Festung Gross-Paris'
Strafbat/
Bewährungstruppen depicted in the movie
Is Paris burning?
EDIT: YouTube integration dropped the timing. Go to 1:36 for the scene I was referring to.
Another (rarely depicted) case: Germans fighting with the French Résistance.
EDIT: YouTube integration dropped the timing. Go to 1:09 for the scene I was referring to.
People tend to forget that Germany had the largest communist party before the rise of the nazis, and some young Germans drafted in the Wehrmacht switched side. But doing so was at great risk, for them and their family, so they were few. Nonetheless, they played their part in the Résistance. In the S or S-W, one partisan group was led by a German, and when the Résistance paraded into the liberated city (maybe Montpellier), they made him the Résistance standard-bearer, opening the parade.
Another small group in the Alps, entirely made of former German International Brigade members & Wehrmacht deserters, fought a sacrificial battle to allow a larger
maquis to break off and escape. Very few survived.
The FFI with the
DBSAS division will feature some "
Ralliés", although Russians. They were Osttruppen deserting, in much greater numbers than German nationals, to join the Résistance. They provided the Résistance with a core of experience soldiers which trained partisans. Many were looking for a worthy death for their prospect were gloomy: either being captured back and shot by the Germans, or sent back to Stalin ... which might have been an even worst fate.
Yet, in a rare display of cooperation, the mostly communist maquis and the old breed of professional Army officers worked together to prevent them from being sent back to USSR after the Normandy campaign: at least 300 of them were "smuggled" from N-W to S-E France to be incorporated with a new identity in the
Légion Etrangère. Stalin never got those back ...
