How Would You Define Collaboration?

Discussion in 'General' started by smc66, Feb 9, 2005.

  1. smc66

    smc66 Member

    This is a question I've been long interested in.

    What did collaboration mean to those whose countries were ruled by an invader?

    How do you define it? Does acquiescing in foreign rule in order to keep your family fed count? Does trying to live your day to day life in order to earn a living count? Does no resistance = passive collaboration?

    I'd be interested in your views.
     
  2. CROONAERT

    CROONAERT Ipsissimus

    In my view a collaborator is a person who actively and knowingly assists the enemy, possibly for his own (real or imagined) personal gain.
     
  3. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    May I add a little first hand knowledge about this subject of collaboration?
    We had just taken the towns of Overloon and Venraij in Limburg Holland.

    I had been posted, fully armed, near a canal waiting to be picked up. Nearby there were group of young Dutch girls up to their waists in the water filled ditch. The man in charge treated them quite badly, this young Dorset fellow, not used to seeing young women being abused, told the man in charge, in a language that did not need translation to “Lay off the girls” He ignored me and continued to shout, bellow, and push the girls around.

    This time I made it quite plain I was not going to stand for this and things got ugly, I was now so angered that his stupid fellow was in dire danger of having a rifle butt between his ears. Just before I took him out, my officer got hold of me, shook me, and said this. “Leave it Sapper, it is none of our business. But we can get in the way sometimes” He then ordered me to leave the scene.

    What angered me is that these young girls had been at school when the Country was invaded, They had left school and grown a bit. Now, they were surrounded by young men, some of them nice looking fellows. Human nature being what it is, what would you expect from the mixing of groups of young people?

    I never forgot that event, and that Dutchman will never know how close he came to having his nose busted.
    sapper
     
  4. smc66

    smc66 Member

    Originally posted by CROONAERT@Feb 9 2005, 07:56 PM
    In my view a collaborator is a person who actively and knowingly assists the enemy, possibly for his own (real or imagined) personal gain.
    [post=31359]Quoted post[/post]


    I agree with this but think their are too many blurry areas. What is oactually meant by own personal gain? For example I'm a teacher, would I be deemed a collaborator if I stayed in my post and taught what I was told to teach? You are a policeman on Guernsey/Jersey who has a family to feed, do you resign and starve or do you carry on doing your duty despite the dislike of your orders?
     
  5. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    I agree with this but think their are too many blurry areas. What is oactually meant by own personal gain? For example I'm a teacher, would I be deemed a collaborator if I stayed in my post and taught what I was told to teach? You are a policeman on Guernsey/Jersey who has a family to feed, do you resign and starve or do you carry on doing your duty despite the dislike of your orders?

    if we look at WW2 and latter wars for examples, there were many who stayed at their posts in order to mitigate the excesses of the occupying forces or to active assist any resistance.

    In saying that, Peter Churchill was quoted at a RAF Historical Society seminar saying that in France at the start there were about less than 1% of the population willing to help the resistance and as the war went on then more took part but never more than 10%.
     
  6. smc66

    smc66 Member

    Does that mean the other 90% were collaborating? What I'm trying to get at is how do we as historians define when active collaboration begins and the need for personnal survival ends.
     
  7. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    A good book on this subject is "Life With the Enemy: Collaboration and Resistance in Hitler's Europe, 1939-1945," by Werner Rings. It covers every type of collaboration and resistance in detail.
     
  8. morse1001

    morse1001 Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by smc66@Feb 10 2005, 01:33 PM
    Does that mean the other 90% were collaborating? What I'm trying to get at is how do we as historians define when active collaboration begins and the need for personnal survival ends.
    [post=31372]Quoted post[/post]

    that is where it becomes a gray area, the rest interacted with the german occupiers and many did well out of the whole thing.Many french said that the Allies were much worse than the Germans
     
  9. missjoeri

    missjoeri Junior Member

    Originally posted by sapper@Feb 9 2005, 09:47 PM
    May I add a little first hand knowledge about this subject of collaboration?
    We had just taken the towns of Overloon and Venraij in Limburg Holland.

    I had been posted, fully armed, near a canal waiting to be picked up. Nearby there were group of young Dutch girls up to their waists in the water filled ditch. The man in charge treated them quite badly, this young Dorset fellow, not used to seeing young women being abused, told the man in charge, in a language that did not need translation to “Lay off the girls” He ignored me and continued to shout, bellow, and push the girls around.

    This time I made it quite plain I was not going to stand for this and things got ugly, I was now so angered that his stupid fellow was in dire danger of having a rifle butt between his ears. Just before I took him out, my officer got hold of me, shook me, and said this. “Leave it Sapper, it is none of our business. But we can get in the way sometimes” He then ordered me to leave the scene.

    What angered me is that these young girls had been at school when the Country was invaded, They had left school and grown a bit. Now, they were surrounded by young men, some of them nice looking fellows. Human nature being what it is, what would you expect from the mixing of groups of young people?

    I never forgot that event, and that Dutchman will never know how close he came to having his nose busted.
    sapper
    [post=31361]Quoted post[/post]

    Yes it may seem unpleasant how these girls were treated and in many cases it was not deserved, as you said, in many cases Cupid is to blame and these young people couldnt help falling in love with the enemy.
    However it is impossible to say for a outsider if these women perhaps deserved this treatment, for a Allied soldier its difficult to realise how much hate there was towards these women.
    Yes some fell in love even if they didnt want to, some however enjoyed being the girlfriend of the enemy, enjoyed the presents they were given, the status, the power.
    Many abused this new status, didnt mind receiving items and houses that had belonged to jews or resistance fighters.
    Many didnt mind going to parties and enjoying luxery and food while half the country was starving of hunger.
    Its hard to imagine the hate of someone who sees his children walk the streets without shoes begging for food while these girls walk by in silk stockings eating chocolate.
    For 5 years the Dutch were warning these girls...your gonna loose your hair...your sleeping with the enemy...when liberation came the hate towards the traitors, collaborators and kraut-whores was so intence that a mass slaughter was expected.
    Being abused, thrown in a ditch and having their hair cut off...it could have been much worse.

    I think its wrong to punish anyone without a trial, a change to explain themself.
    But if I had someone like that living in my street and if I had gone trough 5 years of war...I wouldnt be so sure if I would have been so good to stop people from cutting her hair.
     
  10. GUMALANGI

    GUMALANGI Senior Member

    Originally posted by CROONAERT@Feb 9 2005, 07:56 PM
    In my view a collaborator is a person who actively and knowingly assists the enemy, possibly for his own (real or imagined) personal gain.
    [post=31359]Quoted post[/post]

    I dont think word collaborator or collaboration in the context of war, should be always reffer to a negative content. In some cases, collaboration is to support the national's interest of the nation. Eg. India, when promised its independent by the British, the country collaborating in assisting the Empire with manpower.

    Indonesian First President, Soekarno, was a big time collaborator to Japanese occupational force, with the hope to freed the country from its former ruler, Duth, which he did.

    regards
     
  11. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    Don't forget that a lot of collaborators during the war were opportunists who tok advantage of society being turned upside down to get on top. Armed with authority from the Nazis, a flashy new uniform, food and a car at a time when both were in short supply, these colalborators often used that power to bully their old bosses and passing enemies. They dispensed bonhomie and brutality on a regular basis.

    Anti-Semites and right-wingers joined the Nazis out of political or racial ideology, but others just wanted a piece of the pie. Some collaborators were nutters and criminals, of course.

    Their behavior during the war led to the vicious attacks on collaborators after. The girls who were impregnated by "Les Boches" got it hard in the teeth -- their boyfriend or husband was in the bag, their standing in the community gone, their kid facing an uncertain future.

    I don't think anyone's written on the subject -- the "reverse war brides" who married German soldiers. The Channel Islands only had one, a girl who married Werner Rang, a German medic. He went back to Guernsey after the war, and worked as an ambulance driver on the island for many years, without any difficulty. But the Channel Islands occupation was fairly humane, compared to the rest of Europe.
     

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