ABSTRACT
The two opposed notions of resistance and collaboration are products of the Second World War. Regarding Slavs and Jews as racially inferior, and both liberal and Marxist ideas as heresies to be extirpated, the Germans behaved in such a manner as to provoke resistance. Resistance movements varied considerably, but certain basic conditions were required for all. A united resistance movement was formed at a time when the Soviet Union still had friendly relations with Germany, and within the resistance the ‘new deal elements, represented by the peasant movement and the socialists, were stronger than the supporters of the old order. In Poland the same thing happened when Polish communist parachutists, dropped from Soviet aircraft, and acting independently of the main resistance forces, provoked German reprisals. The official policy of the exiled government and of the leaders of the underground movement which grew up was non-recognition of the German and Soviet occupations of Poland.
