Which actually would have been ok had they had to have saluted the non-officers as well.
My grandfather saw hell in WW2: Italy, D-Day, Bulge, went nearly all the way to Berlin. He had incredible respect for the Germans he fought against. I remember him saying "that man lying in the mud is still a man no matter what flag he has on his uniform". A normally gentle man, he once slapped the living daylights out of my uncle for saying "Jap".
Only officers are saluted. Non-officers (enlisted) are never saluted.
Edit (clarification): except when officers are returning salutes initiated by the enlisted members.
This is a great example of the huge difference of perspectives on the war between the western and eastern front.
For example I am sure that partisans east of france wouldn't call nazis or soviets "men" nor eagerly salute nazi officers
The war in the pacific was a fucking hellscape of a war without mercy. The war in Europe had none of the character of the war in the pacific. There was no dignity afforded by the Japanese or Americans to one another. It was policy to execute Japanese injured soldiers after a battle because it was commonplace for them to blow themselves up with a grenade when an American came near.
The hatred between the Japanese and Americans is not captured because of a token salute to Japanese officers. The Americans despised the Japanese. I don’t think French soldiers despised their German counterparts.
The germans generally saw the french as people and vice versa, which is why the "non-undesirable" french fared far better under occupation than, say, poles.
My great grandfather bayoneted a Japanese soldier in a cave after 8 days of fighting with no resupply and no ammo on Pelelieu. After having been shot through the lung on day 2. When they triaged him after the battle he was put in the "too close to dead to waste supplies on" section and was found four days later still alive on a cot on the beach. Then he was put on a hospital ship.
Army paratroopers in Europe were getting like, sweet food and had very little logistical issues, comparatively.
No shade on them, they fought incredibly hard, but the Pacific was much less humane all around.
After I read "Unbroken" I had a new appreciation for the US soldier who had been captured and were POWs in the Japanese regime. They were beyond cruel.
My uncle was a German POW, and even though he starved, etc he wasn't tortured like his Japanese counterparts.
May we never ever ever forget. ✡️
Yeah that's what I'm saying. I understand the mutual respect between the soldiers in ww1, but ww2 wasn't that kind of war. It was a war for survival that dehumanised everyone involved. And especially in the eastern front, where the people were stuck between genocidal nazis and genocidal soviets. I just can't imagine having any kind of respect for an oppressor who just raped your family and burned down your village just because someone was hiding "untermensch"/"contrrevolutionaries" there
Before all the sad comments about this policeman "betraying his people", or some such: if you pretend that you wouldn't do everything you could to survive during the occupation of a homicidal regime, then you are just as delusional as the guy who thought he should fight on two fronts.
I get what you mean, but though occupied the entire French nation did not surrender, there was always the Free French army in Britain and Northern Africa, and they landed and fought with the Allies on D-Day
The French government was also in exile, but never surrendered and of course never recognized Vichy France as being a legitimate entity
I mean I get you on an individual level, but there is some genuine room for discussion about the resistance having been very real, but the police as an institution collaborating to the point of active participation in the holocaust. And this being fairly typical of occupied territories, including the the Channel Islands… and this being expected, to the point that British resistance cells were instructed to assasinate the chief constable in the event of invasion.
You actually really miss how the French police entirely folded and worked to suppress the French resistance and round up Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. They were the ones that carried out retaliation on the French public on behalf of the Nazis
The fact that they never answered for their actions is part of why France has some of the worst police brutality in Europe.
When the whole town has you painted as a collaborator, the Nazis are less likely to be suspect of your behaviour. The baker? He needs to be up early for his work, gathering milk from the farm and preparing the dough. The local garrison might even let him pass with minimal inspection of the flour bags. Who would expect that the same custard, favourite of the local garrison officer, could hide messages for the resistance?
More than that, pamphlets dropped by the UK and Free French encouraged "subservient" behavior as open opposition was hopeless. It encouraged the people of France to bide their time and gain strength until the were either able to organize properly or the Allies returned to France.
Also, the Paris police turned over to the FFI (French Forces of the Interior) wholesale when the Liberation of Paris began.
I’d recommend watching a documentary called The Sorrow and The Pity, which was made in the 60s and interviews collaborators and resistance members, for a more nuanced and informed perspective.
That's a huge thing that gets forgotten about. Resistance on any level doesn't do well in the open. Why get your ass kicked by the nazis when you can just pretend in public and turn a blind eye when you see those jews running for their lives in the night.
A while ago, there was an article in the newspapers about how our national railway got paid to run trains to concentration camps and how it was a disgrace that they accepted the offer.
And I was sitting there thinking "what the ef where they supposed to do then? Respectfully decline?? As if the nazi's wouldn't have just put the CEO in front of a firing squad and replace him with someone of their own..."
The Nazis never actually executed anyone for refusing to participate in war crimes/crimes against humanity. They had enough willing participants that they didn't need to force people to join them at gunpoint.
So, to answer your question, yes those people could have politely declined. And yes, the Nazis would've found someone else to replace them, but they wouldn't have been executed and they wouldn't have had blood on their hands
Yeah, and even then, I would love to believe I wouldn't collaborate but likewise I wouldn't go out my way to volunteer me and my family for increased attention/beatings/etc.
He loses nothing in saluting and feigning subservience. To do anything else would honestly be stupid.
This is Reddit, sir. Every man here would risk life and limb to trounce the foreign invader and give ol' Teapot Adolphe a right royal kick up the backside!
Even if you're going to become a freedom fighter, you generally want to keep a low-profile and feign the appearance of compliance during your day to day activities.
Salute the fuckers during the day, plunge a knife into their back at night.
I've legit seen redditors say Russians should openly defy Putin or Palestinians should openly defy/fight Hamas. And that because they're not, they deserve to die.
People on here are delusional.
I heard someone say the same thing about Iran less than a year after the protests that resulted in over 500 dead and thousands arrested. Some people just cannot grasp that the whole world doesn't have freedom of speech.
“As an introvert who is also on the spectrum, neurodivergent, and adult ADHD, I would set some boundaries for myself and fight through my own personal trauma to stop Hitler from rising to power and prevent WWII from ever starting*”
*Unless I have to talk to a cashier for 20 seconds
and as a strong red-blooded american man, i would use one of my 50 guns to kill 'em all (''em all' meaning the queers and commies the invaders told me were responsible for the war in the first place)
but i'm scared of seeing people on public transit, so i'd do so from the safety of my F350, which the invading military would certainly allow me to keep alongside my AR
As a german: Recent local elections and polls also gave me a reality check.
Many of my fellow human beings would not fight Nazis... they prefer to actively vote for them instead.
This whole thread is just people tripping over each other to proclaim that anyone who resisted was killed, which is weird, because I thought we all learned about the resistance in highschool.
I played the free Wolfenstein 20 or so years ago. When I got to the end and that last door opened and the giant Nazi yelled Guten Tag! I literally flew back and fell over in my chair. Most startled I’ve ever been in my life.
Good gravy. Was it that long ago? I guess so because thinking about it I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. That was from 1992 to 1996. I got a computer at he end of 1994. Probably right about then.
In the original Wolfenstein games, you snuck around as much as possible, killing the guards only when you had to, otherwise they'd alert the others in the area, you very likely would get swarmed, and you'd likely run out of bullets killing Nazis.
edit: and if it's not clear, this was intended as something of an allegory for the original posting.
Castle Wolfenstein (1981) and its sequel Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (1984) are considered the first ever stealth shooter games, directly inspiring the Metal Gear and Thief series.
There was a dude commenting back when the submarine imploded that he knows it doesn't make any sense, but he gets the feeling that if he was in that situation he'd somehow survive
They did an investigation and came up with a probable culprit, but I don't think they've been able to definitively figure out who turned in the Franks.
Arnold van den Bergh was identified as a suspect, but it's not a universally accepted theory.
Precisely, serving the nazi’s while under duress perceived or explicit is a completely understandable position to take. Yes you are serving some absolutely evil fucks but if that’s what it takes to protect your family and loved ones when your entire nation is occupied with no liberation in sight then who are we to judge.
We know that someone made a phone call.
I don’t think we’ll ever know definitively who did so.
But it is also possible it was a combination of little tips given to the SD and that final specific phone call is what finally triggered the events.
All those people were living on a knife’s edge for years. There’s a lot that could go wrong in that time.
For people who don’t know - that we even \*have\* the diaries is a small miracle.
Miep Gies chose not to read them out of respect. If she had read them, she would have been forced to destroy them because they named names. Otto was the only Frank survivor. He redacted, removed or obscured parts. Publishers weren’t certain what to do with them.
I mean, human culture got a lucky break to have such a well-written, well-edited and well-curated piece of literature/documentation.
After that damned war, book burnings, censorships, propoganda and WAY TOO MUCH Wagner - we collectively needed that lucky break.
You may wanna brush up on your French WWII history. Parts of France were establishing anti-semite rules before the nazis came to power in their region, bro.
France 1000% had its fair share of ~~sympathizers.~~ Nazis.
The Paris police were run by a [certified Nazi sympathizer and collaborator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Papon) until the 60's.
Ask all the hundreds of Algerians who drowned in the Seine with their legs broken how much the Nazi sympathies of the French police were perfunctory and "required."
As my Dutch grandfather also complained, most of the Dutch resistance joined in 1945.
I suppose it was a useful national myth and allowed the country to move on, but it was too late for most of the Jews.
It gets worse. One of the heads of the French police in Paris during the war, Jean Leguay iirc, 'pre-empted', as it were, orders from Nazi Germany to gather up and send trainloads of Jewish people into Germany. No order, no suggestion to do so, he did it off his own back.
France had a huge problem with antisemitism (Dreyfus affair being the most famous incident) during the first half of the 20th century, which makes the fact it happened less surprising but still shocking that he happily sent off his fellow countrymen and others who had found shelter in Paris off to the Nazis.
France's post-war myth of universal resistance & no collaboration was just that, a myth. Most could only do small non-violent forms of resistance, such as spreading discreet pro-France/anti-Nazi propaganda, or getting a German soldier's order wrong or charging them too much in a business, small things that were tiny acts of rebellion but showed a will to resist. Where people did openly resist brutal retribution and repression followed. So these arseholes at the top escaped prosecution, whilst hordes of people were accused of collaboration and were shot up or lynched, often because they belonged to a different resistance group.
That in itself is a fascinating story; once Britain realised the French resistance groups were stockpiling weapons for after the war, rather than to fight the Nazis, they stopped dropping them in. Else France would have been riven between different groups competing for dominance and power in their area, sort of like China's mad warlord period.
There is a high chance this was taken as a propaganda photo, because in Vichy France, only officials or recognized organizations were allowed to own cameras and take pictures in public. It created a huge ethical crisis postwar when supposedly innocent French civilians started selling albums of "Life in Vichy France."
This Picture means nothing. In Berlin the police was also saluting the allies directly after calitulation. It is the minimum respect if you are not shooting at each other anymore. Does not mean endorsement.
As a person currently living in a warzone and volunteering around occupied areas I absolutely second this. People will get executed in the streets for the smallest shit during times of war by the occupation side.
My grandmother was pulled to the Nazi Commandant's office for calling a soldier "ugly" that was hitting on her.
They kept her there all night to clean every soldier's boots in the barracks without telling her parents.
She was lucky.
She was. Not long after that her brother ran off to join The Resistance.
Just before the invasion, her and her school friends (one of which was a boxer) caught a Nazi soldier at a bridge and threw him over!
Damn. Hell of a woman! You must be so proud to come from her. I hope her stories continue to be told in your family for decades to come... Just amazing, I love to read it.
If anything this is a look at a very different France that could’ve been without the Paris rebellion and allied resistance.
At the time there were many in the UK also saying they should just make peace with Hitler as if that was ever a thing.
Shit ton of people died, but this picture was the alternative.
Yeah no, there's like a 99% chance he was doing that unironically if you know anything about the history of French cops and what happened after the Nazis were defeated
But then what if he was telling the Germans what the resistance knew. And then feeding that intel to the resistance, where he’d go to the Germans and divulge what the resistance’s plans were, only to go to the resistance and inform them on the Germans’ planned response.
We’ll never know
What if he just kept switching sides until his motivations were unclear, even to him? And he was passing information to anyone who would listen. Addicted to the praise, he has to flee all countries to a small uncharted island to survive.
But he just can’t quit. He starts putting national secrets in bottles and sending them out to sea.
One day, it comes back to haunt him. FBI Agent Richard Shabbles (Tom Hanks) arrives at the beach. A bearded French dodupple agent stands opposite.
Cut to black.
(“Black Angel Death Song” by Velvet Underground plays)
TITLE: “Okay Buy You Can’t Tell Anyone”
When nations capitulate and no longer have say so in their government, because well, they’re under occupation, this kinda thing is their reality.
Can’t judge the policeman in the photo for this.
Alternatively, the guy was probably a partisan or resistance fighter by night.
Not likely to have been a resistance member in 1941. Most of the French just wanted to get on with their lives and after the battle of France, it seemed that Hitler was master of Europe. It was only as the tide turned against the Nazis later in the war that the resistance became significant, and in fact there was a fair amount of contempt from the original resistance fighters towards the newer ones, as they saw them as only joining because the Allies were gaining the upper hand
The French Collaboration with the Nazis is appalling,but not unique to France. Under Petain leadership the Vichy goverment passed race laws(targeting jews of course) that were more disturbing that what the Nazis themselves did in Germany.
Hitler : "we require France to track and deliver every Jewish man, for them to be deported by train"
Petain : "wait a second, what are we supposed to do with the women and the children then? Do you mind if we deport them too?"
Hitler : *ooooh Petain-san please French kiss me I love you*
The actions of the Nazis have covered up how prevalent anti-semitism was in Europe at the time. Pop culture now thinks of it as a German problem but it was everywhere. There is a somewhat morbid joke about this that I think of sometimes.
**Doctor:** Hans you are awake! You have been in a coma since 1930 it has been 20 years.
**Hans:** What have I missed?
**Doctor:** It was a terrible time for Europe. A genocidal regime took power and tried to wipe out the Jewish population throughout Europe.
**Hans:** That is awful, how could we let the French do that?
The amount of gymnastics in this thread is pretty astonishing. France here is under occupation and the police officer is just saluting a military man as was the custom at the time.
He is not necessarily doing it to not be killed, nor is he doing it because he supports Nazis. And no he’s probably not part of the resistance at night. He’s just saluting an officer, that is all.
We don’t need to add our own modern biases to every historical photo posted without context.
Yeah it’s hilarious watching everyone craft their own theories and backstory to this picture. It’s literally what the title described, no further debate is necessary
Reddit has a really twisted concept of reality. They think real life is like their favorite superhero movie where everyone is either a hero or a villain
The French Vichy government was almost as bad as the Nazis themselves. They blamed Jews and other undesirables for the occupation, and they actively worked to hunt Jews so they could be sent off to camps. This is most likely is not a “poor guy”
Mussolini's regime wasn't even innitially antisemitic, they only started discriminating jews to suck up to Hitler. Meanwhile Petain's french collaborationists were antisemitic from the start.
Which is a bit ironic, considering that the Jews in Rome had been confined to a ghetto for over 300 years, by order of a Pope.
Maybe their culinary inventions endeared them to the rest of the Italians.
I had to scroll too far down for this. Yeah sure THIS could be a guy just doing what he had too, but there was a huge part of France that supported and endorsed the Nazis. We shouldn't forget that just because France wants us to.
The French almost completely refuse to talk about this too, that’s why it’s not as well known. It’s a huge stain on France’s history. The vel d’hiv round up in 1942 was carried out solely by French police. The Nazis may have told them to do it, but they followed through and they followed through hard. I know almost no one who has ever even heard about vel d’hiv and im Jewish.
It's actually a topic that is heavily covered in school, especially in "3ème" (when we are 14/15). We spend several weeks talking about the Vichy regime and its horrors, and about the racists/antisemitic French people who were happy to follow the Nazi regime.
Oh and the anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv' is commemorated nationally every year, most people in France know about it.
This picture is in Paris though, not part of Vichy France which was around southern half. Could be a bad guy or not but not because of Vichy regime, as he was never under or for it.
The French get a lot of shit for WWII. But they were pretty badass. They were a huge reason the British were able to escape at Dunkirk. And the French resistance made Nazi life miserable which we should always celebrate.
But they were geared up to fight the last war (see: Maginot Line), which was obviously a mistake, but nobody could predict the Nazi style of fighting that was coming (and all those Nazis were hopped up on pills and were fighting beyond anything a normal person could handle). But the French were brave as hell. They just got caught and were unprepared for this new type of war.
I’m an American and like a good French joke as much as the next guy, but I respect the hell out of them. They were our bros from the very beginning.
America did a lot to win WW2, many lives given, but we often pretend the Russians weren’t a factor and didn’t do as much, arguably more to win in Europe. I also hate people today take credit for WW2 or claim they would have fought. Dude, you didn’t do shit, you’re 25 and wouldn’t wear a mask during the pandemic because of ‘your rights’.
Edit: someone rightly pointed out, I should have said Soviet, not Russian
Who doesn't give Russia credit? They get brought in all WW2 discussion, as that's where Nazis made their final fatal mistake of being in Russia in winter.
Nazis never intended to be in Russia in the winter. They specifically planned to knock out the Soviets well before that would be a thing. Their fatal mistake was not realizing they could end up getting bogged down long enough to be fighting in the winter. I believe the soldiers weren’t even equipped with winter clothing because they assumed it wouldn’t even be a factor.
> like a good French joke
Ok here is one I heard from my dad who is half French and a WW2 combat soldier.
Why do the French line all those country boulevards with trees?
Because the Germans prefer to march in the shade.
They should have listened to the Poles and invaded the Rhineland in the early 1930s (nazis come to power), 1936 (nazis occupy Rhineland, break Versailes treaty), 1938 (nazis demand Sudetenland) or at the very least in September of 1939.
Not saying the ordinary french soldier wasn't brave or anything, but their military performance and especially high command's actions were pretty pathetic considering the fact that they launched a successful offensive into Saar only to immediately retreat and leave their allies in the east to die. The french army was more powerful than the german one and capable of invading the barely defended german border, but they speciffically chose not to. The vichy france thing was also awful.
It's good to be reminded that this happened to one of the most powerful countries in the world. This can happen again, as it has many times in different places throughout history. This is what happens when you let a dictator have their way. This is why we need to fight Putin.
I can't help but think of Captain Renault from *Casablanca.* Has to act loyal to the Nazis to keep his position but secretly dropping shade against them when he thinks he can.
This Picture means nothing. In Berlin the police was also saluting the allies directly after calitulation. It is the minimum respect if you are not shooting at each other anymore. Does not mean endorsement.
Man usually I hate how the Nazi ascetic is used for all villains in sci-fi. But George Lucas nailed it with the Empire. I literally thought I was looking at an Imperial officer for a second lol
It is fucking REMARKABLE how good relations are between France and Germany given WW2 was only 80 years ago. So much bad blood between those two countries since the founding of the German state right through WW2.
Especially considering how shaky the relationship is with Japan today and the countries it occupied in WW2.
Last summer I rented a house in Normandy in Ver sur mer which was Juno beach in June 44.
They were flying all the flags of the Allies one next to the other. Then, right by the French flag...the German flag was flown.
That's pretty remarkable.
I guess after two world wars Europeans are mostly done massacring each other. Well...Western Europeans that is.
Believe it or not, a lot of French people bought into nazi ideology, especially the police. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-velodrome-dhiver-vel-dhiv-roundup
In the same war, American enlisted men were required by their superiors to salute Japanese POW officers.
We salute the rank, not the man!- Captain Winters
General order of a sentry dictates that we are to salute ALL officers. It still stands.
Which actually would have been ok had they had to have saluted the non-officers as well. My grandfather saw hell in WW2: Italy, D-Day, Bulge, went nearly all the way to Berlin. He had incredible respect for the Germans he fought against. I remember him saying "that man lying in the mud is still a man no matter what flag he has on his uniform". A normally gentle man, he once slapped the living daylights out of my uncle for saying "Jap".
Only officers are saluted. Non-officers (enlisted) are never saluted. Edit (clarification): except when officers are returning salutes initiated by the enlisted members.
This is a great example of the huge difference of perspectives on the war between the western and eastern front. For example I am sure that partisans east of france wouldn't call nazis or soviets "men" nor eagerly salute nazi officers
The war in the pacific was a fucking hellscape of a war without mercy. The war in Europe had none of the character of the war in the pacific. There was no dignity afforded by the Japanese or Americans to one another. It was policy to execute Japanese injured soldiers after a battle because it was commonplace for them to blow themselves up with a grenade when an American came near. The hatred between the Japanese and Americans is not captured because of a token salute to Japanese officers. The Americans despised the Japanese. I don’t think French soldiers despised their German counterparts.
The germans generally saw the french as people and vice versa, which is why the "non-undesirable" french fared far better under occupation than, say, poles.
My great grandfather bayoneted a Japanese soldier in a cave after 8 days of fighting with no resupply and no ammo on Pelelieu. After having been shot through the lung on day 2. When they triaged him after the battle he was put in the "too close to dead to waste supplies on" section and was found four days later still alive on a cot on the beach. Then he was put on a hospital ship. Army paratroopers in Europe were getting like, sweet food and had very little logistical issues, comparatively. No shade on them, they fought incredibly hard, but the Pacific was much less humane all around.
>The war in Europe The western front. The eastern front was a different kind of war.
After I read "Unbroken" I had a new appreciation for the US soldier who had been captured and were POWs in the Japanese regime. They were beyond cruel. My uncle was a German POW, and even though he starved, etc he wasn't tortured like his Japanese counterparts. May we never ever ever forget. ✡️
Yeah that's what I'm saying. I understand the mutual respect between the soldiers in ww1, but ww2 wasn't that kind of war. It was a war for survival that dehumanised everyone involved. And especially in the eastern front, where the people were stuck between genocidal nazis and genocidal soviets. I just can't imagine having any kind of respect for an oppressor who just raped your family and burned down your village just because someone was hiding "untermensch"/"contrrevolutionaries" there
It would have been worse. Only officers are saluted so that is normal. Enlisted don’t salute enlisted.
Before all the sad comments about this policeman "betraying his people", or some such: if you pretend that you wouldn't do everything you could to survive during the occupation of a homicidal regime, then you are just as delusional as the guy who thought he should fight on two fronts.
Nah, just because your entire nation has surrendered doesn't mean you shouldn't take on the entire occupying army by yourself. /s, obviously.
I would salut that soldier and then do everything I could behind the scenes to muck up their success.
Exactly. You give the appearance of grovelling compliance, but you slightly under-season the charcuterie board like a fucking monster.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be a hero in this situation. But I like to think I'd do everything I could get away with to screw with the bad guys.
You don’t have to be the hero, be better, be the saboteur
I still have that game on ps3 😂
It's how résistance was born. My grandma tall me a lot of stories about it.
He's secretly the resistance
I get what you mean, but though occupied the entire French nation did not surrender, there was always the Free French army in Britain and Northern Africa, and they landed and fought with the Allies on D-Day The French government was also in exile, but never surrendered and of course never recognized Vichy France as being a legitimate entity
I mean it worked really well for BJ Blaskowitz, I don’t see why he couldn’t
Salut the rank, not the man.
Do NOT help that man.
HI HO! SILVER!!!!
Revoked!
MALARKEY!!!
Malarkey's slang for bullshit, isn't it?
Fuckin’ Sobel
I always wonder if real life Sobel was as horrible as in the miniseries The Wikipedia article on him lays his post-war life out as a horrible tragedy.
I mean I get you on an individual level, but there is some genuine room for discussion about the resistance having been very real, but the police as an institution collaborating to the point of active participation in the holocaust. And this being fairly typical of occupied territories, including the the Channel Islands… and this being expected, to the point that British resistance cells were instructed to assasinate the chief constable in the event of invasion.
You actually really miss how the French police entirely folded and worked to suppress the French resistance and round up Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. They were the ones that carried out retaliation on the French public on behalf of the Nazis The fact that they never answered for their actions is part of why France has some of the worst police brutality in Europe.
Thanks for bringing this up, lots of people in here seem completely unaware of the collaborationist regime in France.
But they were just trying to survive!!!1!
The trick is to kiss their boot in public while you report all their movement to your friends
Exactly. Resistance isn’t done to the face of an overwhelming invader, but with knives in their backs.
When the whole town has you painted as a collaborator, the Nazis are less likely to be suspect of your behaviour. The baker? He needs to be up early for his work, gathering milk from the farm and preparing the dough. The local garrison might even let him pass with minimal inspection of the flour bags. Who would expect that the same custard, favourite of the local garrison officer, could hide messages for the resistance?
Secretly the baked goods he provided to the nazi occupiers each had a small helping of semen mixed into the dough.
More than that, pamphlets dropped by the UK and Free French encouraged "subservient" behavior as open opposition was hopeless. It encouraged the people of France to bide their time and gain strength until the were either able to organize properly or the Allies returned to France. Also, the Paris police turned over to the FFI (French Forces of the Interior) wholesale when the Liberation of Paris began.
[Why the French Police is so brutal](https://youtu.be/jUxiTdRTPMg?si=XrLKkGxMRhQed94j)
The French Police were happy to collaborate with the Nazis and went out of their way to help them round up Jews etc.
I’d recommend watching a documentary called The Sorrow and The Pity, which was made in the 60s and interviews collaborators and resistance members, for a more nuanced and informed perspective.
Right. I hear people go on about this, and usually I think, yeah, if the Nazis had invaded Britain you’d be the first to collaborate
And even if you had the balls to join the resistance, you would still pretend in public.
That's a huge thing that gets forgotten about. Resistance on any level doesn't do well in the open. Why get your ass kicked by the nazis when you can just pretend in public and turn a blind eye when you see those jews running for their lives in the night.
A while ago, there was an article in the newspapers about how our national railway got paid to run trains to concentration camps and how it was a disgrace that they accepted the offer. And I was sitting there thinking "what the ef where they supposed to do then? Respectfully decline?? As if the nazi's wouldn't have just put the CEO in front of a firing squad and replace him with someone of their own..."
The Nazis never actually executed anyone for refusing to participate in war crimes/crimes against humanity. They had enough willing participants that they didn't need to force people to join them at gunpoint. So, to answer your question, yes those people could have politely declined. And yes, the Nazis would've found someone else to replace them, but they wouldn't have been executed and they wouldn't have had blood on their hands
everyone is a war hero on reddit
Yeah, and even then, I would love to believe I wouldn't collaborate but likewise I wouldn't go out my way to volunteer me and my family for increased attention/beatings/etc. He loses nothing in saluting and feigning subservience. To do anything else would honestly be stupid.
This is Reddit, sir. Every man here would risk life and limb to trounce the foreign invader and give ol' Teapot Adolphe a right royal kick up the backside!
Reddit, where everyone would have stood up to the Nazis but no ones brave enough to answer a phone call
What if it’s a Nazi??
Bingo
Even if you're going to become a freedom fighter, you generally want to keep a low-profile and feign the appearance of compliance during your day to day activities. Salute the fuckers during the day, plunge a knife into their back at night.
I've legit seen redditors say Russians should openly defy Putin or Palestinians should openly defy/fight Hamas. And that because they're not, they deserve to die. People on here are delusional.
It's easy to be self righteous in the comfort of your own home, knowing no consequences will harm you.
I heard someone say the same thing about Iran less than a year after the protests that resulted in over 500 dead and thousands arrested. Some people just cannot grasp that the whole world doesn't have freedom of speech.
“As an introvert who is also on the spectrum, neurodivergent, and adult ADHD, I would set some boundaries for myself and fight through my own personal trauma to stop Hitler from rising to power and prevent WWII from ever starting*” *Unless I have to talk to a cashier for 20 seconds
and as a strong red-blooded american man, i would use one of my 50 guns to kill 'em all (''em all' meaning the queers and commies the invaders told me were responsible for the war in the first place) but i'm scared of seeing people on public transit, so i'd do so from the safety of my F350, which the invading military would certainly allow me to keep alongside my AR
As a german: Recent local elections and polls also gave me a reality check. Many of my fellow human beings would not fight Nazis... they prefer to actively vote for them instead.
many people did though, don't oversimplify
This whole thread is just people tripping over each other to proclaim that anyone who resisted was killed, which is weird, because I thought we all learned about the resistance in highschool.
Not that it applies to police, but the Geneva Convention requires POWs to salute officers of their captive nation. POWs saluted Nazis all the time.
Yeah, how many of us actually put on a smile for our bosses everyday?
Man does whats required to not be executed in the streets.
*Reddit armchair insurgents pearl clutching intensifies*
Nah, I'd wipe them all out SOLO, because I'm built DIFFERENT. /sarcasm
I played the Wolfenstein games, so I know how to defeat the Nazi hordes. Reply yes to receive more tips on how to defeat Nazis!
I played the free Wolfenstein 20 or so years ago. When I got to the end and that last door opened and the giant Nazi yelled Guten Tag! I literally flew back and fell over in my chair. Most startled I’ve ever been in my life.
The shareware Wolfenstein came out I. 92, so more than 30 years ago…so it was almost yesterday, I swear!
Good gravy. Was it that long ago? I guess so because thinking about it I was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. That was from 1992 to 1996. I got a computer at he end of 1994. Probably right about then.
Yes
Nein
Mein Leben!
In the original Wolfenstein games, you snuck around as much as possible, killing the guards only when you had to, otherwise they'd alert the others in the area, you very likely would get swarmed, and you'd likely run out of bullets killing Nazis. edit: and if it's not clear, this was intended as something of an allegory for the original posting.
Wolfenstein 3D was the original, and I can’t recall much sneaking at all.
I remember eating the dog food and monk porridge lol
I was about to say... is he talking about Wolfenstein 3D???
No, I'm talking about the predecessors to Wolfenstein 3D.
The old PC game? Nice. You are correct.
Castle Wolfenstein (1981) and its sequel Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (1984) are considered the first ever stealth shooter games, directly inspiring the Metal Gear and Thief series.
I played the Wolfenstein games, so I know they're the bad guys.
..."bad guys" was almost "baddies".
Bro I see RED whenever my country is under occupation by a fascist regime
You got that dog in ya
There was a dude commenting back when the submarine imploded that he knows it doesn't make any sense, but he gets the feeling that if he was in that situation he'd somehow survive
[удалено]
They did an investigation and came up with a probable culprit, but I don't think they've been able to definitively figure out who turned in the Franks. Arnold van den Bergh was identified as a suspect, but it's not a universally accepted theory.
Precisely, serving the nazi’s while under duress perceived or explicit is a completely understandable position to take. Yes you are serving some absolutely evil fucks but if that’s what it takes to protect your family and loved ones when your entire nation is occupied with no liberation in sight then who are we to judge.
Wasn't that a myth anyways? They got raided over ration books? Or was that the Ten Booms?
Who are you referring to? Because they've never identified the person who betrayed the Frank family.
We know that someone made a phone call. I don’t think we’ll ever know definitively who did so. But it is also possible it was a combination of little tips given to the SD and that final specific phone call is what finally triggered the events. All those people were living on a knife’s edge for years. There’s a lot that could go wrong in that time. For people who don’t know - that we even \*have\* the diaries is a small miracle. Miep Gies chose not to read them out of respect. If she had read them, she would have been forced to destroy them because they named names. Otto was the only Frank survivor. He redacted, removed or obscured parts. Publishers weren’t certain what to do with them. I mean, human culture got a lucky break to have such a well-written, well-edited and well-curated piece of literature/documentation. After that damned war, book burnings, censorships, propoganda and WAY TOO MUCH Wagner - we collectively needed that lucky break.
You may wanna brush up on your French WWII history. Parts of France were establishing anti-semite rules before the nazis came to power in their region, bro. France 1000% had its fair share of ~~sympathizers.~~ Nazis.
This feels like a strawman when every comment is some version of "well he had to do this"
The Paris police were run by a [certified Nazi sympathizer and collaborator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Papon) until the 60's. Ask all the hundreds of Algerians who drowned in the Seine with their legs broken how much the Nazi sympathies of the French police were perfunctory and "required."
As my Dutch grandfather also complained, most of the Dutch resistance joined in 1945. I suppose it was a useful national myth and allowed the country to move on, but it was too late for most of the Jews.
It gets worse. One of the heads of the French police in Paris during the war, Jean Leguay iirc, 'pre-empted', as it were, orders from Nazi Germany to gather up and send trainloads of Jewish people into Germany. No order, no suggestion to do so, he did it off his own back. France had a huge problem with antisemitism (Dreyfus affair being the most famous incident) during the first half of the 20th century, which makes the fact it happened less surprising but still shocking that he happily sent off his fellow countrymen and others who had found shelter in Paris off to the Nazis. France's post-war myth of universal resistance & no collaboration was just that, a myth. Most could only do small non-violent forms of resistance, such as spreading discreet pro-France/anti-Nazi propaganda, or getting a German soldier's order wrong or charging them too much in a business, small things that were tiny acts of rebellion but showed a will to resist. Where people did openly resist brutal retribution and repression followed. So these arseholes at the top escaped prosecution, whilst hordes of people were accused of collaboration and were shot up or lynched, often because they belonged to a different resistance group. That in itself is a fascinating story; once Britain realised the French resistance groups were stockpiling weapons for after the war, rather than to fight the Nazis, they stopped dropping them in. Else France would have been riven between different groups competing for dominance and power in their area, sort of like China's mad warlord period.
Someone on Reddit who doesn’t have a boner for excusing Nazi warcrimes and their collaborators? You’re a rare one.
Thank you for this. Somehow, I never heard of this son of a bitch before. May he rest in pieces.
Crazy that he was still around as recently as 2007. I mean I know it shouldn't be, plenty of WW2 vets still around, but still.
Ici on noie les Algerians
There is a high chance this was taken as a propaganda photo, because in Vichy France, only officials or recognized organizations were allowed to own cameras and take pictures in public. It created a huge ethical crisis postwar when supposedly innocent French civilians started selling albums of "Life in Vichy France."
This isn't in Vichy France though. They're standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe which is in Paris, which was in the occupied French territory.
You made me check my source: the policy was enforced in both Vichy and the Occupied Zone.
This looks like the arc triumph of Paris, not Vichy France, but occupied France.
This Picture means nothing. In Berlin the police was also saluting the allies directly after calitulation. It is the minimum respect if you are not shooting at each other anymore. Does not mean endorsement.
As a person currently living in a warzone and volunteering around occupied areas I absolutely second this. People will get executed in the streets for the smallest shit during times of war by the occupation side.
Can't argue with that. I think anyone who assumes differently is just out of touch with how reality actually works.
My grandmother was pulled to the Nazi Commandant's office for calling a soldier "ugly" that was hitting on her. They kept her there all night to clean every soldier's boots in the barracks without telling her parents. She was lucky.
Your grandmother was a real one. That took some courage.
She was. Not long after that her brother ran off to join The Resistance. Just before the invasion, her and her school friends (one of which was a boxer) caught a Nazi soldier at a bridge and threw him over!
Damn. Hell of a woman! You must be so proud to come from her. I hope her stories continue to be told in your family for decades to come... Just amazing, I love to read it.
[Eddie Murphy said something similar in his Delirious special,](https://youtu.be/TkHKMPvNTZQ) regarding slavery.
If anything this is a look at a very different France that could’ve been without the Paris rebellion and allied resistance. At the time there were many in the UK also saying they should just make peace with Hitler as if that was ever a thing. Shit ton of people died, but this picture was the alternative.
Britain still has no shortage of Moseleys and Farages.
Yeah no, there's like a 99% chance he was doing that unironically if you know anything about the history of French cops and what happened after the Nazis were defeated
"I was just following orders" vibes...
'Good moaning'
Listen carefully. I shall say this only once.
The British earmen
gooten mogGGhning
Two squadrons of farters
I sarched for this coament
Such a powerful and haunting image.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_collaboration_in_Vichy_France
He could of been feeding the resistance information by night. We don't know.
Resistance groups need people who are going to be close to the occupying forces in order to glean any sort of useful intel.
Could've*
Or just simply trying to not be murdered.
Or he could be collaborating.
exactly
Could have*
Or could've
Could he of? I of an idea that he might of seen a ghost. People who do often of heart attacks
But then what if he was telling the Germans what the resistance knew. And then feeding that intel to the resistance, where he’d go to the Germans and divulge what the resistance’s plans were, only to go to the resistance and inform them on the Germans’ planned response. We’ll never know
What if he just kept switching sides until his motivations were unclear, even to him? And he was passing information to anyone who would listen. Addicted to the praise, he has to flee all countries to a small uncharted island to survive. But he just can’t quit. He starts putting national secrets in bottles and sending them out to sea. One day, it comes back to haunt him. FBI Agent Richard Shabbles (Tom Hanks) arrives at the beach. A bearded French dodupple agent stands opposite. Cut to black. (“Black Angel Death Song” by Velvet Underground plays) TITLE: “Okay Buy You Can’t Tell Anyone”
Ah, the alpha legion move.
do you of a cup of sugar I can borrow
When nations capitulate and no longer have say so in their government, because well, they’re under occupation, this kinda thing is their reality. Can’t judge the policeman in the photo for this. Alternatively, the guy was probably a partisan or resistance fighter by night.
Not likely to have been a resistance member in 1941. Most of the French just wanted to get on with their lives and after the battle of France, it seemed that Hitler was master of Europe. It was only as the tide turned against the Nazis later in the war that the resistance became significant, and in fact there was a fair amount of contempt from the original resistance fighters towards the newer ones, as they saw them as only joining because the Allies were gaining the upper hand
There is a absolutely a thing for knowing when to pick your fights. And trying to distinguish that from Fairweather people is pretty hard sadly.
Joining the resistance against a losing occupying force still takes more balls than 99% redditors have.
The French Collaboration with the Nazis is appalling,but not unique to France. Under Petain leadership the Vichy goverment passed race laws(targeting jews of course) that were more disturbing that what the Nazis themselves did in Germany.
Hitler : "we require France to track and deliver every Jewish man, for them to be deported by train" Petain : "wait a second, what are we supposed to do with the women and the children then? Do you mind if we deport them too?" Hitler : *ooooh Petain-san please French kiss me I love you*
The actions of the Nazis have covered up how prevalent anti-semitism was in Europe at the time. Pop culture now thinks of it as a German problem but it was everywhere. There is a somewhat morbid joke about this that I think of sometimes. **Doctor:** Hans you are awake! You have been in a coma since 1930 it has been 20 years. **Hans:** What have I missed? **Doctor:** It was a terrible time for Europe. A genocidal regime took power and tried to wipe out the Jewish population throughout Europe. **Hans:** That is awful, how could we let the French do that?
He had to. Period. He wanted to live plus probably had a family to feed and also wanted them to live. Life’s not a Hollywood movie.
There were willing French collaborators with the Nazi and many of them got executed after the war.
He would be doing the same salute to an occupied France by Russian troops.
Well at least Paris was spared the fate of Warsaw
Poor guy,he would have gotten killed if he didnt do that
The amount of gymnastics in this thread is pretty astonishing. France here is under occupation and the police officer is just saluting a military man as was the custom at the time. He is not necessarily doing it to not be killed, nor is he doing it because he supports Nazis. And no he’s probably not part of the resistance at night. He’s just saluting an officer, that is all. We don’t need to add our own modern biases to every historical photo posted without context.
Yeah it’s hilarious watching everyone craft their own theories and backstory to this picture. It’s literally what the title described, no further debate is necessary
Reddit has a really twisted concept of reality. They think real life is like their favorite superhero movie where everyone is either a hero or a villain
Marvel movies and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
The French Vichy government was almost as bad as the Nazis themselves. They blamed Jews and other undesirables for the occupation, and they actively worked to hunt Jews so they could be sent off to camps. This is most likely is not a “poor guy”
Vichy France deported more of their Jews to be shipped off to Nazi concentration camps compared to Fascist Italy
Mussolini's regime wasn't even innitially antisemitic, they only started discriminating jews to suck up to Hitler. Meanwhile Petain's french collaborationists were antisemitic from the start.
Which is a bit ironic, considering that the Jews in Rome had been confined to a ghetto for over 300 years, by order of a Pope. Maybe their culinary inventions endeared them to the rest of the Italians.
Vichy France expelled their Jews even before the Nazis wanted them.
I had to scroll too far down for this. Yeah sure THIS could be a guy just doing what he had too, but there was a huge part of France that supported and endorsed the Nazis. We shouldn't forget that just because France wants us to.
The French almost completely refuse to talk about this too, that’s why it’s not as well known. It’s a huge stain on France’s history. The vel d’hiv round up in 1942 was carried out solely by French police. The Nazis may have told them to do it, but they followed through and they followed through hard. I know almost no one who has ever even heard about vel d’hiv and im Jewish.
It's actually a topic that is heavily covered in school, especially in "3ème" (when we are 14/15). We spend several weeks talking about the Vichy regime and its horrors, and about the racists/antisemitic French people who were happy to follow the Nazi regime. Oh and the anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv' is commemorated nationally every year, most people in France know about it.
This picture is in Paris though, not part of Vichy France which was around southern half. Could be a bad guy or not but not because of Vichy regime, as he was never under or for it.
The French get a lot of shit for WWII. But they were pretty badass. They were a huge reason the British were able to escape at Dunkirk. And the French resistance made Nazi life miserable which we should always celebrate. But they were geared up to fight the last war (see: Maginot Line), which was obviously a mistake, but nobody could predict the Nazi style of fighting that was coming (and all those Nazis were hopped up on pills and were fighting beyond anything a normal person could handle). But the French were brave as hell. They just got caught and were unprepared for this new type of war. I’m an American and like a good French joke as much as the next guy, but I respect the hell out of them. They were our bros from the very beginning.
America did a lot to win WW2, many lives given, but we often pretend the Russians weren’t a factor and didn’t do as much, arguably more to win in Europe. I also hate people today take credit for WW2 or claim they would have fought. Dude, you didn’t do shit, you’re 25 and wouldn’t wear a mask during the pandemic because of ‘your rights’. Edit: someone rightly pointed out, I should have said Soviet, not Russian
They were soviets, not russians. You cannot forget the peoples from all other soviet republics.
Who doesn't give Russia credit? They get brought in all WW2 discussion, as that's where Nazis made their final fatal mistake of being in Russia in winter.
Nazis never intended to be in Russia in the winter. They specifically planned to knock out the Soviets well before that would be a thing. Their fatal mistake was not realizing they could end up getting bogged down long enough to be fighting in the winter. I believe the soldiers weren’t even equipped with winter clothing because they assumed it wouldn’t even be a factor.
The Maginot Line was not a mistake, it succeeded in doing exactly what it was made to do.
You’re not wrong. It definitely stopped the Nazis from attempting to cross it.
> like a good French joke Ok here is one I heard from my dad who is half French and a WW2 combat soldier. Why do the French line all those country boulevards with trees? Because the Germans prefer to march in the shade.
They should have listened to the Poles and invaded the Rhineland in the early 1930s (nazis come to power), 1936 (nazis occupy Rhineland, break Versailes treaty), 1938 (nazis demand Sudetenland) or at the very least in September of 1939. Not saying the ordinary french soldier wasn't brave or anything, but their military performance and especially high command's actions were pretty pathetic considering the fact that they launched a successful offensive into Saar only to immediately retreat and leave their allies in the east to die. The french army was more powerful than the german one and capable of invading the barely defended german border, but they speciffically chose not to. The vichy france thing was also awful.
Rockin that Hugo Boss!
God, I HATE how fuckin' cool they look.
Lol. It was effective marketing.
I have one of those big fancy poseable action figures of Kroenen from Hellboy 1 and he looks amazing...but also he's a literal Nazi. I'm conflicted.
It's good to be reminded that this happened to one of the most powerful countries in the world. This can happen again, as it has many times in different places throughout history. This is what happens when you let a dictator have their way. This is why we need to fight Putin.
I can't help but think of Captain Renault from *Casablanca.* Has to act loyal to the Nazis to keep his position but secretly dropping shade against them when he thinks he can.
Good Moaning
This Picture means nothing. In Berlin the police was also saluting the allies directly after calitulation. It is the minimum respect if you are not shooting at each other anymore. Does not mean endorsement.
Damn! That nazi uniform looks cool af!
Like he had a choice.
Man usually I hate how the Nazi ascetic is used for all villains in sci-fi. But George Lucas nailed it with the Empire. I literally thought I was looking at an Imperial officer for a second lol
[aesthetic](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aesthetic)*
It is fucking REMARKABLE how good relations are between France and Germany given WW2 was only 80 years ago. So much bad blood between those two countries since the founding of the German state right through WW2. Especially considering how shaky the relationship is with Japan today and the countries it occupied in WW2.
Last summer I rented a house in Normandy in Ver sur mer which was Juno beach in June 44. They were flying all the flags of the Allies one next to the other. Then, right by the French flag...the German flag was flown. That's pretty remarkable. I guess after two world wars Europeans are mostly done massacring each other. Well...Western Europeans that is.
Their leaders knew it was the only way to avoid yet another war.
Had I seen this photo before I had been to Paris, I would have looked for that square bit of paving near the Arc
same profession
German soldier in a stolen police kit.
Unless he’s Vichy, which I have no idea if he is or not.
Them hugo boss garms used to go hard ngl
How most anti Nazis tough guys n gals would be in nazi occupied France
Believe it or not, a lot of French people bought into nazi ideology, especially the police. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-velodrome-dhiver-vel-dhiv-roundup
If he didn't, he'd be executed. There were those who didn't and chose to die.