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The Shadow War: European Resistance 1939-1945 by Henri Michel. Book review by Walter Pforzheimer
anti-American, French version,
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CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM |
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RELEASE IN FULL |
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2 JULY 96 |
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| BOOKS |
CONFIDENTIAL
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| THE SHADOW WAR: EUROPEAN RESISTANCE 1939-1945. By Henri Michel. (Harper and Row, New York, 416 pp.) |
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| This is the first publication in English of any major work by Professor Henri Michel. * He is an indefatigable worker, with a lengthy list of titles to his credit, by himself or as editor or co-author, to say nothing of numerous periodical articles. Although he was not a member of the French Resistance himself, the bulk of his writing has been in the field of the World War 11 French Resistance with occasional forays vinto resistance movements in other European countries. This reviewer has known :Michel more than 15 years, a good portion of the more than 20 years that Michel has served as the Secretary General of the official French Comite d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale. In this capacity :Michel has supervised a small staff, edited its monthly Bulletin, assembled at the Comite probably the major French library on the Resistance, and, more important, has brought together "les temoignages"-the eyewitness accounts of the activities of resisters throughout France, garnered in large measure while memories were still fresh enough to be checked and crosschecked. |
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| In addition to all this, Professor Michel presented the general report to the meeting of the First International Conference on the History of the Resistance Movements held in Belgium in 1958, as well as a similar general report to the meeting of the Second International Conference in Italy in 1961. From 1958 onward, he has served as a member of the International Committee that has steered the activities of these Conferences. Withal, he has never been a popular figure among his colleagues, although he has tended to overwhelm some of them by the sheer amount of his work; nor is he one of America's greatest admirers. |
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| The literature of Resistance in Europe in World War II started almost as soon as the war came to an end. It was largely comprised of volumes of derring-do; these still continue. Then came some good solid historical works, country by country, official and unofficial. Now we are also getting the literature of "thinkers," and in this category Michel does not shine, for he is basically a chronicler gone wrong. |
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| The historians of the Soviet Union and the Bloc have always alleged that the West did not understand the true meaning of the Resistance but utilized it primarily for military and intelligence purposes. The Bloc points out that the purely military aspects of the Resistance were comparatively unimportant, because the occupied countries knew that they would be liberated by the might of the advancing Red Armies with, perhaps, some little additional help from the other Allies. The true activity of the Resistance, the Bloc continued, was a mass uprising of the peoples of the occupied countries, generally led by the Communist parties, with the purpose of liberating the occupied countries not only from the Germans but also from their prewar oppressive rulers, whom the West hoped to restore to power for the political and economic aggrandizement of Great Britain and the United States. |
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| To the Western historian, it is obvious that the Resistance arose in Europe as a response to the German destruction of their homelands and institutions. The |
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| * La Guerre de L'Ombre (Grasset, Paris, 1970). |
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Posted: May 08, 2007 08:43 AM
Last Updated: May 08, 2007 08:43 AM
Last Reviewed: May 08, 2007 08:43 AM
