Short History Of... - The French Resistance

Episode Date: July 16, 2023

During the dark years of the Nazi occupation, many French and Allied citizens risked and sacrificed their lives fighting against their oppressors. Their networks undermined the Nazis through intelligence, sabotage and guerilla tactics, and eventually grew into a huge clandestine force ready to help liberate their own country. But who were these activists? How much damage did they inflict on the occupiers? And what happened to those who fought – and those who collaborated – when the war was finally over? This is a Short History of the French Resistance. Written by Kate Harrison. With thanks to Hanna Diamond, Professor of French History at Cardiff University. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's 2pm on the 11th of November 1940, a chilly day in the centre of Paris. Workers are heading back to the offices and factories after lunch. Today is 22 years since a ceasefire marked the end of the First World War. Every year since that victory, French families have gathered to mourn the soldiers who lost their lives in the war against Germany. But today, that's impossible. Because now Paris is under Nazi occupation. As he stares out of his classroom window, 15-year-old schoolboy Yves still can't believe how much his city has changed since the Germans marched in six months ago. Swastikas hang from the ornate buildings.

Armed Nazi soldiers patrol the boulevards, while notices in German and French order Parisians not to break countless new laws. Chief among them is a ban on demonstrations. But though Yves' parents and teachers have accepted the regime, he and his classmates have not. Today, they are ready to stand up to the occupiers. As the lesson ends, handwritten leaflets are passed around about a planned protest. It's being held tonight at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,

under the Arc de Triomphe, just a few blocks from the school. But they don't want to wait till nightfall. Now, instead of going into class, the students file out of the gates. Yves joins them, turning up his collar against the bitter wind. His friend, Henri, carries a tricolour flag he found in the school stores. As the boys and girls march, they gather courage, and soon they are singing the French national anthem. As dusk darkens the skies above him, Yves feels proud to be French for the first time in so long. They can show the Germans their generation won't give in.

Perhaps they can even start a mass rebellion. As he turns the corner, he sees a sea of color. Against some railings, there are thousands of bouquets of flowers. Two elderly women lay another, tied with a red, white, and blue ribbon. The older generation is also sending a quiet message to the occupiers. Soon, the French police arrive, breaking up the protests with threats and batons. They tell the young people to go home. Other officers are removing the bouquets, dumping them in a cart.

But Yves and his friend Henri return a little over an hour later, and this time there are thousands more pupils and university students. The monument is in darkness, but the protest feels like a ray of light. Marchers crowd along the Champs-Élysées. They are chanting, Long live France, down with Hitler. Suddenly, scores of grey-uniformed Wehrmacht soldiers appear from nowhere, armed with pistols, clubs, and machine guns.

The students are outnumbered. A truck drives at Yves and he stumbles as he jumps out of the way. Without warning, grenades are thrown into the crowd. The explosion blinds him and his ears ring. He checks himself and those around him, but there are no injuries. Those were stun grenades, intended to disperse the students. But there's no mistaking real gunfire. German soldiers surround the students, trying to round up as many as they can. Yves runs Henri behind him. His lungs burst with effort as he races back towards his home in the 17th

arrondissement. Yves ducks left into an unlit doorway, but his friend carries on. From his hiding place, Yves sees three soldiers catch up with Henri, pulling him to the ground, beating him with their rifle butts. Yves doesn't dare move. Barely conscious now, all he is being pulled away, his feet dragging along the cobbles. After more and more students have been led away towards waiting vans, Eve waits for what seems like hours until all the soldiers have left. Shivering and ashamed of his cowardice, he heads home alone. 143 young people were arrested that night. Many were interrogated,

and one group faced a fake firing squad. Though some endured weeks of beatings, they were all released. Yet despite the brutal repression, for many Parisians, the protests offered hope. During the dark years that followed, many French citizens sacrificed their lives fighting against their Nazi oppressors. They created underground networks to pass on vital intelligence, shield refugees and

allied soldiers, and sabotage the German army. And as the tide of war turned, they formed a huge clandestine force ready to help liberate their own country. But how many French people actually resisted during the Nazi occupation? What motivated them to risk torture and death in the face of a ruthless enemy? How much damage did this secret army

manage to inflict on the occupiers? And what happened to those who fought and those who collaborated when the war was finally over? I'm John Hopkins, and this is a short history of the French Resistance. The German invasion of France in the summer of 1940 is a shocking event that most citizens and the Republic's own government do not see coming. The French army is well trained and made up of over 2 million men. France also has the Maginot Line, 450 miles of defences built to keep the Germans out after the First World War. But their faith in this out-of-date measure will prove catastrophic. The Germans are aiming for total occupation of Europe.

Invading France will give them access to the nation's rich industrial and agricultural resources. It'll also offer the best vantage point for Hitler's planned invasion of Great Britain. In early May, the Germans invade Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Next, they attack France by going round the Maginot Line. They advance instead through the heavily forested Ardennes region in the northeast of the country. There's little resistance because most Allied troops are trapped further north. Terrified by the rapid advance, French civilians leave their homes in their millions. The Great Exodus sees lines of people many miles long, fleeing newly occupied regions. As families try to keep together, German Stuka dive bombers fly low over

their heads, strafing them with bullets and emitting ear-piercing screeches designed to terrorize. And as the Germans get close to Paris, even more people join the exodus. Hannah Diamond is professor of French history at Cardiff University and an expert in the social history of France during the Second World War. Paris was bombed and this was a real wake-up call to the people of Paris who'd been given very reassuring messages that they didn't need to worry. Soon the government packed up and took off and the population of Paris, the millions of people, they themselves rushed to catch the last trains that left the stations to leave by whatever means

they had, throwing whatever luggage they could think of to take with them in cars or simply on foot, on bicycles, and headed south with the one ambition, just to get away from the German invading armies. They were told stories of what had happened during the previous occupation in the First World War, when the Germans occupied some northern département, and that the German soldier would rape the women and cut off the children's hands. So leaving was a logical act to get away from these terrifying soldiers. But the refugees are ill-prepared. Many have never left Paris before and have nowhere to go

or even any awareness of the blistering climate to the south of their own country. The villages and towns along their routes very quickly ran out of food and there was no accommodation. So people were forced to sleep rough in farm outbuildings or just out in the open. buildings or just out in the open. And these French people, along with others from the Belgians and Dutch, found themselves really destitute refugees in an extraordinary sense, refugees in their own country. 90,000 children were lost on the roads of the exodus, mothers would hand over their children to withdrawing troops in military vans, believing that they would easily be able to find their children further down the road

when they caught them up. So the Red Cross had a huge job of trying to return children to their families in the subsequent months. At least 50,000 French soldiers are killed in fighting against the invading army, while 120,000 escape to Britain during the famous evacuation from Dunkirk. But 1.8 million become prisoners of war. German troops finally occupy Paris on the 14th of June.

By this time, three-quarters of the city's population have fled. Faced with the invincible force of the Germans, Marshal Philippe Pétain steps forward as the new Prime Minister. He tells France he plans to ask the Germans for an armistice. Despite the humiliation, many refugees are relieved. They're desperate to get home. 84-year-old Pétain is a hero of the First World War, and people believe he is doing the right thing for his country. But the agreement Hitler imposes on the 22nd of June is extremely punishing. France will now be two nations. The southern half will be ruled by a new French assembly, run from the small spa town of Vichy.

But the northern half, France's industrial powerhouse, will be wholly governed and occupied by the Germans. They plan to use the factories to support the Nazi war machine. And the French even have to pay the costs of their own occupation. the costs of their own occupation. People returned to their homes in the Northern Zone and in Paris in particular, and found the place transformed, covered with Nazi banners and with a strong German presence. They were no longer the free people that they had been. The German presence weighed heavy on them and the Germans were very visible in the streets of Paris. They were also plundering all of France's riches.

From October 1940 rationing was introduced and the French people really started to struggle to get enough to eat particularly in the, in the towns and cities of France, as the Germans creamed off everything that was the best and ate it for themselves or sent it home. Traumatized and shamed by the invasion, many French citizens believe Marshal Pétain must have a plan to seize back control, or at least resist the Nazi regime. But it soon becomes clear that the elderly Marshal is embracing collaboration.

Within weeks, Jewish people see their movements restricted and are banned from certain professions. As winter approaches, French food and coal is exported to Germany and rationing is introduced. Simply surviving involves hours of queuing in sub-zero temperatures, often to find nothing left to buy. Pétain is not alone in believing that collaboration is the best policy for France. Soon after the French occupation, the UK comes under relentless air attack during the Battle of Britain. Many think it's inevitable that the Nazis will soon rule all of Europe. However, in England, those who escaped France via Dunkirk are already planning for the day when they can take their country back.

One of the very few individuals who took the huge gamble to make a stand was a virtually unknown general, General Charles de Gaulle, who refused to accept Pétain's position of asking for armistice. And he made a broadcast. He told the French people, the cause of France is not lost. The flame of French resistance must not and shall not die. And he urged his fellow countrymen to join him in London to carry on the battle. Vive la France, libre dans l'honneur et dans l'indépendance. The broadcast is heard by very few in France itself, and in independence. The population have no weapons to use against the Nazis. Tiny signs of resistance and defiance emerge. The first resistors who came together, feeling the need to do something, to act and to encourage others, really wanted to get the word out.

They would write tracts on their own typewriters and gradually, as their confidence and means grew, start to create clandestine journals, which at first was simply a page calling on people to act. People started to dress in red, white and blue. They wore little badges. They took small, almost unnoticeable steps to show that they didn't accept the status quo of the occupation. And of course, it was in the northern zone where the Germans were present. This was a very dangerous move. They could risk arrest and death. Women were heavily involved in resistance. And their job was to try and spread these newspapers

so that they would reach a readership. And women would use their gender roles as a way of providing cover. So for example, they might put some of the clandestine press in the pram underneath the baby, because no one would think to question a woman out for a walk with her child. Through the winter of 1940 and into 1941, more French people start tuning into BBC Radio Londres, even though listening has been banned by the Germans. The station reports on events in

France and beyond and tries to raise morale. In the spring of 1941, the BBC suggests displaying the letter V to represent the victory to come. Soon, the V sign appears across the capital, chalked on walls and pavements or written in the dust on car windows. People even wear two pins crossed like a V on their lapels.

It's a small but important emblem of hope, a sign that all is not lost. But the BBC broadcasts have a far more important role than simply boosting morale. In the first year of occupation, the British struggle to understand what's going on in France. Their intelligence networks have been destroyed by the German advance, so their priority is to rebuild a clandestine network and start getting a picture of what's happening on the ground. In May 1941, the British Special Operations Executive, or SOE, is formed. the British Special Operations Executive, or SOE, is formed. In the UK, it recruits French-speaking men and women who will parachute into France to send back intelligence.

But the SOE is also reaching out to emerging resistance groups in France to build an army in waiting. And they use the BBC to communicate. Every night, there would be a 15-minute segment from London called Les Français Parlent au Francais, the French speak to the French. When coded messages would be passed on to fighters about arms drops, attacks, missions that were being planned by both the British and the Gaule-ish Free French, who were also sometimes involved with this. A few representative messages include, Jean has a long moustache and there is a fire at the insurance agency.

And of course, these sound meaningless to us, but they had a very real meaning to certain resistance groups on the ground who were waiting for these messages as a call to action. Direct action is still extremely difficult. Resisters lack weapons and the ability to communicate. But in June 1941, that changes. Until now, most powerful and well-organized French communists have not resisted the German occupation

because initially the Nazis have a non-aggression pact with Soviet Russia. But when Hitler invades Russia, French communists begin to fight back. Many have the military training and experience that enables them to mount direct and violent attacks on the occupiers. It is 8 a.m. on the 21st of August 1941, and the busy Barbe metro station in Paris is crowded with travelers. The day is already scorching hot,

and the smell of sweat and engine oil intensifies as commuters rush towards the platforms. But one man is not on his way to work. A young communist, Pierre Georges, has picked this morning to carry out a revenge attack. Just two days ago, a close friend was executed by the Nazis after taking part in a protest. Now he wants to strike back. Aged 22, Georges is already a veteran of the Spanish Civil War. Below his cap, his face is deeply tanned from spending the summer camped out in the forests around Paris. He's been training younger men to form a secret battalion.

He's about to take direct action himself. He's chosen Bar take direct action himself. He's chosen Baab station to the north of the Gardinoor for its clear sightlines and multiple points of escape. Now he stands at the bottom of the iron staircase, scoping out a likely victim. As he waits with three friends, all dressed in the rough shirts and trousers of factory workers, he spots a German striding past. The man, a Marine, wears an immaculate blue naval uniform with gold buttons and epaulets.

Him, George tells his friends, he will pay for the death of their comrade. George follows the Marine past the ticket inspector and onto the platform as the train pulls in. follows the Marine past the ticket inspector and onto the platform as the train pulls in. The doors open. Then, just as the Marine steps up to board the train, Georges fires his revolver through a hole in his jacket pocket. Two shots into the chest. The Marine turns, incomprehension on his face. A split second later, he staggers, jaw slack, eyes blank.

He falls, face down onto the carriage floor, his feet sticking out through the door. Georges turns on his heel. He runs towards the exit stairs. A passenger tries to tackle his friend, Gilbert Brousselon, by clambering up the banister, but the young communist shrugs him off, and Georges pushes through the swing doors back into the passenger hall. Instantly, he loses himself in the throng of commuters. He leans on a pillar, getting his breath back. A policeman brushes past, sprinting towards the platform.

He's followed by soldiers, all responding to the astonishing news that a German has been killed in broad daylight. As calmly as he can, Georges leaves the station and waits on the embankment for his friends. Once they emerge, still keeping their distance from each other, they walk towards a quiet square near the Seine. Only when they are certain that no one has followed them does Georges allow himself a smile. His friend's death has been avenged, and the Germans will never feel safe on Paris streets again. Though their target wasn't the senior officer they had hoped for, the shooting sends shockwaves through occupied Paris and beyond. Georges adopts a new name, Colonel Fabian.

Three months later, his friend Gilbert Brousselon travels to Nantes in western France and shoots dead the most senior military commander in the region. But these direct actions come at a cost. Once the communists joined in resistance, they proved to be a very effective force. And they did almost immediately, almost as soon as Hitler invaded Russia and they started to become actively engaged in resistance on the French mainland. They did engage in a series of assassinations of German officers. And Hitler took immediate action.

He required for every death of a German soldier that 50 hostages should be slaughtered. Two days after the Nantes assassination, 48 Frenchmen are executed by the Nazis. They include a 17-year-old communist, Guy Moquet, who writes a letter to his parents just before he faces the firing squad. That letter becomes a beacon for those who distribute it, as he states that his death will serve a purpose. His last words are, those of you who remain, be worthy of us. The brutality of the reprisals makes many ordinary French citizens question the wisdom of violence, and splits opinions in the movement too. Now this kind of draconian measure did pose problems for the resistance, And it did mean that direct action became quite controversial.

And particularly the non-communist groups shied away from that kind of activity, focusing more, I think, on propaganda and preparation for the day when the Allies would invade and they would be able to provide support to the Allies. Gradually, the number of French people willing to resist increases. But there is no single secret army or set of aims.

Some want to avenge relatives lost in the First World War. Others are politically opposed to fascism. And some simply meet other members of the resistance who appeal for help. The volunteers aren't all French, either. Many Dutch and Belgian citizens resist occupying forces in their countries and across borders. One early spy is an African-American singer who moved to Paris to escape racist attitudes in her own country. Josephine Baker, who was this huge international celebrity in the late 1930s, had this very strong sense that she owed the French, and particularly the Parisians, a huge debt of gratitude because she achieved a fame that she could not possibly have dreamt of in America under segregation. So when the war broke out in 1939, she offered her services to the French intelligence secret service.

At first, she listens in to conversations at embassy parties and international events, reporting on what she hears about the Italian and Japanese views of the war. After the German invasion, she travels to Britain, hoping to find a role with the Allies. They were keen to get to London, but the British said, no, no, go back to France. You're much more useful to us there because we have so little information about what's going on in France. And you should set up with the French a network of intelligence, and then we will find a way for you to transfer that information. So Josephine Baker came back very quickly to Marseille and her handler stayed with the English and sorted out a way that their

intelligence would work. She was able to pass through security with very little problem because nobody suspected the great Josephine Baker, and everyone was so enthralled by her presence, they didn't think to notice Jacques Abtey, who was traveling with her, this rather nondescript man, who was actually carrying lots of secret information, in his case, hidden in invisible ink on her music. When it becomes unsafe, Baker settles in Morocco, but continues to work for the British, French and Americans throughout the war. the British, French and Americans throughout the war. Every member of the resistance faces the daily risk of discovery, capture, torture and execution, but their actions take very different forms. Resistance work ranges from writing and spreading anti-German propaganda to intelligence gathering and sabotage.

In the countryside, farmers offer their fields as sites for drops of weapons or supplies. Other members of the resistance in Belgium, Holland and France set up what are known as escape lines, networks of volunteers willing to shepherd downed Allied airmen out of danger. It was so important to be able to recover the pilots who'd been shot down in France. And there were lines that spread across Nazi-occupied Europe through France that helped get these pilots out in the most extraordinary circumstances. circumstances and French people operated with British and American pilots, British pilots in particular, who couldn't speak a word of French, conducting them through France to escape across the Pyrenees, through Portugal and back to the UK. It is late September 1942, in the south of Belgium, and RAF Sergeant Bob Frost is traveling in a crowded train through enemy territory. Two weeks ago, his Wellington bomber crashed in farmland on the way back from a raid on

a German factory. After landing by parachute, he approached the nearest farmhouse. By incredible luck, they chose not to report him to the Nazis. Instead, they contacted members of the Comet Line, the secret network of civilians who'll do all they can to get him home to England. Ever since, he's been in constant danger. But now, the 19-year-old is closer to discovery than ever. He's on a train, travelling from Brussels to Paris, with one British and one American airman.

Their escort is Janine de Greiff, a 17-year-old female resistance volunteer. The four of them sit near each other, pretending to be strangers. The American pilot has been dozing in the airless carriage, but now he jolts awake and notices an older female passenger who doesn't have a seat. He stands up to offer her his place. But, still sleepy, he addresses her in English. Though the woman smiles and thanks him as she sits down, Sergeant Frost freezes. There are more than a dozen people around them. Will anyone report them to the police on board?

Frost has fake papers identifying him as a French sailor, but doesn't speak the language. His heart thunders as he waits for betrayal. If he's caught, he'll be a prisoner of war. But if de Greiff is compromised, she risks torture and execution, and the unraveling of the entire network. The passengers, though, just look away. The Nazis have few supporters here. He's safe, for now.

A few minutes later, the train stops at the French border. Everyone disembarks to have their papers inspected. The members of the escape group get off, ignoring each other, trying to look inconspicuous. A German soldier points his rifle at Frost and orders him to put down his suitcase, supplied, like everything else, by the people from the escape line. case, supplied, like everything else, by the people from the escape line. The German pats him down. But now another member of the escape line begins talking to the soldier in fluent German. Frost can't tell what's being said, but he knows he's the butt of their joke.

It's enough to distract the soldier, who moves on to the next person, before they're all allowed back on the train and into France. When the train finally arrives in Paris, armed French and Nazi guards are everywhere, stopping passengers at random. Frost hurries through the packed station concourse, following de Greiff out into the street. He's never been to Paris before, but there's little chance to admire the city's beautiful buildings. He stays a few steps behind the teenager as she weaves her way through the warren of streets until she comes to a small church. Frost follows her up the stone steps. Inside, while a choir is rehearsing for the next service. De Greff beckons to him.

Keeping her voice low, she tells him to wait here for a man with a newspaper under his left arm. And then she's gone. Too anxious to sit, Frost paces beneath the high vaulted ceiling as the voices echo around him. Such beauty seems so out of place when he's still in terrible danger. After what feels like hours, a man with a newspaper finally appears. Frost follows wordlessly until they reach the tiny apartment which will be his safe house until plans are made to get him to Spain. He falls asleep the moment he sits on the sofa. Spain. He falls asleep the moment he sits on the sofa. From Paris, Bob Frost travels by train to a farmhouse near the French-Spanish border.

Finally, he and five others are given espadrilles and walking sticks for a grueling eight-hour-long trek across the Pyrenees. They are led by a Basque smuggler and Dede de Jong, a 24-year-old Belgian woman who founded the entire Comet Line. When they arrive at San Sebastian, de Jong delivers them to the British consulate. Then she returns on foot to carry on her work. Frost will be flown back home five weeks and four days after his parachute landing. back home five weeks and four days after his parachute landing. Over 800 Allied airmen escape thanks to the efforts of the Comet Line, but more than 200 helpers are executed or die in concentration camps. After 20 successful round trips, Dede de Jong is arrested just four months after helping Frost escape.

Though she's tortured, the Germans refuse to believe this slight young woman could be responsible for such complex work. She's deported to a concentration camp, but survives the war to receive bravery medals and awards from the British, Americans, and the Belgian King. Networks are also established to help Jewish families escape Nazi-occupied France. But they have limited success. And the danger is growing. In July 1942, the Germans round up nearly 13,000 Jewish men, women and children in Paris. They are taken to internment camps and then onto Auschwitz. In total, more than 75,000 French Jews are deported by the Nazis. Only one in 30 will

come home. As the roundups begin, the resistance stage demonstrations in the non-occupied zone, still ostensibly under French control. These attract thousands of protesters, enraging the Germans. And one of the organizers will go on to become one of the most important and famous figures in the entire resistance movement. French civil servant Jean Moulin first stands up against the Germans during their initial invasion in 1940. He refuses to lie by signing their official documents exonerating the Nazis for the deaths of a group of civilians, so they imprison him. In his cell, he attempts to slit his own throat. But he's taken to a hospital, and though he survives, he is sacked from his government job for his left-wing views.

Now, he offers himself up to help the Allies in any way he can. De Gaulle was extremely impressed with him and selected him to take on several missions in 1941 with a view to coordinating and unifying the various different groups in mainland France. And it was an extremely ambitious task, not just because this was all secret, a clandestine existence, but also because de Gaulle didn't have the best of reputations. He was a military man. His ambitions were not well understood by resistance on the ground, who

believed he couldn't possibly understand what they were up against and their plight. And also, Moulin discovered that the communists were playing a hugely important role, and they didn't want to be involved initially at all. And all the other groups weren't all that keen on the idea of ceding their independence. Moulin travels regularly between France and the UK, always returning by parachute, and makes countless dangerous journeys around France, trying to unite the different groups. But while the resistance is becoming more organized, so are the Germans. On the 11th of November 1942,

the Germans take full control of the non-occupied zone governed by the puppet Vichy regime. Life in the South has been easier, but now the Nazis are cracking down on resistance. Moulin, with his distinctive scarf, worn to cover the scar from his suicide attempt, is the one man who can persuade the different resisting factions to come to the table to combat the Nazis together.

Moulin really was a very charismatic figure. He had a way with people, and he did manage to carry off this rather extraordinary feat, which really did propel the resistance into a new stage. The newly formed National Council of the Resistance meets for the first time in May 1943. But the Germans are throwing huge resources at infiltrating secret networks. Captives are tortured until they divulge names and codes. Other informers give up their comrades for financial reward.

Just one month after Moulin brings the resistance groups together, he is betrayed and arrested at a meeting with other leaders in a suburb of Lyon. He's taken prisoner and tortured by the local head of the Gestapo, Klaus Barbie, later known as the Butcher of Lyon. After numerous beatings, Moulin falls into a coma and eventually dies from his injuries. But many members of the resistance

do survive Nazi interrogations, often thanks to incredible cunning. One is Lucy Obrach, a 31-year-old history teacher. She's heavily pregnant when she receives the news that her husband has been arrested in a raid of a secret meeting in a doctor's surgery. She goes to Gestapo HQ and demands to see Barbie. And she said, this was just a coincidence. He was there to see the doctor and she was dressed

beautifully and all her feminine wiles, carrying off the role of this very wronged woman, because she said, I learned that you think he's a resistor and he's going to be executed. Please, I must marry him and save my honour and make sure my child is legitimate. And in fact, there was a legal clause which allowed an engaged couple to wed if one of them was about to die. And she believed that there was a plan to execute him. And so the ploy worked. And the day Raymond was being transferred from Gestapo headquarters, where he was being held, to the prison after their marriage, they'd gone through with this marriage ceremony. Armed resistors attacked the lorry he was in and freed him along with 15 other prisoners. other prisoners. Now, Lucille Braque is held up with being an extraordinary example of women in the resistance because she used her gender as a way of disguising her actions and engaging in resistance.

But the Nazis are now so desperate for labor that both French men and women are encouraged to work in German factories dedicated to the war effort. Few volunteer, so the authorities introduce a new law in February 1943 compelling French citizens to go to Germany. But this backfires on the Nazis and boosts the resistance. Faced with the choice of leaving their country or going into hiding, many Frenchmen choose the latter and become part of a new force. Their greatest enemies are the Milis, a French paramilitary group set up by the Vichy regime specifically to destroy the resistance. Members include right-wing supporters of the Nazis,

ex-criminals, and those attracted by the extra rations offered for part-time work. Their operations pit Frenchmen against Frenchmen. Soon, the guerrilla resistance fighters adopt the name of the inhospitable scrubland they're forced to inhabit, the Maquis. It was not easy for these young men to survive in these very hostile conditions. Often they struggled to get enough to eat. If they were lucky, they were supported by local villagers.

There were some areas where villagers would help to feed them and clothe them. They did manage sometimes to gain arms and they would carry out many sabotages. They would target factories, bridges, railway lines, and became increasingly effective because a lot of these men needed to be trained. They were men who came from the towns, who had no knowledge of living this very rough and ready lifestyle and carrying arms. But they became eventually a kind of secret army in waiting in the run-up to the liberation. By 1944, it's clear that soon the Allies will return to fight on mainland Europe. And the waiting is unbearable.

The resistance declares they have a membership of 100,000, desperate to liberate France. British agents work with them to plan how they can thwart the Germans when the time comes. Sabotage plans target rail, telecoms, electricity, and enemy troops. But during the long wait, neither the Germans nor the bloodthirsty French paramilitary milice pause their hunting and execution of members of the secret networks. Finally, on the 5th of June 1944, a strange message is read on BBC Londra. This is London calling in the European News Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Here is the news. But first, here are some messages for our friends in occupied countries. The Trojan War will not be held. John is going a very long beard this week. The long sobs of the violin... This line from a French poem is the coded message the movement has been waiting for. Operation Overlord is finally underway, and the resistance begin their work.

But there are harsh battles ahead. The reality was that there were very few places in France that were solely liberated by the resistance. In some places, the Germans understood that their time had come and they simply withdrew and melted away. But there were also terrible atrocities that took place. 600 men, women and children were shot and burnt in perhaps the best known atrocity, the tragedy that took place in Oradour-sur-Glane. So the story of resistance was a very difficult one. And although many, many resistors fought bravely and gave their lives,

they did play a very important part in the liberation of the country. But the tide is turning. Now, many more French people are donning the red, white and blue armbands that proclaim they are fighting back, using whatever weapons they can find. In the hot Paris summer, liberation fever and impatience spreads. The Allies plan to focus on other areas before the less strategically important capital city. But the Parisians don't want to wait. An uprising begins on August the 18th with a general strike organized by the resistance. Two days later, barricades go up, and citizens begin to start their own battle against the Germans. The Allies divert a division to support the uprising and take the city.

It is the 23rd of August 1944, and the liberation that Parisians have awaited for more than four brutal years is almost here. The liberation that Parisians have awaited for more than four brutal years is almost here. The first French troops, led by General Leclerc, are reported to be on the outskirts of Paris. But in the city's sweltering streets, guerrilla warfare rages. Experienced resistance fighters and ordinary citizens are trying to seize back their neighborhoods from the loathed German occupiers. Lieutenant Madeleine Riffaut is at a post in the 19th arrondissement. The trainee midwife wears a floral summer dress and has her jet black hair neatly plaited down her back. But the veteran resistance activist also carries a submachine gun and wears a helmet stolen

from the Germans. also carries a submachine gun and wears a helmet stolen from the Germans. She and four men stand guard at makeshift barricades made of rubble and old furniture. By rights, Madeleine shouldn't be here at all. A week ago, she was sentenced to death for shooting a Nazi officer at point-blank range. But last night, after weeks of torture, she was released in a prisoner exchange. After a few hours' sleep, she's returned to fight with the Saint-Just Company of the Partisan Fighters, the FTP. But she didn't endure brutal Nazi captivity to end up manning a roadblock. She wants action. A field telephone rings with news of a German train

packed with troops and ammunition in their area. If it gets through, it could be a massacre. Their best hope is to stop the enemy train at a nearby bridge. Madeleine only has four men available, but they don't hesitate. They load a truck with all the ammunition they can find, German stick grenades, Molotov cocktails made by Parisian volunteers, and a box of fireworks. They navigate the roadblocks and stop at the top of the Belleville-Villette bridge. A handful of partisans have taken up position, trying to stop the German train emerging from the tunnel below. As Madeleine approaches, a resistance fighter next to her cries out. He's been shot by a German soldier down on the track. Bright red blood soaks his khaki shirt,

but Madeleine can see it's too late to help him. The French are heavily outnumbered. They have lost five men already and are almost out of ammunition, but they cannot allow this trainload of Germans to travel along the commuter line to kill more French citizens. As the train noses out of the tunnel, the French launch grenades at it from above. The driver reverses again, out of sight. During an impasse, Madeleine has an idea. What if they throw the fireworks into the tunnel?

It's a long shot, but it might convince the Germans that they are under attack from a far bigger force. With no other options left, they scramble down the embankment. Then they light and throw the fireworks, plus the remaining grenades and bottled petrol bombs, into the tunnel before retreating along the track. Against the flashes of white, yellow and orange, the resistance fighters mount a ferocious second wave.

But as they hurl the last of their cobbled together missiles, they can only hope it will be enough. Now, through the sulfurous smoke, Madeleine sees the first men emerge from the tunnel, weapons held above their heads, in surrender. More appear, blinking, their faces pale with terror. The partisans take more than eighty Germans prisoner. It's late afternoon before Madeleine's company can search the train. One carriage contains ammunition that'll help the partisans fight on. And the second is a treasure trove of delicious French food.

Cheese, charcuterie, even wine. Triumphantly, they carry some of it out, deciding they've earned a break before resuming the fight. As they picnic on the dried-out grass of the Bout-Champmont Park, Madeleine suddenly remembers the date. Today is her 20th birthday. She toasts with her comrades. But then it's time to drive to the Place de la République to use the seized German weapons against the enemy.

As the first French troops enter the city center the next night, they see burnt-out buildings and rubble everywhere. But even the destruction doesn't taint the moment of victory. The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral. They've just begun ringing about two or three minutes ago, and they're ringing a chime of thanksgiving as French troops have entered the city and we've just had a big street fight here right in the square in front of the cathedral

and now all the church bells in the city are beginning i can hear three or four more churches and i'll let you hear them One day later, at 3 p.m. on the 25th of August 1944, the German commander Dietrich von Koltitz signs a surrender agreement. Paris has finally been liberated. Even now, though, battles continue into the evening. More than 500 civilians and 1,000 resistance fighters die during the uprising. But now attention switches to celebrating victory and deciding how the liberation will be recorded in the history books.

De Gaulle himself arrived in Paris on the 25th of August at the Hotel de Ville and made a speech which underlined this French liberation of itself very dramatically. He said, Paris liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies. the help of the French armies. No mention was made of the allies who had equipped and helped and carried these French armies, but laid the basis for de Gaulle's myth that would later be told widely of France liberating itself. self. In the days after the liberation, celebration turns into a desire for revenge. The targets are the collaborators who betrayed their fellow citizens, joined the military police or benefited from Nazi occupation. Around 10,000 to 12,000 people are executed during the so-called wild purges.

Women are also targeted for so-called horizontal collaboration, sleeping with a German enemy. But many are unfairly accused. Across France, waves of head shaving took place where women were displayed in public places and often judged on the very slightest of reasons you know women might have been seen discussing with a german they might have been employed as a secretary or a translator by the Germans. And this huge wave of head shaving was perhaps one of the more uncomfortable facets of France's emergence from this period of occupation. De Gaulle very quickly set to establish proper courts and organize judgments so that justice should be

meted out to those who had collaborated in what became known as the legal purges. In the post-war years, many former resistance volunteers join the government or become teachers, nurses or volunteers overseas. The most heroic stories are turned into films and books. But far more people claim membership of the resistance than actually participated. It's estimated that between 1 and 3% of the French population were involved in the resistance. That's between 200,000 and half a million people. Perhaps 20 percent of those, up to 100,000 people, were murdered or died in concentration camps.

Other movements in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and elsewhere add to the tragic total. It's only been in recent years that historians could challenge the myths and the numbers. But whatever the statistics, the stories of extraordinary courage in the face of tyranny are the lasting legacy of the resistance and offer a message of hope for the future. Well, being someone who is steeped in this period of resistance, it feels particularly poignant at the moment with the war in Ukraine. The need for ordinary people to be courageous, to take steps, to risk their lives for what they believe in. And it reminds us that the activities of the resistance don't only pertain to France under occupation, but we also see examples of people who felt called to action in relation to the post-war civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement and dissidents in communist Eastern Europe. There are multiple examples of people who have the courage to really risk their lives

to allow us to live in freedom and comfort. And it seems to me if there's any lesson to be drawn from those courageous resistors in France, that is the lesson we should take away. Next time on Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of the Great Depression. The fact is there were a whole series of terrible things that happened to the economy over the course of some months. Any one of these would have been unfortunate and would have had negative effects.

But if you look at them all together, there's kind of a perfect storm that led to the greatest economic catastrophe that the industrialized world has ever seen. That's next time.