page_title: Collaboration with the Axis Powers
section_title: Political collaboration
hierarchical_section_title: Collaboration with the Axis Powers / Political collaboration
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Note: This description has been identified as biased or incorrect: Original Nazi propaganda description. Der rote Maquis in Frankreich Bei einer Aktion gegen die Terroristen in Frankreich wurden zahlreiche Gefangene eingebracht. Unter ihnen befinden sich viele verbrecherische Naturen, die Morde, Raubüberfälle, Eisenbahnattentate usw. auf dem Gewissen haben. Die werden bewacht von Angehörigen der franz. Miliz, die Schulter an Schulter mit deutschen Soldaten gegen den Bolschewismus kämpfen. Foto: Kriegsberichter Koll
context_page_description: Within nations occupied by the Axis powers in World War II, some citizens and organizations, prompted by nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, antisemitism, opportunism, self-defense, or often a combination, knowingly collaborated with the Axis Powers. Some of these collaborators committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, or atrocities of the Holocaust.
  Collaboration has been defined as cooperation between elements of the population of a defeated state and representatives of a victorious power. Stanley Hoffmann subdivided collaboration into involuntary and voluntary. According to Hoffmann, collaborationism can be subdivided into "servile" and "ideological"; the former is deliberate service to an enemy, whereas the latter is deliberate advocacy of cooperation with a foreign force which is seen as a champion of desirable domestic transformations. In contrast, Bertram Gordon uses the terms "collaborator" and "collaborationist", respectively, in reference to non-ideological and ideological collaborations.
context_section_description: The Vichy government in France is one of the best known and most significant examples of collaboration between former enemies of Germany and Germany itself. When the French Vichy government emerged at the same time of the Free French in London there was much confusion regarding the loyalty of French overseas colonies and more importantly their overseas armies and naval fleet. The reluctance of Vichy France to either disarm or surrender their naval fleet resulted in the British destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940. Later in the war French colonies were frequently used as staging areas for invasions or airbases for the Axis powers both in Indo China and Syria. This resulted in the invasion of Syria and Lebanon with the capture of Damascus on 17 June and later the Battle of Madagascar against Vichy French forces which lasted for seven months until November the same year.
  Denmark's government cooperated with the German occupiers until 1943 and actively helped recruit members for the Nordland and Wiking Waffen-SS divisions and helped organize trade and sale of industrial and agricultural products to Germany. In Greece, the three quisling prime ministers (Georgios Tsolakoglou, Konstantinos Logothetopoulos and Ioannis Rallis) cooperated with the Axis authorities. Agricultural products (especially tobacco) were sent to Germany, Greek "volunteers" were sent to work to German factories, and special armed forces (such as the Security Battalions) were created to fight along with German soldiers against the Allies and the Resistance movement. In Norway, the government successfully managed to escape to London but Vidkun Quisling established a puppet regime in its absence—albeit with little support from the local population.
caption: French milice and résistants, in July 1944
exif: {}