Resistance Movements In Europe

From 1524 to 1526 peasant revolts were occurring throughout the German states. Many causes and responses brewed out of these revolts. One cause is from religion issues (1,3,6) , Luther’s idea of equality. Another cause is the peasant gaining power (2,8,9). As a result of these causes came out response, the most common response was riots and chaos (5,11,7). These revolts would end in thousands of rebel deaths and others are also killed.

A basic timeline of Partisan activities follows something close to the following. The first known Jewish resistance was in Belgium in 1939 with the Jewish Solidarity. These Jews joined the Belgium Army of Partisans in 1940 when Germany first started occupying Belgium. The resistance movement grew even larger when French and Greek Jews joined resistance movements in 1940 and ’41, respectively. The Eastern partisan groups sprang up beginning in June of ’41 after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. The partisans continued to fight right up to the end of the war in ’45.

The development of the allied military strategy in World War II (WWII) presented challenges for the U.S. and Great Britain as they worked together to defeat the Axis powers. First, this paper will review the environment at the time of WWII when Admiral Stark penned the “Plan Dog” memorandum and MAJ Wedemeyer’s War Defense Team put together the “Victory Plan”. Next, it will look at the advantages and disadvantages of coalition operations with supporting examples. Then, a review of two major meetings between U.S. and Great Britain will identify what strategic decisions were made and the effects they have on the war. Finally, this paper will explore the foundations of strategy (Clausewitz and Sun Tzu) by which the allied forces used and

First, the Blitz was a tactical mistake and loss of Nazi Germany. It was an operation of strategic bombing on the United Kingdom during the WWII. According to the book Glencoe World History, “At the beginning of the August of 1940, the Luftwaffe, which was the air force of Germany, launched a major offensive, bombed on the British air and naval bases, harbors, communication centers, and war industries.” However, this bombing operation motivated the British people thus they were going to fight back. Although they suffered a large casualty on their air force, the British people soon developed their radar

During the Holocaust, there were many resistance groups and people. The Jewish resistance, however, started in 1942. The people in the Jewish resistance consisted of people who were against the German and Nazis’ ways. There were not many Jews who knew what was going on or where they were going when they got on those trains but the people who knew tried to resist. They would either run away from the trains or attack the captors. Others committed suicide that way they didn’t even go to the camp to get tortured. The people that would disobey the Nazis would get a punishment, which may include additional work to more extreme, execute on the spot. ("The White Rose - A Lesson In Dissent")

During World War II, the Germans used a type of code that is almost impossible to break. They used this code to communicate between each other and would get directions of where to go and also state where their locations are through that code. What made that code unique was the way that they used it. The way their code worked would be that someone would write a letter in a machine, and then the machine would print a coded version of the message. But that was not the worst part of it. At the end of every day, they would change the key to the messages, all at the same time in a synchronized manner. The way that the Enigma machine was built made it even more complicated to understand. “There are approximately 150,000,000,000,000 - that is, 150 million million - possible combination” (Claire Ellis “Exploring the Enigma”). Alan Turing started working in a

"Peaceful resistance" is a very controversial issue in this day in age. Many Americans, if asked, probably have many varying views and opinions on what peaceful resistance is. For some it could be marching down the streets with signs, while for others its shouting their rights without causing any violence. Now to me, peaceful resistance is when one or multiples stand for what they deem right or wrong without causing any harm to others. To me this serves as a positive because not only does it allow for people to be heard, but also for others to listen. When a peaceful protest takes place often enough it is shown through the internet, social media, television, news, etc. At some point everyone will hear about it and based on what they see they

The final major European battle was Hitler’s Ardennes offensive also known as the Battle of the Bulge. The significance of the Battle of the Bulge is mostly characterized by the absence of Ultra. Hitler had undoubtedly knew the Allies were reading the Germans messages and he ordered radio silence. The Germans began using an extensive telephone and telegraph network to communicate and moving troops under the cover of night. Allied commanders had been gifted with information of almost every aspect of the enemy and had begun to rely so heavily on that information that they became overconfident. The radio silence employed assisted the Germans launch their last offensive with a high degree of surprise. There were many indications of a counter-attack collected from prisoners of war, documents,

When France surrendered to Germany on 22 Jun 1940, those who resented Germany occupation and the Vichy government formed cells that collectively were named the French Resistance. Some groups were violent in nature, aiming to hurt or kill the German occupiers; these were called maquis. Other groups used non-violent means, publishing underground newspapers and broadcasted anti-German and anti-Vichy radio programs. Many of these groups were born after the 18 Jun 1940 address by Charles de Gaulle who encouraged the French people to continue the fight against the German forces even if the nation surrendered. To take advantage of these groups, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) began infiltrating into France beginning in May 1941 to aid

The Allies used Ultra greatly throughout the course of WW2. As mentioned earlier, Ultra benefited the Allies as it provided them with information about the Axis’ powers such as locations of where they would attack next or even supply lists. The Battle of the Atlantic was an event where the use of Alan Turing’s work paid dividends. At this point, Alan Turing and his crew were now dealing with the Naval Enigma, which had been more difficult to decrypt as the naval enigma developed over the course of the war. There were several instances where the Allies were able to capture Naval Enigma settings, which benefited Turing and the code breakers as they would not have to waste time using the bombes to acquire the key settings. The Allies captured a German ship called the Krebs, which contained naval Enigma machines, and codebooks, which provided the key settings for the previous month. It was suggested that the Allies

“the keyboard for inputting letters, the scrambler unit for encrypting the letters and the lamp board for displaying the enciphered letters” (Lendl). In order to break the Enigma Machine, the code breakers had to find the daily settings that the German used and understand them. However, it is important to know that Polish cryptographers already broke the Enigma machine in 1932 as Marian Rejewski reconstructed a replica of the Enigma i.e. Bomba machine. However, Turing used Rejewski’s ideas and improved the bombe machine so that the machine could go through all the possible combinations of the Enigma rapidly (Lendl). The polish Bomba inspired Alan Turing for the construction of his own Bombe machine. The Bombe machine was crucial for the breaking of Enigma’s signals. This machine is not considered as a computer and does not perform calculation, but was designed “to carry out a systematic search to determine the following components of an Enigma key: the rotor order, the ‘rotor core starting positions’, and some of the ‘steckers’” (Carter). Due to the work of the Bletchley Park codebreakers, the United Kingdom had access to the German communications and could predict future naval attacks, this allowed the prevention of several

Does peaceful resistance to laws positively or negatively impact a free society? I think that peaceful resistance positively impacts a free society. Many people used civil disobedience to prove a point in a situation that they believe needs to be changed. There are people such as Henry Throeau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Many people say that Henry Thoreau is the backbone to civil disobedience. Thoreau was arrested in 1846 for refusing to pay six years of poll taxes in protest of slavery and the Mexican American War. Thoreau believed that individuals could be free only if their actions were true to their own beliefs, with or without the support or approval of the community. Thoreau inspired Gandhi first and then MLK to follow, but these two leaders are responding to more pressing circumstances and responding as members of subjugated classes of people sharply defined by the social markers of race and ethnicity. Another important person who used civil disobedience is the same person who said "You must be the change you wish to see in this world" -Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi used nonviolent civil disobedience to protest racial pass laws in South Africa and in India's Independence struggle, including the famous Salt

In the Mississauga City Hall from November 5th to 11th, will be shown an exhibition “Canadian Aviators Help Warsaw During the Uprising.” The exhibition was opened by the Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Toronto Grzegorz Morawski, and Mayor of Mississauga Bonnie Crombie, and a special letter was sent to all participants by the President of Poland Andrzej Duda. This is yet another edition of the exhibition prepared by the Warsaw Rising Museum and the Embassy of Canada in Warsaw, presented this time by the Consulate General in collaboration with Heritage Mississauga. The exhibition presents the history of the last flight of Halifax JP 276 A, shot down by the Germans during the flight with supplies for the fighting capital, and as well the painstaking work of experts from the Warsaw Rising Museum to identify the remains of the plane and its crew a few decades later.

One of the areas where National Socialism and World War Two affected each other’s future was seen during combat operations. The Nazis had two goals which were to expand the borders of Germany and to kill or send undesired people to concentration or death camps. Since the National Socialism dual pre-planned agenda, the Nazis were really fighting three fronts:

At the beginning, the individuals in the resistance movements of Europe had found, it very hard to make an impression of the power of the German military. However, they were quite useful in gathering intelligence for the allies. There were three resistance movements in WWII those were the Polish resistance, Yugoslav resistance, and the French resistance. In Poland, the resistance formed partisan groups that attacked German army units. The poles created the largest and most military successful resistance movement of the war. The Yugoslav resistance was quite complex, half of the region of Croatia decided to collaborate with the Nazis and were rewarded with their own puppet state. While, in other regions two resistance movements emerged, those were the communist partisans and the royalist and nationalist chetniks. Yugoslav resistance movements are