THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP discussion
LAND, AIR & SEA
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Partisan Operations & Units of WW2
See my books, German Anti-Partisan Warfare, and Occupation and Insurgency. Packed with details and interviews with partisans, guerrillas, Germans, etc. you will see some interesting perspectives.
About 35 years ago I read John Armstrong's "Soviet Partisans in World War II." Unfortunately, I no longer have the book and it isn't in the Goodreads database. I thought it was the complete scholarly account of the subject, but it is about 50 years old. There has been much thorough research since then, especially in previously closed Soviet archives.
by Ben ShepherdDescription
Germany’s 1941 seizure of Yugoslavia led to an insurgency as bloody as any in World War II. The Wehrmacht waged a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in response, and by 1943 German troops in Yugoslavia were engaged in operations that ranked among the largest of the entire European war. Their actions encompassed massive reprisal shootings, the destruction of entire villages, and huge mobile operations unleashed not just against insurgents but also against the civilian population believed to be aiding them. Terror in the Balkans explores the reasons behind the Wehrmacht’s extreme security measures in southern and eastern Europe.
Ben Shepherd focuses his study not on the high-ranking generals who oversaw the campaign but on lower-level units and their officers, a disproportionate number of whom were of Austrian origin. He uses Austro-Hungarian army records to consider how the personal experiences of many Austrian officers during the Great War played a role in brutalizing their behavior in Yugoslavia. A comparison of Wehrmacht counter-insurgency divisions allows Shepherd to analyze how a range of midlevel commanders and their units conducted themselves in different parts of Yugoslavia, and why. Shepherd concludes that the Wehrmacht campaign’s violence was driven not just by National Socialist ideology but also by experience of the fratricidal infighting of Yugoslavia’s ethnic groups, by conditions on the ground, and by doctrines that had shaped the military mindsets of both Germany and Austria since the late nineteenth century. He also considers why different Wehrmacht units exhibited different degrees of ruthlessness and restraint during the campaign.
by Ben ShepherdDescription:
In Nazi eyes, the Soviet Union was the "wild east," a savage region ripe for exploitation, its subhuman inhabitants destined for extermination or helotry. An especially brutal dimension of the German army's eastern war was its anti-partisan campaign. This conflict brought death and destruction to thousands of Soviet civilians, and has been held as a prime example of ordinary German soldiers participating in the Nazi regime's annihilation policies.
Ben Shepherd enters the heated debate over the wartime behavior of the Wehrmacht in a detailed study of the motivation and conduct of its anti-partisan campaign in the Soviet Union. He investigates how anti-partisan warfare was conducted, not by the generals, but by the far more numerous, average Germans serving as officers in the field. What shaped their behavior was more complex than Nazi ideology alone. The influence of German society, as well as of party and army, together with officers' grueling yet diverse experience of their environment and enemy, made them perceive the anti-partisan war in varied ways. Reactions ranged from extreme brutality to relative restraint; some sought less to terrorize the native population than to try to win it over. The emerging picture does not dilute the suffering the Wehrmacht's eastern war inflicted. It shows, however, that properly judging ordinary Germans' role in that war is more complicated than is indicated by either wholesale condemnation or wholesale exoneration.
This valuable study offers a nuanced discussion of the diversity of behaviors within the German army, as well as providing a compelling exploration of the war and counterinsurgency operations on the eastern front.
Sounds like to very interesting books, thanks for posting the details Jerome.
Any recommendations for a bio of Tito?
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by
Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
(last edited Sep 30, 2013 01:41PM)
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Thanks Jerome I have seen a few books by Mr Shepherd but have yet to read any.
Partisan operations have never grabbed me as much as they probably should, don't know why. I also have not seen a decent bio on Tito that I can recommend, anyone else have any suggestions?
The only Bio on Tito I have read is in the Ballantine Series but I don't recall who wrote it. I also don't recall if it was all that good or not. Of course they were fairly short books and unless they were amazingly good or amazingly annoying I generally don't recall a great deal about them. I should probably break them out of the boxes they are in and reread some of them. I seem to recall that the best of the bunch was Freedom for Women...I think that was the title at any rate.
I haven't read any of these but they may be worth while checking out to see if any interest you:
by Richard West
by Milovan Djilas
by Geoffrey Swain
by Neil Barnett
by Walter R. Roberts
Okay, since I kind of despise not knowing who wrote a book I have read I looked it up. 
Tito: A Biography
It would seem that she also wrote a book called: British Policy Towards Wartime Resistance In Yugoslavia And Greece
But it looks like she hasn't written much else or it hasn't been translated into English. A sort coming of the book store site I use to do searches.
Jerome wrote: " by Ben ShepherdDescription
Germany’s 1941 seizure of Yugoslavia led to an insurgency as bloody as any in World War ..."
Good old Ben, he and I are friends from his old days teaching at the University of Birmingham in England. Now he is at my old stomping ground in Glasgow, Scotland. Good guy to work with, books are solid.
Manray9 wrote: "Any recommendations for a bio of Tito?"I've read
, but it was long enough ago that I don't remember much about it. I would remember if it was amazing or awful, so it must have been somewhere in between. Not a bio, but I also skimmed through
. Most definitely not a balanced account, but included information I haven't seen in many other places.If you're interested in a book that focuses on WWII Yugoslavia instead of Tito,
is the most comprehensive I've read. Slow reading (like a textbook), but full of good information. Or you could try
. I didn't think it was amazing, but it was OK.
Colin wrote: "Jerome wrote: " by Ben ShepherdDescription
Germany’s 1941 seizure of Yugoslavia led to an insurgency as bloody as an..."
Thanks Colin - who do you not know!
Some good books for Tito folks. I've not read anything of weight on him so will have to explore these at some stage.
This book may offer some good photographs and accounts for those members who have an interest in partisan warfare:
by Nik CornishDescription:
Between 1941 and 1944, in the war on the Eastern Front, Soviet partisans fought a ruthless underground campaign behind the German lines. During those three terrible years of occupation, they spied on the Germans, disrupted their communications, sabotaged road and rail routes and carried out assassinations and raids, and thousands of these irregular soldiers lost their lives. Yet their exploits are frequently overlooked in general histories of the conflict, and their experience of the war and their contribution to the Soviet victory are rarely recognized.
That is why Nik Cornish's collection of photographs of the Soviet partisans is a landmark in the field. In a sequence of over 150 images, most of them previously unpublished, he gives a fascinating all-round portrait of the lives of the partisans and their struggle to resist and survive in a war that was waged with almost unparalleled cruelty on both sides. In addition, in his commentary, he outlines the history of the partisans - their desperate, chaotic beginnings in the wake of the German attack, their increasing coordination, daring and effectiveness as the war went on, and the key role they played as the Germans were forced back. He also records, through the photographs, the merciless counter-measures taken by the Germans and the reprisals.
His book gives a compelling insight into one of the most important sideshows of the Second World War.
Talking about Partisan operations here are some books covering the German units involved in this horrific type of warfare:
by Christian Ingrao
by French L. MacLean
by Philip W. Blood
Often neglected in discussions of WW II partisan ops are those against Japan. Here are two interesting works:
The Jungle is Neutral by Freddie Spencer Chapman about partisan "stay behind" forces in Japanese-occupied Malaya.
Naga Path by Ursula Graham Bowers. She was an anthropologist and photographer who lived among the Naga tribesmen of Assam. During the Japanese Imphal-Kohima campaign she organized Naga scouts to conduct reconnaissance and intel-gathering against the Japanese. Slim greatly appreciated her work. She was awarded an MBE.
I almost forgot. Captain (later Vice Admiral) Milton Miles led a U.S. Navy guerrilla and intelligence gathering force in China during WW II. The group, known as SACO (Sino-American Cooperative Organization), worked closely with Chiang Kai-shek's intelligence apparatus and conducted some partisan ops with the Chinese. Their most important mission, however, turned out to be weather reporting. They set up a network of weather stations throughout Japanese-occupied China. These stations, tied to a vast radio link, provided valuable reporting in support of air strikes against Japan and Eastern China. Miles wasn't a great writer of prose, but his book is worth reading.
A Different Kind of War by Milton E. Miles.
Excellent recommendations Manray9, thanks for posting the details.
I would recommend this book. Scare but very readable account:
by Anthony IrwinMy review of the book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Geevee wrote: "I would recommend this book. Scare but very readable account: by Anthony IrwinMy review of the book: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."
I've seen this before, maybe from your review. I'll try to track down a copy.
Here'a re-issue of an older book coming out next week:
by Claudio PavoneDescription:
Claudio Pavone’s masterwork, widely recognized as the key reference on the Italian Resistance, addresses crucial issues related to the transition from fascist Italy to the postwar period, viewed from the perspective of the morality at work amongst the protagonists. In an analysis of the events between September 1943 and April 1945, Claudio Pavone distinguishes three processes: a patriotic war, a civil war and a class war—three wars that were often fought by the same actors. He thus introduces a new interpretation capable of grasping all the nuances of a historical event of great complexity.
Sounds interesting, thanks for posting the details Jerome.
This new release (June 2014) book sounds quite interesting and I am sure will attract the attention of a few group members, me included:
by Paddy AshdownDescription:
From best-selling author of ‘A Brilliant Little Operation’, winner of the British Army Military History prize and the Royal marines History prize for 2013, comes the long neglected D-Day story of the Resistance uprising and subsequent massacre on the Vercors massif – the largest action by the French Resistance during the Second World War.
In early 1941, three separate groups of plotters – one military, one political, one intellectual – began to organise and plan on and around the forbidding mountainous plateau near Grenoble – the Vercors. The aims of the groups were the same: to hasten the departure of the German occupiers; to restore the pride of France after its fall and the humiliations of the puppet Vichy government which followed; and to build a new France. The overwhelming desire to get rid of the Germans would unite them. Their different views of the France they hoped for in the future would divide them.
Over the next three years these sparks of resistance would grow to challenge the might of the hated German occupiers. As the Allied troops stormed the D-Day beaches, the Vercors rose up to fight the Nazis in a planned rearguard action. It was to prove not only the largest Resistance action of the entire war but also, in the severity of the German response, the most brutal crushing of resistance forces in Western Europe.
For the men and women of Vercors, aided and abetted by the Free French forces of General de Gaulle and SOE operatives from London, the events on the Vercors took them on a journey from early idealism through hope, misjudgement, folly, despair, sacrifice and slaughter to a kind of cruel victory. The tragedy drew the attention of those at the highest level of the Allied war effort and placed the Vercors deep into the heart of the history of modern France in a way which resonates still in the country’s daily life and politics.
Long overlooked by English language histories, this magnificent book sets the story in the context of D-Day, the muddle of politics and many misjudgements of D-Day planners in both London and Algiers, and – most importantly – it gives voice to the many Maquisards fighters who fought to gain a voice in their country’s future.
Let's take a look at "partisans" from the other side......the Werewolves of the SS were the last gasp of the Nazi regime. In the larger picture, they were a footnote but were responsible for many deaths including those of their fellow Germans who were declared "defeatists and slackers". Fascinating.The Last Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe
by Perry Biddiscombe (no photo)Synopsis:
Founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1944 when it became clear Germany would be invaded, the Werewolf guerrilla movement was given the task of slowing down the Allied advance to allow time for the success of negotiations, or "wonder weapons." Staying behind in territory occupied by the Allies, its mission was to carry out acts of sabotage, arson, and assassination, both of enemy troops and of "defeatist" Germans. Perry Biddiscombe details Werewolf operations against the British, Russians, and fellow Germans, on the Eastern and Western Fronts and in the post-war chaos of Berlin. Giving the lie to the established story of a cowed German population meekly submitting to defeat, this is a fascinating insight into what has been described as "the death scream of the Nazi regime."
Polish barricade during the uprising.
The Warsaw Uprising of 1944 — a heroic and tragic 63-day struggle to liberate World War 2 Warsaw from Nazi/German occupation. Undertaken by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK), the Polish resistance movement, at the time Allied troops were breaking through the Normandy defenses and the Red Army was standing at the line of the Vistula River.
Warsaw could have been one of the first European capitals liberated; however, various military and political miscalculations, as well as global politics — played among Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt — turned the tide against it.
The Warsaw Uprising of 1944
by Wlodzimierz Borodziej(no photo)
If anyone is in the Stockport area (Near Manchester UK) our group is presenting a lecture on the Warsaw Uprising this Monday at 8pmMore info here http://stockportmilitaria.org/calender/
Looks like a great group with those talks coming up, pity Manchester is too far for me though.
Sounds great but too far away for me as well :(
Dang - way to far away Mcrmilhist - it does really sound interesting, I really wish I could attend
An August 2015 release:
by Sergio LuzzattoDescription:
No other Auschwitz survivor has been as literarily powerful and historically influential as Primo Levi. Yet Levi was not only a victim or a witness. In the fall of 1943, at the very start of the Italian Resistance, he was a fighter, participating in the first attempts to launch guerrilla warfare against occupying Nazi forces. Those three months have been largely overlooked by Levi's biographers; indeed, they went strikingly unmentioned by Levi himself. For the rest of his life he barely acknowledged that autumn in the Alps. But an obscure passage in Levi's The Periodic Table hints that his deportation to Auschwitz was linked directly to an incident from that time: "an ugly secret" that had made him give up the struggle, "extinguishing all will to resist, indeed to live."
What did Levi mean by those dramatic lines? Using extensive archival research, Sergio Luzzatto's groundbreaking Primo Levi, Partisan reconstructs the events of 1943 in vivid detail. Just days before Levi was captured, Luzzatto shows, his group summarily executed two teenagers who had sought to join the partisans, deciding the boys were reckless and couldn't be trusted. The brutal episode has been shrouded in silence, but its repercussions would shape Levi's life.
Combining investigative flair with profound empathy, Primo Levi, Partisan offers startling insight into the origins of the moral complexity that runs through the work of Primo Levi himself.
A November 2015 release:
by Robert GildeaDescription:
The French Resistance has an iconic status in the struggle to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe, but its story is entangled in myths. Gaining a true understanding of the Resistance means recognizing how its image has been carefully curated through a combination of French politics and pride, ever since jubilant crowds celebrated Paris’s liberation in August 1944. Robert Gildea’s penetrating history of resistance in France during World War II sweeps aside “the French Resistance” of a thousand clichés, showing that much more was at stake than freeing a single nation from Nazi tyranny.
As Fighters in the Shadows makes clear, French resistance was part of a Europe-wide struggle against fascism, carried out by an extraordinarily diverse group: not only French men and women but Spanish Republicans, Italian anti-fascists, French and foreign Jews, British and American agents, and even German opponents of Hitler. In France, resistance skirted the edge of civil war between right and left, pitting non-communists who wanted to drive out the Germans and eliminate the Vichy regime while avoiding social revolution at all costs against communist advocates of national insurrection. In French colonial Africa and the Near East, battle was joined between de Gaulle’s Free French and forces loyal to Vichy before they combined to liberate France.
Based on a riveting reading of diaries, memoirs, letters, and interviews of contemporaries, Fighters in the Shadows gives authentic voice to the resisters themselves, revealing the diversity of their struggles for freedom in the darkest hours of occupation and collaboration.
Thanks, Jerome. Adding it to my tbr list!
Years ago I was surprised to read how high the WWII casualties were in Yugoslavia. The traditional conflict was over in such a short time! But the partisan warfare there was waged for many years and the Germans ruthlessly killed 10 civilians for every soldier killed by partisans. Civilian losses there were 1,400,000, fourth highest after Russia, China and Poland.Even more than Germany and Japan (except they had higher casualties when including military personnel.)
Get my book Anti-Partisan Warfare in Europe. regarding Yugoslavia, I knew Milovan Djilas, and France, Pierre Deshayes and Aaaron Bank. Look those guys up.
A September release:
by Alexander GogunDescription:
At the height of World War II, a number of Soviet partisan organizations fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union. Coordinated and controlled by the Soviet government and modeled on the Red Army, the primary objective of these “Red Partisans” was the disruption of the Eastern Front’s German rear, especially road and railroad communications. Using original Ukrainian, Russian and German sources, Gogun looks at the partisan forces operating in Ukraine. Along with Belarus, Ukraine was the first and most devastated Soviet republic, following the German invasion of 1941. The consequences of the occupation for the Ukrainian population were dire. As a result, the partisan movement spread rapidly over the occupied territory. The fighter groups, supported by the Ukrainian Partisan Movement Headquarters in Moscow, operated throughout occupied Ukraine and numbered over 150,000 combatants.
On the subject of Tito and the partisans, I'm surprised that no-one's mentioned Fitzroy Maclean's 'weighty' and meaty "Disputed Barricade": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...I'd also recommend Maclean's earlier book, "Eastern Approaches"; and to download (MP3) and listen to his choice of 'Desert Island Discs" (a long-running series on BBC Radio 4): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009mv8d
I knew Victoria MacLean, his widow, and was able to go through his papers. Very interesting man.
About the French Resistance, one of the most complicated books on WWII I ever read was about the assassination of Admiral Darlan. Don't recall the title, unfortunately, but the subject encompassed many peripheral issues from crooked business deals between Vichy French and Germany and the politics and subterfuge of the various factions.
Three excellent sources for Partisan operations in both Yugoslavia and Albania are 'OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency' by Richard Harris Smith; 'OSS and the Yugoslav Resistance 1943-1945' by Kirk Ford, Jr; and 'The OSS is World War II Albania' by Peter Lucas. Among the many interesting OSS and British SOE operatives who participated in these operations were film star Sterling Hayden (2nd Lt, USMC assigned to the OSS) and British theater star Anthony Quayle (Major, British Army, SOE). They nearly came to blows over one operation evacuating Italian prisoners out of Albania.
I cannot help but ask why the OSS was smuggling Italian prisoners out of Albania. Thanks.
Howard wrote: "I cannot help but ask why the OSS was smuggling Italian prisoners out of Albania. Thanks."Italy had initially overrun Albania and after the overthrow of Mussolini, many Italian soldiers attempted to surrender and became prisoners. They began to congregate around the OSS/SOE locations in Albania called Seaview and Grama Bay. The British and Americans referred to these starving Italian prisoners who were begging to be returned to Italy as 'scarecrows.' Sterling Hayden was running supplies from the Italian coast by sea through German-infested waters at first to Yugoslavia and then to Albania. The other part of his mission was to bring back downed Allied airmen who had been rescued by the Partisans. If they had any room on the boats, they would take back Italian prisoners, but that was a much lower priority. It was over a group of Italian prisoners that Hayden and Quayle (who both had no idea who each other was) clashed.
As an addition Lee you might be iterested in this, which also features Major Quayle:
The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle by Roderick Bailey
When you look at data on war casualties by country, Yugoslavia is way up there, top 5 I think. First thought is that the Germans completely overran the country in a week. But for the rest of the war the partisan warfare was continuous and contentious and the big number apparently was that the Nazis literally killed 10 civilians every time a German soldier was killed.
My book German Anti-Partisan Warfare covers all these countries, from interviews with participants to actual archive SOE research
message 50:
by
Geevee, Assisting Moderator British & Commonwealth Forces
(last edited Sep 07, 2015 01:07PM)
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Howard wrote: "When you look at data on war casualties by country, Yugoslavia is way up there, top 5 I think. First thought is that the Germans completely overran the country in a week. But for the rest of the wa..."Certainly the factional fighting (akin to civil war based on political and local chief standpoints and alliegences) comes across in Mr Bailey's book Howard. It struck me that being a SOE or OSS operatve would be a difficult and rough assignment as likely to end up dead through partisans (including so called friendlies) murdering you as the more formal enemy.
THE WORLD WAR TWO GROUP
Books mentioned in this topic
Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing (other topics)Terror in the Balkans: German Armies and Partisan Warfare (other topics)
Ariadne Objective (other topics)
Tito: The Story from Inside (other topics)
Terror in the Balkans: German Armies and Partisan Warfare (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Alex J. Kay (other topics)Ben Shepherd (other topics)
Ben Shepherd (other topics)
Claudio Pavone (other topics)
Philip Cooke (other topics)
More...
This thread is for group members to discuss books and events covering Partisans/Guerrillas and their operations during WW2.