Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy
In World War II, many governments, organizations and individuals collaborated with the Axis powers, "out of conviction, desperation, or under coercion."[1] Nationalists sometimes welcomed German or Italian troops they believed would liberate their countries from colonization. The Danish, Belgian and Vichy French governments attempted to appease and bargain with the invaders in hopes of mitigating harm to their citizens and economies.
This article is about collaboration with Germany and Italy, the founding members of the Axis in Europe during World War II. For collaboration in Asia with Japan before October 1945, see Collaboration with Imperial Japan.
Some countries' leaders cooperated with Italy and Germany because they wanted to regain territories lost during and after the First World War, or which their nationalist citizens simply coveted. Others such as France already had their own burgeoning fascist movements and/or anti-semitic sentiment, and the invaders validated and empowered this. Individuals such as Hendrik Seyffardt in the Netherlands and Theodoros Pangalos in Greece saw collaboration as a path to personal power in the politics of their country. Others believed that Germany would prevail, and either wanted to be on the winning side, or feared being on the losing one.
Axis military forces recruited many volunteers, sometimes at gunpoint, more often with promises that they later broke, or from among POWs trying to escape appalling and frequently lethal conditions in their detention camps. Other volunteers willingly enlisted because they shared Nazi or fascist ideologies.
Terminology
Stanley Hoffman in 1968 used the term collaborationist to describe those who collaborated for ideological reasons.[2] Bertram Gordon, a professor of modern history, also used the terms collaborationist and collaborator for ideological and non-ideological collaboration.[3] Collaboration described cooperation, sometimes passive, with a victorious power.[4]
Stanley Hoffmann saw collaboration as either involuntary, a reluctant recognition of necessity, or voluntary, opportunistic, or greedy. He also categorized collaborationism as "servile", attempting to be useful, or "ideological", full-throated advocacy of the occupier's ideology.