Comrade
Senior Member
8236 said:Nonsense. Sweeping generalisation. First of all, Denmark was under German civil administration. Their king even stayed on during the war. France was under military admin. Also, the Danes were considered Germanic, and so were treated far better than the French- that treatment extended to the Danish jews. That better treatment was also extended to jews in Romania, Italy, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary, at least until they came under official German occupation towards the end of the war.
But not Vichy France, which is a thing from which all French became universally despised for.
They could have certainly carried on the fight and made it very costly to Germany in the long run. Some hundreds of thousands of troops could have possible made it out to Britain and Africa, and along with every French colonies as allies the entire French fleet is at disposal. That alone is worth a year off the war and I'd even say perhaps a few millions lives, a 1943 D-Day, a unified Germany under the Allies, etc....
But France and the government under support from the people as a majority threw in with Nazi Germany and proceeded to restructure themselves as a Fascist regime well before the signing of the armistice. And thus Vichy France was born. And the entire French government under Petain who ran the entire military against Germany just shuffled over to carry on as collaborators with Germany in Southern France.
They were happy to gamble on Germanys victory, after all, if Germany had won they'd have their Vichy empire. If the Allies win they execute a few culprites and carry on like it was their fault.
No other country in WWII ever had the gall to undermine their own allies just to hedge their bets with Hitler. It's not just a matter of principle, you have to actually have sympathy with Nazi ideology.... and for France, they did.
One mere example from the massive scale of appeasement the unoccupied French chose to :
"The French photographic company Photomaton, without any prompting, offered to produced identity photographs for Jews in Germany's concentration camps."
When Germany ran short on labour, Vichy France force marched some 750,000 of its own into Germanys to work in war production and labour camps.
But really nasty part of this story is when the French under their own leaders and using French policy ronded up some 80,000 Jews and shipped them to the death campls... all without being prompted.
The French were and remiain more anti-semitic than even Germans.
And any Jew of 200,000+ refugees who tried to leave Vichy France, only a few were allowed... The rest tried to cross into Spain and the Vichy patrol spend a good deal of effort to ensure any Jew leaving for safer places, from day one, they were shot dead.
And without any prompting, the media began to encourage expressions and acts to dehumanize them, and under the same leadership of former France the French Police began to round them up and ship them to Germany for extemination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Philippe_P%E9tain#World_War_Iin willing
Just as was the case everywhere else there were collaborators and resistors, even in Denmark.
But a sovereign Vichy France knowing full well that in exchange for Jews they might get some brownie points from Hitler, well that's far worse than anything else.
Thats the main reason why Americans and the British and obviously any Jew left alive all universally loathe the French people is how they exchange our lives for their own future role alongside Germany.
And just becuase the Nazi's lost and few top officials were executed it doesn't change a thing.
Well, that is prob. because if you are American all you tend to study is the US involvement in WWII, ditto for the Russians and Brits. WWII- 1941-1945 or was it 1940-1945 or was it 1939-1945.
Well we all know that the French had to borrow a few Sherman tanks from Patton to actually liberate Paris right ahead of Patton. I mean there were far more Polish troops involved in Normandy than Free French. Which says something about the Polish that the French cant even try to mimic. The Warsaw Uprising is exactly the kind of thing the French refuse to do. Instead, they make Paris an open city . Pshaaa.
I can guarantee the Russians never had a fair shot at history with Stalin in charge of the media.
But the Brits are probably just as well versed as Americans are.
And we have access to a vast media source to provide a framework of factual and moral issues that no other country can compete with.
So Id say Americans are very well versed on the details, far more than most other nations as a whole.