The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Resistance in World War II

In the warmongering, before and during World War II, it was often downplayed or forgotten that many of the peoples of NAZI Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan resisted against their governments. The British and American authorities did not provide any support for these resisters and often engaged in words and deeds that were counterproductive to their efforts. The book The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II by Thomas Fleming details many of the words and deeds that were counterproductive to the resistance and how the Allies could have provided assistance to the resisters. A brief recap of this resistance from the Wikipedia articles on this resistance illuminates the history of this resistance:

The German resistance to Nazism was composed of many individuals and groups in Germany that were opposed to the Nazi regime engaged in resistance, including assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler or by overthrowing his regime.

German resistance was not recognized as a united resistance movement during the height of Nazi Germany, unlike the more organized efforts in other countries, such as Italy, Denmark, the Soviet Union, Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, France, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Norway. The German resistance consisted of small, isolated groups that were unable to mobilize mass political opposition. Individual attacks on Nazi authority, sabotage and the disclosure of information regarding Nazi armaments factories to the Allies, as by the Austrian resistance group led by Heinrich Maier, occurred. One strategy was to persuade leaders of the Wehrmacht to stage a coup d'état against the regime; the 20 July plot of 1944 against Hitler was intended to trigger such a coup.

It has been estimated that during the course of World War II 800,000 Germans were arrested by the Gestapo for resistance activities. It has also been estimated that between 15,000 and 77,000 of the Germans were executed by the Nazis. Resistance members were usually tried, mostly in show trials, by Sondergerichte (Special Courts), courts-martial, People's Courts and the civil justice system. Many of the Germans had served in government, the military or in civil positions, which enabled them to engage in subversion and conspiracy. The Canadian historian Peter Hoffmann counts unspecified "tens of thousands" in Nazi concentration camps who were either suspected of or engaged in opposition. The German historian Hans Mommsen wrote that resistance in Germany was "resistance without the people" and that the number of those Germans engaged in resistance to the Nazi regime was very small. The resistance in Germany included members of the Polish minority who formed resistance groups like Olimp.

The Italian resistance movement (Italian: Resistenza italiana or simply Resistenza) is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social Republic during the Second World War in Italy from 1943 to 1945. As a diverse anti-fascist movement and organisation, the Resistenza opposed Nazi Germany, as well as Nazi Germany's Italian puppet state regime, the Italian Social Republic, which the Germans created following the Nazi German invasion and military occupation of Italy by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS from 8 September 1943 until 25 April 1945.

General underground Italian opposition to the Fascist Italian government existed even before World War II, but open and armed resistance began following the German invasion of Italy on 8 September 1943: in Nazi-occupied Italy, the Italian Resistance fighters, known as the partigiani (partisans), fought a guerra di liberazione nazionale ('national liberation war') against the invading German forces; in this context, the anti-fascist partigiani of the Italian Resistance also simultaneously participated in the Italian Civil War, fighting against the Italian Fascists of the collaborationist Italian Social Republic.

The Resistance was a diverse coalition of various Italian political parties, independent resistance fighters and soldiers, and partisan brigades and militias. The modern Italian Republic was declared to be founded on the struggle of the Resistance: the Constituent Assembly was mostly composed of representatives of the parties that had given life to the Italian Resistance's National Liberation Committee. These former Italian Resistance fighters wrote the Constitution of Italy at the end of the war based on a compromissory synthesis of their Resistance parties' respective principles of democracy and anti-fascism.

Political dissidence in the Empire of Japan consisted of individual Japanese dissidents against the policies of the Empire of Japan, but there were no formal resistance groups or movements.

Much can be said as to the reasons why Imperial Japanese society had no formal resistance groups or movements, such as lack of Liberty and Freedom in society, a caste social environment, worship of the Emperor as a God, and other factors based on Japanese culture of the time. For the purposes of this article, it is only necessary to note that there were no formal resistance groups or movements in Imperial Japan.

What is important for the purposes of this article is that it is crucial to support any resistance group that opposes evil and the violations of Natural Rights. If we had done so in NAZI Germany and Fascist Italy before and during World War II, the history of this war may have been quite different. Therefore, it is important that we remember these resistance movements and learn the lessons of history if we do not support them. Thus, this article is a remembrance of those people and groups in NAZI Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan that opposed the forces of evil in their countries and a plea for support of those people who are standing up against the evils in our modern world.