After the collapse of civil courage

Quisling, or, at least, very few people would want to be seen as an eager lickspittle to tyranny. (One assumes that a Dane reading that statement now would wince, just as any person in any country occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II would be embarrassed by evidence that fellow citizens acted so sycophantically towards an oppressive and lawless occupier. Nobody likes a)

The historical facts say otherwise about people’s actual behavior. Despite postwar governments’ efforts to show that resistance to occupation was widespread, in Western Europe only about one to three percent of populations were active resisters (in Eastern Europe, where Nazi rule was far more savage, the percentage rose to 10-15 percent). The percentage who collaborated equaled or exceeded that of resisters in Western Europe, while the great majority simply tried to get on with their lives and find enough food and fuel to survive.

In France, particularly, a historical legacy that still causes rancor was the wartime behavior of the wealthy elite. A disproportionate number not only did not even passively resist but showed themselves eager to lick the polish off Hitler’s jackboots, if necessary.