It's too bad I can't find a place for people to view "The Sorrow and the Pity" ( Le Chagrin et la Pitié by Marcel Ophüls) freely. If ever there were a time to watch that film, it's now.

Seek it out if you are on one of the subscription services that might have it. It's a long one since it was originally made as TV episodes, but it is required watching for anyone interested in resistance to fascism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwEydgKBqGw #Fascism #France #Collaborateurs #AntiFascism #Resistance

The Sorrow and the Pity: The Film that Shocked France

YouTube
@meganL oh if you like highbrow stuff I can recommend Arte, it’s a French-German TV station you can access for free online (subtitles in English and other languages). Their documentaries are excellent.
@meganL literally on their homepage right now:

@Nicovel0 I like what I've seen of their stuff on YouTube. I didn't realize they had their own separate site.

Thanks!

It was just the closest thing I could post to "The Sorrow & The Pity". That film is so good and shocking. It upsets so many myths ppl my age have about how the Nazis and collaborateurs were mostly held to account.

I particularly remember the two academics talking about how they stayed silent while it was going on at their institution...

@Nicovel0 Very different documentary, but hinting at some of the same things was the Krautrock doc. Talking with the members of those German bands, they talk about how in their youth and continuing into when the bands were active, that many places in West Germany had "former" Nazis who just continued on being local politicians, etc. And how they felt about that generation...

I remember how it shocked me.

(But then I had to learn about Operation Paper Clip and the many ways the US did the same)

@meganL same everywhere. Some very notable French resistants/military went to (then) Indochina, and then on to Algeria, and used the same techniques there that the gestapo had used on them. They were feted as heroes who did what was necessary until the empire crumbled and then they became villains (and gave birth to the Front National).
@meganL yes it’s complicated, and I can tell you in Europe it hasn’t been understood anywhere near well enough. The resistance was messy, and the recovery after the war even more so.