The Vichy government in France is one of the best known and most significant examples of collaboration between former enemies of Germany and Germany itself. When the French Vichy government emerged at the same time of the Free French in London there was much confusion regarding the loyalty of French overseas colonies and more importantly their overseas armies and naval fleet. The reluctance of Vichy France to either disarm or surrender their naval fleet resulted in the British destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940. Later in the war French colonies were frequently used as staging areas for invasions or airbases for the Axis powers both in Indo China and Syria. This resulted in the invasion of Syria and Lebanon with the capture of Damascus on June 17 and later the Battle of Madagascar against Vichy French forces which lasted for 7 months until November the same year.
Many other countries cooperated to some extend and in much different ways. Denmark's government cooperated with the German occupiers until 1943 and actively helped recruit members for the Nordland and Wiking Waffen SS divisions and helped organize trade and sale of industrial and agricultural products to Germany. In Greece, the three quisling prime ministers (Georgios Tsolakoglou, Konstantinos Logothetopoulos and Ioannis Rallis) cooperated with the Axis authorities. Agricultural products (especially tobacco) were sent to Germany, Greek "volunteers" were sent to to work to German factories, and special armed forces (such as the Security Battalions were created to fight along German soldiers against the Allies and the Resistance movement. In Norway the government successfully managed to escape to London but Vidkun Quisling established a puppet regime in its absence - albeit with little support from the local population.
[edit] Volunteers
Volunteers joined the Wehrmacht, the auxiliary police (Schutzmannschaft) and the Waffen SS from most occupied countries and even a small number from some Commonwealth countries (British Free Corps). Overall, almost 600.000 of Waffen-SS members were non-German [1] with some countries as Belgium and the Netherlands contributing thousands of volunteers.
Various collaborationalist parties in occupied France and the Vichy government assisted in establishing the Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchevisme (LVF). This volunteer army initially counted some 10,000 volunteers and would later become the 33rd Waffen SS division and one of the first SS divisions comprising mostly foreigners.
Following is a list of the 21 largest Waffen SS division composed mostly or totally of members from foreign countries.
Apart from frontline units volunteers played another important role notably in the large ‘’Schutzmannschaft’’ units in the German occupied territories in Eastern Europe. After Operation Barbarossa recruitment of local forces began almost immediately mostly by initiative of Himmler. These forces were not members of the regular armed forces and were not intended for frontline duty but were instead used for rear echelon activities including maintaining peace, fighting partisans, acting as police and organizing supplies for the front lines. In the later years of the war these units numbered almost 200.000.
The Polish Polnische Polizei was a notorious example of such a unit. It was primarily utilised by the Germans to deal with criminal activities, but were also widely used in combating smuggling and in measures against the Jewish population. At their peak in 1943, they numbered some 16,000. They patrolled the ghettos, searched for Jews who had escaped and guarded the gates of the Warsaw Ghetto and 367 of them were used in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprisings.
[edit] Collaboration with the Empire of Japan
During World War II the Empire of Japan occupied all or parts of at least 9 countries: China, France, United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Thailand (Siam), Portugal and Australia.
The Japanese set up several puppet regimes in occupied Chinese territories. The first of which was Manchukuo in 1932, followed by the East Hebei Anti-Communist Autonomous Government in 1935. Similar to Manchukuo in its supposed ethnic identity, Mengjiang (Mengkukuo) was set up in late 1936. Wang Keming's collaborationist Provisional Government of the Republic of China was set up in 1937 following the start of full-scale military operations between China and Japan, and it became the Reformed Government of the Republic of China in 1938. The Wang Jingwei Regime, established in 1940, "consolidated" these regimes, though in reality neither Wang's government nor the constituent governments had any autonomy.
The military forces of these puppet regimes, known collectively as the Collaborationist Army (伪军), numbered more than a million at their height, and a total of some 2 million were ever conscripted. Although certain collaborationist forces had limited battlefield presence during the Second Sino-Japanese War, most were relegated to behind-the-line duties.
[edit] Collaboration with the Kingdom of Italy
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During World War II the Kingdom of Italy occupied parts of 4 countries: France, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia and Greece.
[edit] Collaboration with the Soviet Union
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During World War II the Soviet Union occupied parts of or all of 14 countries: Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Iran, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, Manchukuo, Mengjiang and Japan.
[edit] Trivia
- 60% of the Waffen SS comprised non-German volunteers.
- The predominantly Scandinavian Nordland division along with remnants of French and Dutch volunteers were last defenders of the Reichstag in Berlin.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Aktion Reinhard Camps
- Feldgrau
- Arad, Yitzhak. Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka - The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1987
