Not Really Very "Gay Pareee" Under Nazis

Many are not happy with the claim of a new book (probably to boost sales a bit) that Paris under German Occupation was the scene of a big romp, particularly many survivors of the  occupation, including some who fought in the Resistance. I doubt that the whole truth cannot be known: how much debauchery versus how much suffering (and in many cases the debauchery or the sex was really suffering and punishment). War and all the things that attend its ugly presence is the fruit of sin. War is hell? Well, maybe just a foretaste.

Comments

[Josh]

I'd be interested in reading the book to see how much the claims may have been sensationalized. After all, simply claiming there was a lot of sex going on is very different from claiming it was one big romp. The rape of Nanking included lots of sex, but I doubt you'll find too many who think it was a pleasant time for the Chinese women involved. While the Nazis weren't nearly as barbaric to the occupied French, one still has to wonder how much freedom the average Frenchwoman felt to say no to a German soldier.

[Stuart Koehl]

Well, France under the occupation is a very sorry place. For one thing, the French were not at all of one mind about the Nazis, which is one reason why they lost in 1940. A good many Frenchmen saw in Nazi ideology the means of saving France from itself (meaning, in detail, from Jews, communists, democrats and other undesirables, mainly Jews). About a third of the French people were actively pro-Vichy. About another third were anti-Nazi, and a third were just keeping their heads down. Of the anti-Nazi third, only a relative handful were active in the resistance, and the resistance itself was divided between Communists and Gaullists, who spent considerable time fighting each other (and occasionally ratting each other out to the Nazis).

A very large proportion of the French population collaborated with the occupiers, either out of conviction or for profit. French factories provided the Wehrmacht with a high proportion of its trucks and wheeled vehicles, munitions and ordnance. French wheat filled German bakeries. The Germans tended to pay for what they wanted, so life was pretty good. And German Landsers, Kriegsmariners and Luftflieger were really very, very attractive in those spiffy uniforms. Unlike in China and Korea, no one was forcing French women into prostitution (though there was a lot of that): a lot were giving it up for free. Look at all those shaved heads on Liberation Day.

Of course, they were all Boche, and therefore to be despised, but while they are here, and in charge, why not get along. Vive le plus fort!

The exploits of the Resistance were greatly exaggerated by Allied propaganda and post-War French apologetics. Militarily, the Resistance was a minor annoyance, except in some isolated parts of the Midi. Elsewhere, its attempts at sabotage were pathetic, and its greatest value to the Allies was in providing intelligence. The Germans were very good at penetrating Resistance bands, rolling them up like a wet rug.

After D-Day, when the French saw which way the wind was blowing, thousands flock to the FFI (French Forces of the Interior), and because it was easier to get arms and other equipment to them, they became a valuable adjunct to the Allied armies.

After the War, it became de rigeur in France to insist that one was "in the resistance" (just like Jean Paul Satre!), although pressed for details, the maitre d'hotel at a fancy restaurant might concede that his sabotage consisted of overcharging les Boches for bad vintage; a demi-mondaine might admit to having given German solders a dose of the clap. Fact is, most French were not in the Resistance, and a good many French were quite happy to cooperate with the Germans as long as the Germans were winning.

When the Americans took over the occupation in August-September 1944, it is interesting that the French were almost more aggressive in their resistance to the Americans than they were to the Germans. After the big liberation parties had passed through, French civilians in the rear areas constantly pilfered U.S. supplies, tapped into U.S. fuel pipelines (at a time when U.S. forces were sputtering to a halt for lack of fuel), and occasionally took potshots at U.S. troops. it is safe to say that the GIs and the Frogs cordially hated one another, as can be seen in letters and diaries written at the time.

Paradoxically, GIs initially liked the German civilians a lot better than the French. The Germans were much more like the Americans; clean, hardworking, industrious, orderly. The Germans gave the U.S. occupiers a lot less grief than the French, which made prevention of "fraternization" practically impossible. Only after U.S. forces began overrunning concentration camps did GI attitudes towards the Germans become radically negative.

Paul Fussell recounts the following anecdote in his book, "The Boys Crusade":

The absence of appropriate hate of the enemy always bothered Eisenhower; he knew that plenty of hatred was aimed at the Japanese, who had directly attacked Americans on their own soil, but that American soldiers were not prepared to cultivate similar feelings toward the Germans who had done them no great physical harm. Leaving Ohrdruf [concentration camp], Ike asked one GI, "Still having trouble hating them?" The answer the GIs would give him now was "No, sir!"

[Joe Long]

“It is disturbing to know that while the Jews were being deported, the French were making love. But that is the truth.”

A partial truth, of course. But I don't expect the French had much more trouble turning a blind eye to Jewish deportations than the civilian Germans did, to Jewish arrests in Germany. I've read German accounts of the occupation which fall more in line with this book than with the standard picture; indeed, the French joke about how many supposed Resistance members joined the Resistance sometime after the war. The French anti-collaborator, like the German anti-Nazi, was the brave exception. Most went along, perhaps with quiet misgivings or frustrated resentment - or perhaps sometimes caught up in the heady excitement of it all.

The article speaks of women "with husbands in the prison camps" cavorting with Germans - no mention of the Vichy French, Germany's French allies we had to defeat in North Africa. Perhaps even this work has some topics it considers taboo...

[Art Deco]

I would not take Paul Fussell too seriously.

The current issue of Journal of Economic History has an article on the degree to which the domestic product of France was appropriated by the German occupier in accordance with the 1940 armistace, along with figures on the caloric intake of the population during these years and the availability of fuel and other staples. It is a melancholy tale.

[Bobby Neal Winters]

Stuart,
According to my Uncle Dave who is 90 ("Help, I am talking and I can't shut-up") the French resistance were main folks who had their knives drawn on working. Is that true? (Does it remain true with the word "resistance" removed?)

[Stuart Koehl]

I only use Fussell as an example, though his "Wartime" and "Boys Crusade" are quite good. One can look at any number of other studies, including those by the U.S. Army itself (Stouffer, et al., "The American Soldier")--they all say much the same thing. As to how much of the French GDP was appropriated by the Nazis, it was, undoubtedly,a one-sided deal. That does not take away from the fact that it was a deal many Frenchmen embraced enthusiastically.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>the French resistance were main folks who had their knives drawn on working.<<<

I'm not entirely sure what this means, Bobby.

[Ethan C.]

>>>the French resistance were main folks who had their knives drawn on working.<<<

Is that some Kansan idiom?

[Tim]

Stuart,
I'd be curious to learn about how other peoples have done under occupation. The third with 'em, third agin 'em and third who can't be or are too scared to be bothered sounds like it could match many occupations. I suppose it'd be more likely (more "natural") that more people would be against the occupiers the more "foreign" they are (increasing with differences in language, religion, race, maybe in that order?). Tory, rebel, and other in 1775 America? Collaborator, zealot, other in Roman occupied Palestine? And how about the populations that have been under our occupation? Germans, Japanese, Iraqi? For all the bad press our "occupation" gets, I'm surprised, really, that things aren't worse, given the differences between us and the Iraqis vis-a-vis language, religion and race seem to be so stacked against what one would imagine the chances of a "successful" occupation to be. In the back of my mind, I've always harbored the thought and hope that for every Abu Ghraib there are hundreds of interactions that Iraqis have with, yes, stressed American troops who, particularly in comparison to the would be Al Qaeda or sectarian occupiers, nevertheless dispaly via their actions (and lack of actions) an overall level of respectable behavior that is honorable, even to our enemies (I'm thinking here about the kind of lingering liking of a foe that is, for example, reportedly in the hearts of so many former enemy Vietnamese). Suppose that would be labeled wishful thinking by some, but I do know not all occupiers are the same. Finally, I wonder how we'd do under occupation? Your thoughts?

[JBC]

My mother grew up in prewar (WW II) France. She was 18 when France fell. Based on the stories she told meI think the attitudes in France were conditioned by the horror of WW I.

She recalled in the prewar years there being dinner table discussions about Hitler and how something should be done. At that time she recalled that the official word in the news in the news was "Hitler is someone we can do business with."

She also recalled the horror experienced by her uncles when they would discuss their WW I experiences. The uncles were careful to close the doors and not allow the children to listen. She recounted how once she listened to them through the door. One uncle recounted how when they were at the trenches they were served mashed potatoes with rice. Being French and appreciating good cooking he thought what a horrid combination even for the army. He looked closer and saw that it wasn't rice it was maggots, then he realised the maggots were falling from the trench walls. He then looked closer and saw that the trench was dug into dirt intermingled with bodies and human parts.

Another time one uncle declared he would never let his son serve in the military. He would sooner shoot his son in the foot and take his place than have his son see what he saw.

My mother had aunts who did not marry because there were no men and uncles who did not marry as a consequence of their wounds.

I believe that without understanding the horrors of WWI the French response in WW II cannot be understood.

My mother experienced the war largely as a time of prolonged privation. She was strafed once. There had been partisan activity in the vicinity of the village. As retaliation the Germans selected four men at random in the village and hanged them. The villagers were ordered to leave the bodies hanging until they rotted.

The villagers took them down and buried them. The entire village turned out. Within the hour of the burials the village was strafed and bombed.

[Stuart Koehl]

The American Revolution seems to have been the quintessential 33-33-33% conflict. In the Civil War, there were many parts of the Confederacy where Unionist sentiment was in the majority, to the point that there were de facto insurgencies going on in the back country of Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia (the western part of which actually sesseeded to become West Virginia). A similar situation occurred in West Texas, where several hundred Union sympathizers were actually executed for treason to the Confederacy (and Texas).

Yet after the War ended, opposition to Union reconstruction was almost unanimous, the only people actively supporting it being freed blacks and a small number of Southern whites who understood that collaboration was the fastest way to get readmission to the Union. Yet they were so villified in popular opinion that their reputations have never recovered. The vast majority of Southern whites opposed reconstruction, but their opposition was mainly passive--with the notable exception of the Ku Klux Klan. Yet the Klan was quickly suppressed once it became too overt a threat to Union domination, and in the end a policy of reconciliation allowed the Southern power structure to reassert itself, to the detriment of the black population.

Looking back through history, the success or failure of an occupation depends on a number of variables, the most important of which is whether the occupied people (a) see any hope of expelling the occupiers; and (b) whether the occupation provides them with material and emotional benefits they would not have absent the occupation.

Thus, the Romans were the world's most successful occupiers, because (a) their ruthless and incredibly efficient military machine was generally perceived as invincible; and (b) once they had occupied a region, they actively sought to coopt the ruling elite by exposing them to the benefits of "Romanitas". It worked, first in Italy, then in Sicily and Spain, then in Greece and Asia, then in Gaul and Britain.

Sure, there were period rebellions, generally brought on by malfeasance or misadministration by corrupt governors, but these were both few and far between, and generally suppressed within a year or so. Because we live in a Judeo-Christian culture, the clash between the Romans and the Jews takes on a higher priority than it otherwise would, and also endows that struggle with a gloss of heroism that isn't all that justified by the facts.

The fact is Judea had been ruled by foreigners from the 6th through the 2nd centuries BC (first the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Macedonians, the Ptolemies, then the Selucids), and Jewish independence dates only to the Hasmonean dynasty, which proved, in the long term, incapable of providing stability and good governance, which is why, when Pompey the Great made Judea a Roman client state, the move was welcomed by most of the citizens. When Julius Caesar elevated the Herodian clan to client kingship, that, too, was welcomed. Contrary to what we think about Herod from the Bible, his reign was considered good and highly successful by the majority of his subjects, Jews and gentiles alike. All benefited from his building program and administrative reforms; most took pride in the increased status of his kingdom as his reign progressed. Herod was opposed mainly by religious militants among the Jews who opposed Roman rule on theological grounds, and whose eschatological worldview did not take into account what the Soviets used to call "the correlation of forces".

Yet, in the first half of the first century, this group, consisting mainly of a few schools of Pharisees, was an insignificant minority, and Herod remained both in control and popular among the people until his death. The Jewish elites, including his close relations ("Better Herod's pig than Herod's son"), who were involved in palace intrigues and felt Herod's wrath, had a slightly different perspective.

When Herod died, the kingdom was awarded to his son, Archelaus, but he so mismanaged things (he had all of Herod's viciousness without any of his competence or political skill) that the Jews themselves petitioned Rome to impose direct governance. And, from about AD 6 through the late 50s, the Romans ruled Judea through a prefect with very little social unrest. Though resented for their taxation, and despised as gentiles, the Romans gave Judea what it wanted and needed--good governance, peace, law, and order. As the Monty Python sketch from "Life of Bryan" puts it, "What did Rome ever give us"?

"Sanitation"
"Roads"
"Literacy"
"Clean water"
"Law and order"

"Yeah, yeah, but besides that!"

So why did the Jews rebel, not once, but three times (twice in Judea, once in Egypt)?

Again, a combination of factors converged. The first was a series of exceptionally corrupt governors following Pontius Pilate (a relatively benign figure as such things go), who did not provide justice, security or good governance. Taken together with a prolonged drought that led to repeated crop failures, this led to an increase in messianic expectations and the emergence of the zealot movement, which believed that it could invoke the coming of the Messiah by forcing people to live within the Law, cleansing Judaism of its impurities. Frankly, they had a lot in common with the Taliban and al Qaeda. Gradually, they gained influence over other elements of society, and were able to precipitate a violent break with Rome that sucked in the High Priests and many of the Pharisees. Yet in the Jewish War, as many Jewish towns stayed loyal to Rome as rebelled against Rome, and it would appear that most of the people just wanted to get out of the way. Contrary to popular belief, the Jewish War, though bloody, did not extirpate the Jews in Judaea, nor even in Jerusalem itself. Instead, those elements that took up arms were defeated, those that submitted were protected, and within three years, Rome was again in full control of the province.

The rebellion in Alexandria in AD 117 was not the result of Roman misrule, but of long-standing tension between the Egyptian (Greek) and Jewish communities of Alexandria. That Trajan happened to be campaigning in Parthia at the time seems to have inspired the Jews of Alexandria to rebel in the hopes of attracting Parthian assistance. Bad move. However, the most significant fact about the rebellion of 117 is that it did NOT spread to Judea. Some sixty years after the Jewish War, Rome was secure enough in that province that it could move the resident legion to Egypt to assist in suppressing the rebellion.

The final Jewish revolt was Bar Kochba's Rebellion of 135, which was touched off by the rumor that Hadrian would outlaw circumcision within the Empire. Against this threat to the core of Jewish identity, Simeon bar Kosiba proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, gave himself the messianic title "bar Kochba" (Son of the Star), raised an army, and temporarily expelled the Romans from Judea (they were preoccupied once again with the Parthians). Bar Kochba was greatly aided by the support of the venerable Rabbi Akiba, who validated Bar Kochba's claims--though, significantly, he was opposed by the majority of the rabbinate ("Grass will grow through your skull, Akiba, and still he will not have come", said one rabbi in opposition).

Well, once Rome got its act together, Bar Kochba was toast (as was Akiba, who was flayed alive). This time, the Romans really did turn Judea into a desert--but once again, Jews remained, even in Jerusalem, which the Romans renamed Colonia Aelia Capitolina.

The significance of bar Kochba for us is his messianic pretensions, which drove the final wedge between Jews and Christians, since bar Kochba demanded that all Jews recognize him as Messiah, and this, of course, the Jewish Christians would not do.

From a Jewish perspective, the failure of bar Kochba fundamentally changed Judaism, which abandoned apocalyptics and messianism, and turned distinctly more pietistic in its outlook. Having had the stuffing knocked out of it three times, Judaism adapted to changed circumstances for its own survival. Normative, rabbinical Judaism actually begins about this period.

From the Roman perspective, the suppression of bar Kochba was the final resolution of the Jewish question. Judea was absorbed into Syria, becoming the sub-province of Syria Palestina. There were no more Jewish rebellions (though Jews made some serious errors of judgment in later years, such as backing Julian the Apostate and trying to ally themselves with the Persians in the early 7th century, for which they paid with more extensive legal and financial disabilities.

Looked at overall, then, Roman rule of Judea was generally peaceful and successful. The total years of warfare from 60 BC through AD 600, numbered no more than nine years, which is a remarkable record. Even that would have been avoided had the Jews been more like their pagan neighbors. As it was, their militant monotheism and eschatological world view made them )or at least a significant percentage of them) indifferent to the odds: God was on their side, and they would prevail. But, in the end, they did not. God apparently had a different plan for them.

Elsewhere in the Empire, indigenous native revolts were also few and far between. There was one in Panonia in AD 9; there was Boudicca's revolt in Britain, but once those were put down, the natives accepted assimilation and integration into the Empire (Germany had not yet been fully conquered and occupied when Arminius led Varus into an ambush in the Teutoburgerwald). Some remote Spanish tribes caused problems in the early first century, but by the middle of the second century, Spain produced an emperor. When that Emperor subdued Dacia, the province so readily accepted Roman rule that, even though the Romans were there less than two centuries, the romanitas of that country became irreversible.

Rome offered too much of a good thing. To put it in contemporary terms, Rome made its subjects an offer they could not refuse. As the Visigoth king Theodoric remarked, "Every worthy Goth aspires to be Roman, but it is a poor Roman indeed who aspires to be a Goth".

[Tim]

Thank you Stuart for the learnin' and yes, Reg's trouble rousing the rabble did come to mind.

(for those of you who don't know the Monty Python references: What have the Romans ever done for us? - hilarious!)

So, per your comments, it seems that most folks can be placated with an occupation regardless of language, religion and race differences as long as they see enough benefits of occupation coming their way?

In relation to our presence in Iraq, I wonder where your average Iraqi is sitting on this cost/benefit analysis right now? Your thoughts?

[Stuart Koehl]

it seems clear that the average Iraqi was indeed waiting to see which way the wind was blowing before committing himself one way or the other. As Saddam liked to say, given a choice between a weak horse and a strong horse, people will choose the strong horse.

Until the second half of 2007, the U.S. definitely appeared to be the weak horse. Due mainly to a faulty operational concept (we stayed in forward operating bases and sallied forth during the day in search of Jihadis) and self-imposed limitations (we deferred far too much to the Iraqi government), the U.S. did not demonstrate either the ability or the will to pacify the country, so the people hedged their bets--they were nice to us by day, nice to the terrorists by night.

Petraeus' new counter-insurgency strategy (which, by the way, everybody knew was the only way to go but was afraid to do--I even have old posts from Mere Comments going back to 2005-2006 that outline the basic idea) got our troops out of their HMMWVs and walking the beat, living with and amongst the people they were supposed to protect. The main thing was a change in emphasis: prior to the surge, our main emphasis was on "force protection"--keeping Americans from getting hurt. This was done mainly by not exposing our troops to the bad guys, which meant in turn that the bad guys had access to the civilian population. Now our emphasis is on population protection, even if it means putting our people between the bad guys and the civilians. And what's more, when we go into an area, we stay in the area, so the bad guys can't come back. That's why, initially, our casualties went up. But as the people saw we were in for the long haul, they began to cooperate with us, which meant that the insurgents no longer had sanctuaries. "Guerrillas are the fish and the people are the sea". Our strategy was simple: we are draining the sea, and the fish suffocate. The main concern right now is whether the next administration will see it through.

Because, you know, we won in Vietnam. When U.S. troops pulled out in 1973, the country was largely pacified. The ARVN were holding their own. After we got out, Congress refused to allow the U.S. to live up to its commitments under the Paris Peace Accords, which the North Vietnamese took as tacit permission to break the treaty and invade South Vietnam.

If we bolt out of Iraq in 2009, look for a repeat of this scenario. But if we hold on for another two or three years, I think we can reduce our forces to a token training and security force, and the Iraqis can stand on their own.

Won't that tick off Obama and the Kossacks?

[Stuart Koehl]

By the way, the fall of the Western Roman Empire is instructive of occupation going the other way. The barbarians came in and took political control of the state, but largely left the bureaucracy and the patrician class in place. "Under New Management", once again, though this time the new managers were not super-sophisticates offering superior culture, they were tough, hairy men offering security while leaving most of society alone. It was a bargain most Romans could accept. Thus, the barbarian kingdoms are no longer seen as a radical dislocation of Roman institutions and culture, but a continuation of them, with the superimposition of barbarian customs and rule on top. Only gradually did the old Roman culture of the West break down--the Western Empire did not so much fall as fade, so the year 476 is, like the year 1054, highly misleading but convenient for high school history teachers.

The Muslim conquest of the Near East is another example. There were never very man Arabs, so they formed a military government that ruled over the indigenous Greeks, Syrians, Copts and Jews, with the old Byzantine bureaucracy actually running the show. It was only after the 12th century that Arabs (ethnic Arabs, not Arabic speakers) became the majority in Egypt and Syria, and then only because of a massive ethnic cleansing movement in which vast numbers of Yemeni peasants were brought north to take over land confiscated from Coptic and Syrian (mainly Christian) peasants. This was done because the indigenous Christians proved politically unreliable during the Crusades.

Apparently some people living in the Middle East saw the Crusaders not as interlopers but liberators. Strange we never hear about that.

[Stuart Koehl]

By the way, I've got a lot of stuff on this on-line, if you want to use Google on me.

[Judy K. Warner]

It was bin Laden, not Saddam, who used the weak horse-strong horse idea.

In addition to Petraeus's winning strategy, our recent success has been due to the Sunni sheiks who got fed up with al Qaeda killing so many fellow Muslims and turned on them.

[Tim]

Thanks Stuart.
While reading your comment ...

>>>The main thing was a change in emphasis: prior to the surge, our main emphasis was on "force protection"--keeping Americans from getting hurt.<<<

I thought immediately of my experiences working with the SFPD a few years ago. The police have, over the years, become concerned first and foremost with force protection. Learning about their not very citizen friendly protocols (such as for conducting traffic stops with hands on pistols, etc. - understandable but not very pleasant) and their extreme reluctance to get out of the patrol cars and walk beats (also understandable but not very good for "intelligence"), I came to feel the public had to protect the police more than the police protected the public! Demographic shifts here which have moved most of our police and fire folk out of the city have not helped; "it's just a job" becomes a comfortable attitude. All this while the public thinks and expects the police to be a social worker based organization yet the structure used to train and realize police interaction is a paramilitary one. This causes paralysis to do what is necessary when you toss in a crime ridden, "traditional oppressed by the police" community and expect them to accomplish much. Hence our skyrocketing murder rates in those communities. Anyway, yes, get out there and engage and if need be, bleed for the community you want to trust you. Blood and/or the willingness to bleed for another can accomplish much, what?

PS to all: if you want to see where progressivism leads to in addressing struggling populations in stark, naked proclamation, read this S.F. schools take on racism, classism. This sort of thing (dreams of social engineering) has been in play in SF for the last few decades but it appears to have now truly assumed the throne (I and others have noticed a real sea-change here in the last year; "those in the know" aren't even pretending to listen to "those who don't" anymore). I've worked with the "oppressed" communities and have taught in the schools. The last things struggling kids and their parents need to hear from those in authority is that their troubles with academics have nothing to do with them but all to do with the unjust system. I wonder how well the Iraqis could "stand up" if we kept telling them they can't.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I thought immediately of my experiences working with the SFPD a few years ago. The police have, over the years, become concerned first and foremost with force protection. <<<

I use the analogy of policing in New York City under David Dinkins vs. Rudolph Giuliani. Under Dinkins, the cops stayed in their patrol cars, and responded to calls. They were strangers in the neighborhood, outsiders and interlopers, therefore not trusted. They showed up after a crime was committed, took names and notes, and left. Meanwhile the criminals remained in the neighborhood. Naturally, crime skyrocketed.

Under Giuliani, neighborhood policing was the order of the day. Cops got out of the cars and walked a beat. They knew the people in the neighborhood, and the people knew--and came to trust--them. Conversely, they knew who did NOT belong in the neighborhood, and therefore could keep an eye out for crimes before they happened. With nowhere to hide, and the people ratting them out, the criminals were slowly rounded up. New York is now one of the safer cities in the country, due to a very simple change in police tactics.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It was bin Laden, not Saddam, who used the weak horse-strong horse idea.<<<

Point taken.

>>>In addition to Petraeus's winning strategy, our recent success has been due to the Sunni sheiks who got fed up with al Qaeda killing so many fellow Muslims and turned on them.<<<

That was an integral part of the strategy (actually, operational method--I tend to be picky on these terminological things). The idea seems to have originated with a LT Travis Patriquin, who began organizing civilian militias in Anbar. He was later killed in action there, and the Iraqis erected a statue in his honor. Patriquin put his ideas into a marvelously funny powerpoint presentation called "How to Win in Anbar". The concept was then gradually expanded to include the entire country, with Shia groups as well as Sunnis. In any insurgency, you win when the people learn to defend themselves from the insurgents. This is what we are doing.

[Bobby Neal Winters]

>>
>>>the French resistance were main folks who had their knives drawn on working.<<<

I'm not entirely sure what this means, Bobby.
<<

They were lay-about hooligans who in a different reality would've been stealing bikes from their fellow Frenchman rather than the Germans.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>They were lay-about hooligans who in a different reality would've been stealing bikes from their fellow Frenchman rather than the Germans.<<<

They were Muslim teenagers?