Eduardo wrote:Nobody denies the brutality of antipartisan warfare. But there is a justification for this and every army in the world has acted the same way. It is dishonest to accuse the germans when partisan warfare is in itself a war crime against any international convention.
Besides, much fiction has been added in order to increase the evilness of the germans. They think that the allied gang turns pure and innocent this way.
I recall decades ago, there was really not much talk about partisan warfare in any of the WW2 debates. This was something like a 'secret' only really ww2-boffins would know about. There was mentioning of the 'resistance' occasionally. But those chaps were shown more in a 'heroic' light. That they only 'blew up trains' or would defeat a German battalion single-handedly. To met it is now clear why this was sanitized and omitted. The reasoning is simple. They were pushing atrocity propaganda and 'execution of innocent civilians' was part of the narrative. Now if that was connected to suppression of partisan activity, this would look different from malicious killing of civilians. So rather omit the partisan part for now.
Lying by omission seems to be the main tactic in all this.
Turns out that virtually every 'German War Crime' or 'Nazi Atrocity" ever is somehow linked to the suppression of partisan activities via reprisals.
It was useful for the local leftists in formerly occupied countries, since those executed were often members or sympathizers of the Communist Party. The local Communists weren't exactly doing well in elections then, but by railing up the public they could easily score at least some points.
It was also a variety to the core Holocaust themes involving Jews and gas chambers. And it distracted from themes of Allied atrocities (or partisan atrocities) coming up. One would have to look into the media records at the time.
Meanwhile partisans were also romanticized painted as juvenile heroes that wanted to fight for freedom and the like. My take it that this also lead to the valorization of terrorism and terrorist groups. The 70s had the RAF in Germany and several other similar groups in Italy and France. At the same time you had the 'march through the institutions' by formerly leftist, or leftist-influenced students into positions within education, media and bureaucracy. They picked up any Anti-Nazi-Themes that were useful for them moralizing their own ideas. And this is at the core of the present day ideological orientations within society.