Military collaboration at the time of the Second World War was interpreted by contemporaries, in contrast to political collaboration, as being highly voluntary. Yet military collaboration also went beyond the united struggle against the common enemy and was, for both French and Walloon collaborators, a real or perceived means of asserting their own political interests.
They had to operate within the tension between instrumentalisation and self-assertion vis-à-vis the German hegemon. The study traces the genesis of the French and French-speaking Belgian volunteer associations at the time of the Second World War. In the prism of the negotiating discourses of the institutions involved, the political scope for decision-making, action and shaping of their actors is revealed.
Group
Books (first-hand)
Author
Horn, Stephan
Title
Französische und wallonische Freiwilligenverbände im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Politische Implikationen militärischer Kollaboration
