WORLD WAR II

Europe

The Resistance Movement

Other Countries

Included here:

1. Austria

2. Belgium

3. Denmark

1. Austria

Gardiner, Muriel. Code Name "Mary." New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983.

Wilcox: "Adventures in the WWII Austrian underground. Basis for 'Julia' in Pentimento."

Molden, Fritz. Exploding Star: A Young Austrian against Hitler. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978. New York: Morrow, 1979.

Constantinides: The author was involved in organizing Austrian resistance to Hitler, and had contact with the Swiss, French, and U.S. intelligence services. Persico's Piercing the Reich "provides insights not contained in Molden's account."

Steinacher, Gerald. "The Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Austria, 1940-1945." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 15, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 211-221.

"Austrian Resistance was almost entirely passive: no open resistance, no partisan movement, and no leader of note produced (with the exception of [Karl] Gruber)."

2. Belgium

Bodson, Herman. Agent for the Resistance: A Belgian Saboteur in World War II. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1994.

Surveillant 3.6: "The transformation of a pacifist student into an explosives expert in the Belgian underground forms the thread of this harrowing account."

Foot, M.R.D. SOE in the Low Countries. London: HMSO, 2001.

One of the World War II events that continues to draw speculation is SOE's disaster in the Netherlands in 1942-1943. Over 40 agents were dropped into the lap of the German security forces. Speculation that London betrayed those individuals for its own purposes refuses to go away. In a "Research Note: The Dutch Affair," Intelligence and National Security 20, no. 2 (Jun. 2005): 341-343, M.R.D. Foot does his best to put an end to such speculation. SOE in the Low Countries is the official history that encompasses this episode, and Foot is adamant that incompetence, not perfidy, brought on this debacle.

Moore, Bob, ed. Resistance in Western Europe. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000,.

Foot, I&NS 16.1, finds this work to be a "useful summary of the state of research into resistance to Nazism" in Belgium, the Channel Islands, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Norway. The author has written the introductory and concluding chapters. He sides with those who argue that the "resistance was not of a great deal of use."

Rigby, Francoise Labourverie. In Defiance. London: Elek, 1960.

Wilcox says this is an "[a]cccount ... of the resistance movement in Belgium" in World War II.

3. Denmark

Haestrup, Jorgen. Secret Alliance: A Study of the Danish Resistance Movement, 1940-45. 3 vols. New York: New York University Press, 1975-1977.

Hansen, Peer Henrik. "When the Americans Came to Europe: U.S. Intelligence in Northern Europe 1943-46." American Intelligence Journal 26, no. 2 (Winter 2008-2009): 42-53.

The focus here is on OSS (in competition with the British) activities concerning Denmark during and immediately after World War II. "Mutual interest [between the United States and Denmark] created a close cooperation in 1945-46 that eventually resulted in more formal agreements about joint HUMINT and SIGINT actitivies."

Jespersen, Knud J.V. No Small Achievement: Special Operations Executive and the Danish Resistance 1940-1945. Odense, Denmark: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2002.

Peake, Studies 48.1, notes that the author worked with both SOE and Danish files and discusses competing views of the Danish resistance. In the end, Jesperson finds that SOE's most important contribution in Denmark was the impact on "restor[ing] national pride and political unity."

Lampe, David. The Savage Canary: The Story of Resistance in Denmark. London: Cassell, 1957. The Danish Resistance. New York: Ballantine, 1960. [pb]

http://www.cloakanddagger.com/dagger: "Story of one of the finest national resistance movements in WWII."

Moore, Bob, ed. Resistance in Western Europe. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000,.

Foot, I&NS 16.1, finds this work to be a "useful summary of the state of research into resistance to Nazism" in Belgium, the Channel Islands, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Norway. The author has written the introductory and concluding chapters. He sides with those who argue that the "resistance was not of a great deal of use."

Petrow, Richard. The Bitter Years: The Invasion and Occupation of Denmark and Norway, April 1940-May 1945. New York: Morrow, 1974.

Constantinides calls this an "incomplete, if good, version" of the intelligence aspects of the author's story.

Sutherland, Christine. Monica: Heroine of the Danish Resistance. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990.

Surveillant 1.2: This book is a biography of "Monica Massy Beresford Wichfield, an Irish aristocrat, educated in England and Europe," who became "a leading member of the Danish Resistance." She was eventually "betrayed & sentenced to death."

Thomas, John Oram. The Giant Killers: the Story of the Danish Resistance Movement, 1940-1945. New York: Taplinger, 1976. London: Michael Joseph, 1976.

Constantinides sees The Giant Killers as an "episodic, disconnected work wherein the author tells or lets individuals relate particular experiences." In addition, it lacks indications of sources, while relating verbatim conversations. The book should be read along with the more general account in Petrow's The Bitter Years.