POTD: BREN Light Machine Guns in France 1944

@Martin Grønsdal To be fair, Poles participated in rounding up their Jewish population fairly enthusiastically during the Nazi occupation. If my memory serves me right, Poland had the largest Jewish population of any European country at the time.

@Martin Grønsdal The Red Army was sort of in the way of the Allies doing anything for Poland.

I do understand what you say about the French.

Perhaps the biggest 'loser' was Canada?

@Alex Karulin Yes, they were so enthusiastic about it that despite the threat of death, for every member of their family, Poles account for 50 % of the names in Yad Vashem for saving Jews.

That Poland had the largest population of Jews is a result of tolerant policy in medieval Poland, where they accepted Jews purged from Spain, France and Germany.

On the other hand, if my memory serves me right, there were entire Russian and Ukrainian divisions serving in Waffen SS or for the Wehrmacht. There were no Polish units in German service. While the Blue police did work during the war, it was again under threat of death and they were heavily involved in the resistance movement.

I guess your russian propaganda attempts fall on very unfertile earth.

@Martin Grønsdal The Free French came from the south, Operation Dragoon. They did help enable the Normandy breakout.

@SP mclaughlin Sure. How did that, though, compare to the Vichy service and the impact of that

@Martin Grønsdal And yet the first men to die on D-DAY were French SAS who dropped over Brittany during Operation Cooney and Dingson to stop the 150k strong German army there from reaching Normandy ...
The decision to make the Normandy landing a strictly Anglo operation, with the exception of the Commando Kieffer, was Churchill's decision ...
The Free French Forces were deployed during Operation Dragoon instead.
Anyway Britain was just as guilty as France from abandoning Czechoslovakia and Poland, but hey who the hell but Germany wanted to repeat WW1? Saying France did nothing during the war is pure ignorance as well considering French armies fought the entire war in North Africa, Italy, France all the way to Germany and certainly had more impact than Poland although the Poles did suffer far more but whatever.

@Michael Kael You must be French.

There are no drop safeties on Polish weapons.

That France did more than Poland on WWII is true, just that you did it for Germany. The Poles fought a galliant fight, had several Thermopylae and deserve a completely different place in history than France.

Maybe you can educate us on the use of ex Gestapo and Waffen SS in Algeria after WWII?

@Martin Grønsdal You mean how they scuttled the French fleet at Toulon rather than seeing it seized by the Germans, or Darlan's deal which had the entire 100k North African French army transferred to the allies?

@Michael Kael Yes, sure. And why do we even have this discussion?

France surrendered and begun almost total cooperation with Germany.

What you mention are isolated incidents.

@Michael Kael Poland is frequently named the 4th Ally.

France is 2nd - but in the other alliance; that one with Germany.

Stating that a country that was in all practical way allied with Germany had larger impact than Poland, makes me think you are French :)

@Martin Grønsdal It makes sense, statistically speaking, that the country with the largest Jewish population that was occupied, would also have the largest amount of Yad Vashem heroes. I've said nothing good about the collaboration of other ethnicities with the Nazis, including the Russians and Ukrainians - it is a shameful part of history and should not be forgotten. Here's two sources on Poles in Wehrmacht and Blue Police. Yes Wikipedia for the former is not great but it cites real sources and I don't have time to do your research for you to soothe your paranoid suspicions. Also, try to relax and stop seeing spies everywhere, you might burst a blood vessel, geez.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
https://www.google.com/amp/...

@Alex Karulin there is nothing wrong in using Wikipedia, as long as Wiki cites good references.

The "problem" about Poland is that it changed location several times in history and was reestablished as a country after 123 years. That makes huge amounts of Poles have German, Russian, Ukrainian or Lithuanian background. If you read your articles, they are not about collaboration, but mostly about conscription of Volksdeutsche. That means that new German rulers conscripted those who they deemed to be German or German enough. Remember that the German language is an official minority language in Poland even today. The same happened in parts of France and Luxemburg where Germany simply started constription of every male.

that is in stark contrast to direct collaboration of Lithuanians, Russians and Urainians that simply volunteered for German units. They also directly participated in the Holocaust, taking direct part in mass executions.

the Blue Police is under constant scrutiny in todays Poland. On one hand they couldn't stop being policemen, since the Germans would kill them. Remember that they were policemen BEFORE the war. After the fall of Poland, Germans issued orders for them to return to work, or you know what.

On the other hand, the resistance movement wanted them to stay too, as sources for info etc. It went as far as that the resistance movement never stole police weapons, as they knew the Polish cop then would be executed. That they sometimes participated in rounding up Jews, yes, they did. There are also reliable sources that suggest they also participated in 4-5 executions (of individual persons, not mass executions). But then again, even the Jewish Ghetto Police participated in the organization of the Ghetto and also in arrests.

I think it's more fair to say that these people were victims of circumstance. They wanted to live. No one, in their right mind, would ever say that the Jewish Ghetto Police all of the sudden became self hating Jews! they thought that this job would save them, but history proved them wrong.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the first sentences in your comment: I can understand parts of the reasons why in example a Lithuanian would want to be allied with Germany - to hope there would be a Lithuania after the war. Enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? What I can't understand is why a person would volunteer in mass shootings, but then again, who understands that?

@Martin Grønsdal I hear a lot of excuses for conscription of Poles, Volksdeutsche or not. Same goes for the Blue Police. Since you insist on discussing Ukrainians and Russians (weird, since my comment was about balancing out the historical perspective on France), let's say that these same excuses could've motivated those people as well - they have my family, I need to feed my family, it's the only way to survive, they are the lesser evil, etc. My point is that everyone is honorable and courageous until they encounter counter-isurgency tactics by an amoral enemy - like those people who yell about fighting for their gun rights by force if necessary. US population has been mostly spared these moral conundrums due to the Pond, giving it the luxury to act morally superior. I agree that France receives way more credit than it is due, historically for WWII. My suspicion is that US needed it as a USSR bulwark, which is hard to do with a dishonored country.

@Alex Karulin I don't understand the comparison - on one hand people pressed into service, on the other volunteers. You call these things excuses, to make it sound less understandable/credible, but they are historical facts. Imagine if you happened to have a German great grandfather and some Gestapo officer tells you to appear in front of the conscription commission. No show means that your family dies or is shipped to a camp. Not only you, your entire family. Or the same guy tells you to go back to your old job as police officer.

But I agree that we don't know how we'd behave, before experiencing a situation like that.

I don't think Americans as people act as morally superior. They are the friendliest and most welcoming people I've ever met.

While the US is a democracy (morally superior to dictatorships), politics don't always allow to choose allies. That's why the US and Europe have some friends that are not very morally superior (such as Saudi Arabia). Or that we haven't always supported morally superior leaders, to gain stability or political advantage (but then again, no country is free for any blame and a country like that has never existed either).

However, the absolute majority of people in our alliance are free and happy, pursuing whatever they want to pursue (with the above mentioned exceptions).

The alliances of Russia, on the other hand, do only contain dictatorships, where people are basically either not very free (like in Russia or Belarus) or are reduced to just ants/tools (China) or totally oppressed, both by secular and religious powers (Iran). Oh, and they are all poor, with the exception for the very few "more equal" ones.

So I guess that should Americans ever act morally superior, they have the right to do so.

But double standards exist in every system. I guess it's simply human.

If there ever was a bulwark against the USSR, I think initially West Germany filled that role. I would call West Germany as one of the "winners" of the WWII, if you understand the irony.

@Martin Grønsdal The difference between being pressed into service and volunteering due to lack of a choice is technical and irrelevant as far as morality goes. Americans, myself included, are people. People often don't realize the subtleties of someone else's situation until they experience it themselves. Americans have been spared the horror of war and ethnic cleansing on our soil in recent history. Some of us assume that because we didn't have to face unappetizing choices, we must be better morally and have the right to act accordingly, judge and give advice to those who had to face the choices. If you're European, you should be able to relate in terms of WWII and crappy personal options. I am skipping the specific Russian and Ukrainian discussion since my initial comment was not related to either country. Now, out of pure curiosity: what do you think was the reason for France's disproportionately entitled role in the post-war Europe?

@Alex Karulin The need for strong pillars in the new NATO alliance?

France was also quite capable, in industrial and economical terms.

@Martin Grønsdal You're a complete ass and an idiot. End of discussion.

@Martin Grønsdal Did you spend literally hours writing all those comments? I can see now you just hate France for some reason and try really hard to rationalize it. That's just sad. Grow up man..

@Michael Kael yeah, end of discussion

@Michael Kael no, I don't need hours to write one A4 page and I don't hate France. I've visited it several times and it's beautiful.

But your history is more questionable than average (if we only include developed and democratic countries)

@Martin Grønsdal You're just sad, you're a middle aged man not even a teenager... "More questionable than average" wtf kind of metric is that even.. Plus the comment on drop safeties wink wink, attacking me on my origins. What are you Norwegian? Is that a luxury to have no history at all?

@Michael Kael well, it doesn't hit a nerve unless it's something "there", so I guess that's why it really got to you.

remember the trial against Klaus Barbie? Jacques Vergès, Barbie's lawyer, immediately pointed out that Gestapo methods were used by the French in Algeria. Oh, and that very often those who actually used the Gestapo methods were ex-Gestapo but now in French service. That it could have been Barbie too.

How's that for being questionable?

but then again - to be more fair: France is far from the only example. There are a few shocking examples of Mossad using German officers - supposedly Otto Skorzeny. The Israelis used the Germans for other tasks than what the French required, but still - it's easy to poke fun at it.

Maybe the world isn't a nice place!

as far as Norway goes: (most) Norwegians are so naïve, that they actually don't understand history and how the past may influence the present. They still repeat Montgomery's comment to the press in 1945, that the Norwegian resistance was "second to none". What should he say? that they were shit? or irrelevant? an Englishman would never say anything like that.

@Martin Grønsdal Look up Kielce pogrom. There are two of them, 1918 and 1946. The 1946 one is a more relevant example - the whole blood libel thing, "killing Krischtuns".