On the morning of September 1, 1939, the world was suddenly ripped apart at the seams. With little warning and no provocation, the German military launched a full-scale invasion of Poland. Unleashing a new tactic known as blitzkrieg or “lightning war”, the Nazi forces hit the unsuspecting Polish defenders like a freight train. Dive bombers screamed, tanks unleashed furious salvos, and highly mobile infantry troops swarmed across the border on motorcycles. Within days, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, finally accepting the size of Adolf Hitler’s ambitions. The people of Poland defended their homes for over a month, but eventually the Polish army was beaten into submission.
The winter of 1939 and 1940 saw a lull in the fighting, but when spring arrived the Germans unleashed another offensive, this time against the Low Countries and France. Outmaneuvered and still weary from the First World War, the French found themselves between a hammer and an anvil. Forcing their way through a gap in the allied defenses, German armored divisions plowed into the French countryside. By June of 1940, they were at the outskirts of Paris. Though some French soldiers managed to escape with their British allies during the evacuation of Dunkirk, the majority of them were forced to surrender. Within six weeks, France had fallen to the German troops.
For the next four years, the people of France lived under the boot of Nazi oppression. Though Nazi forces were slowly pushed back by Russian armies in the East and cornered by British and American troops in Africa and southern Europe, France remained fully under German occupation until June 6, 1944: D Day. The allied troops that landed on the beaches of Normandy (and later in Southern France) began the violent struggle that was the liberation of France. Social memory remembers the American troops who mad up the bulk of this counter invasion as heroes; history, on the other hand, paints a different picture. In this video, we will examine the crimes committed by American GIs against the French population during WWII, and the response of the US military command to these crimes. This video is not intended to dismiss the valor shown by the allied soldiers that fought to liberate France, but rather to serve as a reminder that in war, no side is free of crimes and abuses.
#ww2 #frenchliberation #americaww2
Sources:
“R@pe By American Soldiers in WWII France,” New York Times
Von Rohr, Matthieu, “The Dark Side of GIs in Liberated France,” Spiegel International
Kehoe, James & Thomas, “Crimes Committed by U.S. Soldiers in Europe, 1945-1946,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 47, 2016.
Roberts, Mary Louise, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in WWII France.
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