Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-1945

by Halik Kochanski

🏆 Winner of the 2023 Wolfson History Prize

Anyone whose parents lived through World War II in Europe will have heard stories about the resistance to the Nazis. Heroic deeds make up the bulk of these stories, and tales of collaboration are fewer and further between. Resistance by British historian Halik Kochanski looks at the resistance to the German occupation country by country, to analyze what really happened in a very straightforward, unvarnished way.

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“It’s comprehensive, and that’s very important because a problem with history writing in general, but particularly with resistance, is that it tends to be written from a nation-centric point of view…But this was a pan-European movement and what she does really well is to identify first of all the commonalities. In all of these countries, when you look at underground resistance movements, similar things happened. They had clandestine literature, they collected intelligence, later on they started engaging in sabotage and armed conflict. All of this is happening at different moments and in different ways, but it is happening across Europe. But looking at it across Europe gives you a sense that geography, too, matters. What happens in Eastern Europe is different from Western Europe. That’s the other big takeaway from the book. The Nazis, beyond a certain point in the East, simply regarded these territories as fodder.” Read more...

The Best History Books of 2023: The Wolfson History Prize

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