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Resistance : the underground war against Hitler, 1939-1945 / Halik Kochanski.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation, A Division of W. W. Norton & Company, Independent Publishers Since 1923, 2022Edition: First American editionDescription: xxii, 936 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781324091653
  • 1324091657
Other title:
  • Underground war against Hitler, 1939-1945
Subject(s):
Contents:
The Shock of Defeat -- Choices -- The Clandestine Press -- Escape from Occupied Europe -- Resisters of the First Hour -- Intelligence Gathering: 1939-41 -- The Origins of SOE and OSS -- The Early Partisans -- The Mobilization of the Communists -- SOE Gets to Work -- Three SOE Operations -- The Sauckel Effect -- The Holocaust: The Christian Response -- The Holocaust: The Jewish Response -- Who is the Enemy? -- Divided Loyalties: France 1942-43 -- The Germans Hit Back -- Resistance or Civil War? The Balkans -- The Italian Surrender -- Denmark Enters the Fray -- Civil War or Resistance- The Balkans -- Challenges and Dilemmas in the East -- Intelligence: 1942- -- Preparing for D-Day -- Summer 1944: France -- Summer 1944: Other Fronts -- Uprisings: Warsaw, Paris, Slovakia -- Autumn 1944: Western Europe -- The German Retreat from the Balkans -- Nearing the End: Winter 1944-45 -- To the Bitter End: Spring 1945 -- The Aftermath.
Summary: "A monumental history that finally integrates the many resistance movements against Nazi hegemony across Europe into a single, sweeping narrative. It's almost shocking to think that now, more than seventy years after the Nazi surrender in 1945, there is not a single volume that has attempted to unify the resistance movements that convulsed Europe during the brutal years of occupation. In her extraordinary work, Resistance, Halik Kochanski does just that, creating a prodigiously researched account that becomes the first to bring these disparate histories into a single narrative. Taking us from France in the west to parts of the Soviet Union in the east, Resistance reveals why and how small bands of individuals undertook actions that could lead not merely to their own deaths, but to the destruction of their entire communities. As Kochanski demonstrates, most who joined up were ordinary people who would not have been expected-even by themselves-to become heroes. Simultaneously panoramic and heartbreakingly intimate, Resistance is an incomparable history necessary for any home library"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 940.5336 K76 Available 33111010842991
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"To resist, therefore. But how, when and where? There were no laws, no guidelines, no precedents to show the way . . ." --Dutch resister Herman Friedhoff

In every country that fell to the Third Reich during the Second World War, from France in the west to parts of the Soviet Union in the east, a resistance movement against Nazi domination emerged. And every country that endured occupation created its own fiercely nationalist account of the role of homegrown resistance in its eventual liberation. Halik Kochanski's panoramic, prodigiously researched work is a monumental achievement: the first book to strip these disparate national histories of myth and nostalgia and to integrate them into a definitive chronicle of the underground war against the Nazis.

Bringing to light many powerful and often little-known stories, Resistance shows how small bands of individuals took actions that could lead not merely to their own deaths, but to the liquidation of their families and their entire communities. As Kochanski demonstrates, most who joined up were not supermen and superwomen, but ordinary people drawn from all walks of life who would not have been expected--least of all by themselves--to become heroes of any kind. Kochanski also covers the sheer variety of resistance activities, from the clandestine press, assistance to Allied servicemen evading capture, and the provision of intelligence to the Allies to the more violent manifestations of resistance through sabotage and armed insurrection. For many people, resistance was not an occupation or an identity, but an activity: a person would deliver a cache of stolen documents to armed partisans and then seamlessly return to their normal life. For Jews under Nazi rule, meanwhile, the stakes at every point were life and death; resistance was less about national restoration than about mere survival.

Why resist at all? Who is the real enemy? What kind of future are we risking our lives for? These and other questions animated those who resisted. With penetrating insight, Kochanski reveals that the single quality that defined resistance across borders was resilience: despite the constant arrests and executions, resistance movements rebuilt themselves time and time again. A landmark history that will endure for decades to come, Resistance forces every reader to ask themselves yet another question, this distinct to our own times: "What would I have done?"

Includes bibliographical references (pages 831-916) and index.

The Shock of Defeat -- Choices -- The Clandestine Press -- Escape from Occupied Europe -- Resisters of the First Hour -- Intelligence Gathering: 1939-41 -- The Origins of SOE and OSS -- The Early Partisans -- The Mobilization of the Communists -- SOE Gets to Work -- Three SOE Operations -- The Sauckel Effect -- The Holocaust: The Christian Response -- The Holocaust: The Jewish Response -- Who is the Enemy? -- Divided Loyalties: France 1942-43 -- The Germans Hit Back -- Resistance or Civil War? The Balkans -- The Italian Surrender -- Denmark Enters the Fray -- Civil War or Resistance- The Balkans -- Challenges and Dilemmas in the East -- Intelligence: 1942- -- Preparing for D-Day -- Summer 1944: France -- Summer 1944: Other Fronts -- Uprisings: Warsaw, Paris, Slovakia -- Autumn 1944: Western Europe -- The German Retreat from the Balkans -- Nearing the End: Winter 1944-45 -- To the Bitter End: Spring 1945 -- The Aftermath.

"A monumental history that finally integrates the many resistance movements against Nazi hegemony across Europe into a single, sweeping narrative. It's almost shocking to think that now, more than seventy years after the Nazi surrender in 1945, there is not a single volume that has attempted to unify the resistance movements that convulsed Europe during the brutal years of occupation. In her extraordinary work, Resistance, Halik Kochanski does just that, creating a prodigiously researched account that becomes the first to bring these disparate histories into a single narrative. Taking us from France in the west to parts of the Soviet Union in the east, Resistance reveals why and how small bands of individuals undertook actions that could lead not merely to their own deaths, but to the destruction of their entire communities. As Kochanski demonstrates, most who joined up were ordinary people who would not have been expected-even by themselves-to become heroes. Simultaneously panoramic and heartbreakingly intimate, Resistance is an incomparable history necessary for any home library"-- Provided by publisher.

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