This book examines a group of the most infamous of Europe’s Nazi collaborators during the Second World War in biographical profiles, comparing and contrasting their backgrounds, careers, convictions, successes, and failures in order to examine whether there was a true “collaborator” type.
In the first years of the war, the Axis Powers managed to defeat and conquer several of the nations of Europe, and after having subdued them militarily, they established brutal and repressive regimes of occupation. In nearly every case, there were individuals and organizations who supported Nazi and Fascist ideology and who cooperated with the occupiers. This book examines nine of the most notorious individuals who led collaborative regimes and chose actively to aid the Nazi war effort. It seeks to identify how the personalities and actions of these individuals conditioned the phenomenon of collaboration in their own lands and across Europe, and sheds special light on some of the lesser researched collaborationist regimes in Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, and Romania.
The book is written for students, general readers, and academics and should be of value to those studying 20th century political history, political science, military history, fascist studies, and the World Wars.
Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. Another Name for Treason: Vidkun Quisling and Collaboration in Norway 2. “The Politics of Friendship”: Anton Mussert, the NSB, and Dutch Collaboration 3. “If Not a Sword, then a Shield”: The Tragedy of Henri Philippe Petain and Vichy France 4. “Peace Is the Main Thing”: Pierre Laval, Vichy France, and the Attempted “Double Game” 5. God’s Fascist: Monsignor Jozef Tiso and Fascist Slovakia 6. Fascism, Regicide, and Genocide: Ante Pavelic and the Ustasha Regime in Croatia 7. “An Unwilling Ally”: Miklos Horthy and the Hungarian Dilemma 8. “A Common Enemy”: Marshal Ion Antonescu, the German Necessity, and the Holocaust in Romania 9. Betraying Stalin: General Andrey Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Movement 10. Conclusions
About the Author :
Patrick G. Zander is Professor of History at Georgia Gwinnett College near Atlanta, where he teaches British and European history and classes on the World Wars. He is the author of eight books on twentieth century history, including Hidden Armies of the Second World War (2017).
