This thesis aims to make an original contribution to knowledge by looking at the phenomenon of resistance in the French region of Upper Normandy between 1940 and 1944 from a perspective of ‘history from below’, by looking principally at the testimonies of former resisters, and demonstrating a political history of resistance. The introduction defines what is meant by Upper Normandy and justifies its choice as a region for this study, before analysing both the historiography and the epistemology of resistance, both locally and nationally, and then giving a justification and an analysis of the methodology used. The main body of the thesis is then divided into four chapters. Chapter one looks at resistance that was designed to revolutionise society, by looking at Communist resisters and the idea of the grand soir, as well as the sociological origins of these resisters, and how this influenced their resistance action. Chapter two looks at more gradualist forms of resistance, which were conceived to slowly prepare for an eventual liberation and the struggle against Vichyite hegemony, arguing that these resisters formed a ‘resistance aristocracy’, aiming to slowly forge a post-Vichy vision of the polis. Chapter three analyses resistance purely from a patriotic angle, and identifies three different forms of patriotism, before arguing that resistance was part of a process to ‘remasculate’ France after the defeat of 1940, and that these resisters saw their engagement as primarily being one of serving France. Chapter four looks at auxiliary resistance, or resistance actions that were designed to help people, whether they were fleeing persecution or were active resisters, aiming to show that resistance went beyond just organisations and networks, and could be about facilitating other actions rather than direct confrontation. The conclusion then argues for a new understanding of resistance, not as une organisation or even un mouvement, but as a form of la cité, or polis, engaged in creating a new form of polity. It shows that the political history of resistance is a combination of institutional politics and expression politics, and that resistance, even if not necessarily politicised, was political by its very nature.

This study is a social history of communists in wartime Rome. It examines a decisive change in Italian communist politics, as the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) rose from a hounded fraternity of prisoners and exiles to a party of government. Joining with other Resistance forces in the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (CLN), this ‘new party’ recast itself as a mass, patriotic force, committed to building a new democracy. This study explains how such a party came into being. It argues that a PCI machine could establish itself only by subduing other strands of communist thought and organistion that had emerged independently of exiled Party leaders. This was particularly true in Rome, where dissident communists created the largest single Resistance formation, the Movimento Comunista d’Italia (MCd’I). This movement was the product of the underground that survived across the Mussolini period, expressing a ‘subversive’ politics that took on a popular following through the disintegration of the Fascist regime. Standing outside the CLN alliance and the postwar democratic governments, it reflected the maximalism and eclecticism of a communist milieu that had persisted on the margins of Fascist society. In the Occupation period this dissident movement galvanised a social revolt in the borgate slums, which would also trouble the new authorities even after the Allies’ arrival. Studying the political writing of these dissidents, their autodidact Marxism and the social conditions in which it emerged, this study reconstructs a far-reaching battle to redefine communist politics. Highlighting the erasure of the dissidents’ history in mainstream narration of the Resistance, it argues that the repressed radicalism of this period represented a lasting danger to the postwar PCI and the new Republic.

The thesis considers the educational function of the trials of Nazis by the British and American authorities after the Second World War. As has generally been overlooked in the literature, legal proceedings were instituted not only to punish the abhorrent actions of the Third Reich, but also to provide an historical record for the edification of victors, vanquished and posterity alike. The route from this Allied intention to its fulfillment was not a straightforward one, however, bedeviled by enduring preconceptions of Nazi criminality on all sides, and by the very nature of the legal process. To illustrate by case study the difficulties of disclosing information through the trial medium, the theme of the murder of the European Jews has been selected. The limiting influence of British and American socio-cultural and politico-legal norms on the parameters of the trials is developed in the first section. This analyses the prosecutorial methods with which it was considered the didactic aims would best be achieved, alongside the prevailing trend towards downplaying the particular identity of the chief victims of Nazism. The image of the Jewish catastrophe thus compiled as theory was translated into reality in the Allied courtrooms is the initial focus of the second section. That deals with the problematic image of the 'concentration camps' established in a selection of trials; and with the influence of such proceedings upon the academic historiography of the Holocaust. Finally, the thesis confronts the popular receptivity in Britain, the USA and West Germany to the information made available.

After the defeat of France in 1940, the surviving service personnel of several occupied European nations were evacuated to Britain where they reconstituted air and army units under the military control of the Allied High Command. Politically, however, they were the responsibility of their own national governments which were also exiled as Germany consolidated its gains in Europe, and this diversity of interests often produced sharp conflict. This study examines the political, military and social experiences of one such unit. The central thesis is that the Czechoslovak Air Force in Britain was first and last a political tool to be used by the governments of both nations; first by the British as a means of international propaganda; then by the Czechoslovaks as a means of gaining prestige and influence while in exile; and last by the British again as a foil to the Soviets. To test the thesis, the study is divided into three parts, each of which is sub-divided into a series of themes through which the emigre experience can be explored. Part One examines the escape of the air personnel from France; the serious effect their arrival had upon the political relationship between the British Government and the Czechoslovak National Committee headed by Edvard Benes; the complex development of a military agreement between the two parties; the formation of the first two fighter squadrons; and the internal dissent and rebellion within the air contingent itself. Part Two examines the social and practical aspects of emigre life, concentrating on the provisions made by the Air Ministry and the British Council for the training and welfare of the men. Also examined are the two primary problems which faced the Czechoslovak Air Force throughout the war: the lack of recruitment and the quest for fully independent status. Part Three is concerned with the Czechoslovaks' attempts to break free from British control and return to their homeland; first as combatants in the Slovak Uprising of 1944, and second as heroes returning to liberated Czechoslovakia in 1945. On both occasions, the British raised obstacles, and the section concludes with an examination of the British efforts to use the air contingent to gain a political foothold in the post-war Soviet sphere of influence. Overall, the study demonstrates that the British political and military establishments maintained an attitude of distrust and sometimes contempt for the Czechoslovaks. Political friction often affected the military context, and examples of hypocrisy and blatant deceit illustrate that the public and private views of this small Allied force were sharply at variance. The study also demonstrates that the existing interpretations of the recognition of the Provisional Czechoslovak Government in 1940 are flawed in that they do not sufficiently take into account the military pressures of the time.

The thesis analyses Czechoslovak-Jewish relations in the twentieth century using the case study of the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in London and its activities during the Second World War. In order to present the research in a wider perspective, it covers the period between the Munich Agreement, when the first politicians left Czechoslovakia, and the Communist Coup in February 1948. Hence the thesis evaluates the political activities and plans of the Czechoslovak exiles, as well as the implementation of the plans in liberated Czechoslovakia after 1945. In comparison with previous contributions to the theme, this thesis is based on extensive archival research. It examines how the Czechoslovak treatment of the Jews was shaped by resurgent Czech and Slovak nationalism/s caused by the war and the experience of the occupation by the German army. Simultaneously, the thesis enquires into the role played in the Czechoslovak exiles’ decision making by their efforts to maintain the image of a democratic country in the heart of Europe. An adherence to western liberal democracies was a key political asset used by Czechoslovakia since her creation in 1918. Fair treatment of minorities, in particular the Jews, became part of this ‘myth’. However, the Second World War brought to the fore Czechoslovak efforts to nationally homogenize the post-war Republic and rid it of its ‘disloyal’ minorities. Consequently, the thesis evaluates how the Jews as a minority were perceived and constructed. The thesis is divided into five chapters, following the developments in chronological, as well as thematic order. The first chapter analyses the influence of people in occupied Czechoslovakia on the exiles’ policy towards the Jews. Chapter two and three document the exiles’ policy towards the Jews during the war, including the government’s responses to the Holocaust. Chapter four enquires into the wartime origins of the post-war Czechoslovak policy towards the Jews. Finally, the last chapter analyses the influence of public opinion abroad on the Czechoslovak policy towards the Jews during and after the war.

This dissertation interrogates the relation between the French national identity, constructed around the idea of hereditary enmity with Germany, and the behaviour between French and German prisoners of war on the individual level in Normandy between 1944 and 1948. This question is important since it is widely accepted that Franco-German relations reached an all-time low during World War II, especially in areas like Normandy that had been heavily occupied between 1940 and 1944. This position is examined through an entangled analysis of low and high level records both from German and French sources, but also from American, British, and Swiss origins. It appears that individual Franco-German relations depended on the distance between the French official discourse of national recovery and the reality experienced by the civil population. During the Allied presence in Normandy, contradictions were obvious and the relations between French and German prisoners of war in Allied hands were marked with violence. When discourse and reality began to overlap, after the transfer of the prisoners to French custody, individual Franco-German relations normalised. This rapid evolution points to the symbolic character of the enmity between French and Germans, used as a tool to reinforce the national cohesion in times of threat.

This thesis examines the development of RAF high command of the Metropolitan Air Force (MAF) during the Second World War (SWW). It sheds new light on the re-organisations of the Air Ministry in 1934, the RAF Command structure in 1936, and the tri-service debate in 1937 concerning the RAF proposal to establish a Supreme Air Commander (SAC). It reveals that while frontline expansion created an impetus for re-organisation, it was operational readiness that was the dominant factor in the re-structuring of the RAF. It examines the transition in RAF frontline organization from the mono-functional command system of 1936 to the multi-functional organisation that emerged after 1943 by looking at command structure and practice, personalities, and operational thinking. This study builds on the established historiography but challenges the accepted explanation of RAF reforms in the 1930s. It addresses a significant gap in the literature concerning the way the frontline was directed by the War Cabinet and the Air Ministry. In doing so it seeks to establish a new starting point for the analysis of RAF high command by providing an assessment of how effective were the RAF reforms of the 1930s to the higher command of MAF operations during the SWW.

Conflict archaeology is a popular subject of academic research. Within the topic of British Second World War archaeology there are few studies examining anti-invasion defences, and none relating to the evidence or its use. This research was influenced by concepts in historical and conflict archaeology and the archaeologies of the recent and contemporary past. It was undertaken to determine the extent of survival of archaeological, documentary, aerial photographic and cartographic evidence for three cases in south and south-west Wales. Case study method was used to identify, select and analyse evidence. Grounded theory was used to induce meaning. The evidence was given equal primacy, assessed critically and analysed for its role, value and contribution. Official sources were used for their unique, informed and authoritative content. Knowledge of military organisational practices and formation/unit identities were required to use the evidence effectively. A rich but incomplete evidence base of a complex character was identified. Evidence was found to be complementary and inter-dependent, representing aspects of a common shared phenomenon. The diverse sources could be used to induce meaningful narratives. The research suggested that an archaeological approach was a valid and effective form of inquiry when applied to cross-disciplinary evidence from the recent past.

This study focuses on the experiences of young girls, who were aged between four and twenty-one when the Occupation began, growing up in Occupied France during World War II. Although youth and gender have been researched independently, this has been in terms of the policies that were implemented by the Vichy regime. Similarly studies on public opinion focus on the population as a whole rather than on a specific category of people. Using archival documents and published testimonies, my research explores the complexities surrounding the formation of opinions towards the Germans in young girls’ minds and how these opinions reflect their age and gender. An important factor in this interplay is that the Germans were often not much older than these young girls so in peacetime the two would have belonged to similar peer groups. In contrast to adults who could make conscious decisions about how to behave towards the enemy, young girls tended to react more naturally and instinctively. The thesis therefore argues that their accounts provide a deeper and more nuanced insight into public opinion at this time.

This thesis examines the construction of frames of Second World War memory in the post-occupation Channel Islands, and considers the impact of gender on both this memory-making process and the resulting popular representations of their shared past. It first explores the gendered tensions and fractures of the occupation years, and their role in the construction of this usable past. The occupation will be shown to have directly challenged the traditional gendered expectations of British wartime conduct (a key tenet of Islander identity), particularly regarding martial masculinity and feminine virtue. These tensions and fractures were particularly acute in the Channel Islands, as they were the only British territory to be occupied by German forces during the Second World War, having been demilitarised prior to the invasion of 1940. The war memories that were popularly adopted by the Islander communities after the war were, therefore, rooted in these early tensions and fractures, as they sought out retribution, closure, and unity, along with a connection to the desirable British war memory and the image of the victorious soldier hero. This thesis examines how this traumatic period has been built into a necessary and powerful founding myth in the Channel Islands, through the gendered sharing of war stories and rituals, as well as the reclaiming of contested spaces and objects to the present day. This analysis of the war memory of these small Islander communities will inform wider understanding of how gendered wartime anxieties might have similarly impacted the construction of war memory within other previously occupied nations across Europe. It also offers an important insight into the role of gender in the subsequent dissemination, disruption and stabilisation of war stories through generations, particularly within small communities recovering from the trauma of war.