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The Invasion Of Nazi Germany

Decent Essays

The invasion and subsequent takeover of France during World War II by Nazi Germany was a multi-pronged attack that was built on a combination of swift and prolonged attacks of psychologic and combative violence. Psychological violence was the Nazi’s intentional erosion of French identity, values, sense of community and morality. The spread of information through newspapers and radios was crucial to the morality and organization of the people and the Resistance and thus a primary target of the Nazis. Germany pulled the puppet strings of the Vichy Regime to manipulate society particularly through the use of the preexisting police force while gradually modifying the logic and focus of the force for their own gains. The combative violence of …show more content…

But such wide spread death across different strata of society brewed hatred and distrust among the general public. This destroyed any raptor the Nazi might have built while showing that few were truly safe. This is particularly true of Nazi retaliations that seem out of proportion and illogical. Consider the train ‘attack’ by Resistance individuals in the small town of Ascq. At night, a small charge was detonated that temporarily delayed a train carrying troops and equipment. Though there was no physical damage, this was a heavy psychologic blow to the already agitated Nazi Germans. Such a bottleneck along the track would have exposed the entire assembly to farther attacks, disrupted schedules elsewhere and left the soldiers abandoned in, now, enemy territory. The Nazi retaliation was brutal. Per the newly adjusted regulations, nearest village was sacked and all the adult males were rounded up and massacred at the end of the train. Nazi responses was quick and merciless carried out in a matter of hours after the original attack. The actions of the soldiers was explained away by the governments as acts of self-defense. As Robert Gildea stated “At Ascq, the first reaction to the massacre of 2 April I944 was a wave of hatred of the Germans. The word 'atrocities' was now on everyone's lips in a way it had not been since 1914-18, and there was a sense that the barbarities of the war raging in the east were now moving to the west.” Here was a concrete, undeniable example of brutality of Nazi Germany. It quickly became a recruiting point for Resistance groups. The death on all the males of a village including a vicar and curate could not be readily hidden away. No longer could the general public avoid the reports of other Nazi atrocities in other countries. And so, Resistance grew into more ‘everyday’

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