Collaborationism is cooperation with the enemy against one's country in wartime.[1]
Stanley Hoffmann subdivided collaboration onto
- involuntary (reluctant recognition of necessity) and
- voluntary (an attempt of exploiting necessity).[2]
According to him, collaborationism can be subdivided onto
the former is a deliberate service to an enemy, whereas the latter is a deliberate advocacy of co-operation with the foreign force which is seen as a champion of some desirable domestic transformations.[2] In contrast, Bertram Gordon used the terms "collaborator" and "collaborationist" for non-ideological and ideological collaborations, respectively.[3]
Contents
- 1 Etymology
- 2 World War II
- 2.1 France
- 2.2 Low countries
- 2.3 Norway
- 2.4 Greece
- 2.5 Yugoslavia
- 2.6 Celebrities
- 2.7 Germany
- 3 Postwar examples
- 4 See also
- 5 Notes
- 6 References
Etymology
The term collaborate dates from 1871, and is a back-formation from collaborator (1802), from the French collaborateur as used during the Napoleonic Wars against smugglers trading with England and assisting in the escape of monarchists, and is itself derived from the Latin collaboratus, past participle of collaborare "work with", from com- "with" + labore "to work." The meaning of "traitorous cooperation with the enemy"[4] dates from 1940, originally in reference to the Vichy Government of Frenchmen who cooperated with the Germans, 1940-44.[5]
World War II
Main article: Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II
During World War II, collaborators existed in several German-occupied zones.
France
In France, a distinction emerged between the collaborateur and the collaborationniste. The latter expression is mainly used to describe individuals enrolled in pseudo-Nazi parties, often based in Paris, who had an overwhelming belief in fascist ideology or were simply anti-communists.[6] Collaborateurs on the other hand, could engage in collaboration for a number of more pragmatic reasons, such as preventing infrastructure damage for use by the occupation forces or personal ambition and greed, and were not necessarily believers in fascism per se. Arch-collaborators like Pierre Laval or René Bousquet are thus distinct from collaborationists.[7][8]
Recent research by the British historian, Simon Kitson, has shown that French authorities did not wait until the Liberation to begin pursuing collaborationists. The Vichy government, itself heavily engaged in collaboration, arrested around 2000 individuals on charges of passing information to the Germans. Their reasons for doing so was to centralise collaboration to ensure that the state maintained a monopoly in Franco-German relations and to defend sovereignty so that they could negotiate from a position of strength. It was among the many compromises that the government engaged along the way.[9]
Low countries
The collaborators in Belgium were chiefly Walloons organized into the Rexist movement.[10] There was an active collaboration movement in the Netherlands.[11]
Norway
Vidkun Quisling (1887–1945), a senior officer in the Norwegian Army and former minister of defence, served the Nazis as prime minister. He gave his name to the high profile government collaborator, now known as a Quisling.[12]
Greece
After the German invasion of Greece, a Nazi-held government was put in place. All three quisling prime ministers, (Georgios Tsolakoglou, Konstantinos Logothetopoulos and Ioannis Rallis), cooperated with the Axis authorities. Small but active Greek National-Socialist parties, like the Greek National Socialist Party, or openly anti-semitic organisations, like the National Union of Greece, helped German authorities fight the Resistance, and identify and deport Greek Jews.
Yugoslavia
Main collaborationist regime in Yugoslavia was the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet-state semi-independent of Nazi Germany. Leon Rupnik (1880–1946) was a Slovene general who collaborated as he took control of the semi-independent region of the Italian-occupied southern Slovenia known as the Province of Ljubljana, which came under German control in 1943.[13] The main collaborationist in East Yugoslavia was Serbian government with Ljotić and Chetniks Army of Draža Mihajlovic. The chetniks have killed about 200.000 people in East Bosnia during the Second World War (Dedijer, 1991)
Celebrities
High-profile collaborators included Dutch actor Johannes Heesters or English-language radio-personality William Joyce (the most widely known Lord Haw-Haw).[14]
Germany
German citizen Franz Oppenhoff accepted appointment as Mayor of the German city of Aachen in 1944, under authority of the Allied military command. He was assassinated on orders from Heinrich Himmler in 1945.[citation needed]
Postwar examples
Post-World War II Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe saw institutions and individuals collaborating with occupying Soviet forces until the Soviet-backed regimes in their countries collapsed in 1989 and 1990.
More recent examples of collaboration, according to some, have included institutions and individuals in Afghanistan who collaborated with the Soviet occupation until 1989 and individuals in Iraq and Afghanistan today who continue to work with American forces.
Among Palestinians
Palestinian lynched for allegedly collaborating with Israel in 1992.
In Palestinian society, collaboration with Israel is viewed as a serious offence and social stain[15] and is sometimes punished (judicially or extra-judicially) by death.[16] In addition, during the period of 2007–2009, around 30 Palestinians have been sentenced to death in court on collaboration-related charges, although the sentences have not been carried out.[15]
In June 2009, Raed Sualha, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, was brutally tortured and hanged by his family because they suspected him of collaborating with Israel.[16] Authorities of the Palestinian territories launched an investigation into the case and arrested the perpetrators.[17][18] Police said it was unlikely that such a young boy would have been recruited as an informer.[16]
See also
- Anti-communism
- Anti-fascism
- Chinilpa
- Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II
- Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China
- Dhimmi (pejorative sense)
- Hanjian
- Hilfspolizei
- Jash (term)
- Medism
- Opportunism
- Pursuit of Nazi collaborators
- Resistance during World War II
Notes
- ^ "Collaborationism", The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- ^ a b Stanley Hoffmann. Collaborationism in France during World War II. The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Sep., 1968), pp. 375–395
- ^ Bertram N. Gordon, Collaborationism in France during the Second World War (Cornell University Press, 1980)
- ^ collaborate in The Oxford English Dictionary Online (2014)
- ^ Webster 1999, p. 70
- ^ George Grossjohann. 2005. Five Years, Four Fronts. New York: Ballantine Books. p. 155
- ^ Philippe Burrin, France Under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise (1998)
- ^ Gerhard Hirschfeld and Patrick Marsh, eds. Collaboration in France: Politics and Culture During the Nazi Occupation 1940–1944 (1989)
- ^ Kitson 2008, p. [page needed]
- ^ Eddy de Bruyne and Marc Rikmenspoel, For Rex and for Belgium (2004)
- ^ Gerhard Hirschfeld and Louise Wilmot, eds., Nazi Rule and Dutch Collaboration: The Netherlands under German Occupation, 1940–45 (1992)
- ^ Hans Fredrik Dahl, Quisling: A Study in Treachery (2008)
- ^ Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Hitler's new disorder: the Second World War in Yugoslavia (2008) p. 142
- ^ "Nederlanderse-entertainer-sin-Duitsland". Die Welt (in Dutch). 17 April 2010. Retrieved 7 April 2011.
- ^ a b "Woman Convicted as Israeli Abettor". EXPRESS.co.uk. June 15, 2009. Retrieved 2010-01-02.
- ^ a b c "Palestinian boy 'hanged for collaboration'". BBC News. June 12, 2009. Retrieved April 30, 2010.
- ^ Khaled Abu Toameh, Palestinian family kills 15-yr-old son, Jerusalem Post 11-06-2009
- ^ Palestinian teen killed by his family, United Press International 12-06-2009
References
- Kitson, Simon (2008), The Hunt for Nazi Spies, Fighting espionage in Vichy France, Chicago: University of Chicago Press . (translation from French, Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, Paris, Autrement, 2005.)
- Littlejohn, David (1972), The Patriotic Traitors: A History of Collaboration in German-Occupied Europe, 1940-45, London: William Heinemann Ltd., ISBN 0-434-42725-X
- Sweets, John F (September 1997), "Review: La France a l'heure Allemande, 1940–1944", The Journal of Modern History (University of Chicago Press) 69 (3): 611–613, doi:10.1086/245567
- Webster, Paul (1999), Petain's Crime: The Complete Story of French Collaboration in the Holocaust, Ivan R. Dee, ISBN 1-56663-249-8
