Hitler's Third Reich and World War II in the News is a daily edited review of WWII news, providing thought- provoking collection of hand-picked WW2 information.

Category: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans  -- See latest WWII news here. See also 'U.S. Army Rangers', 'American Paratroopers', 'Special Forces', 'SAS', 'Nazi Helmets'.

WWII airman Carl Walpusk recalls being saved by Chetniks - Serbian guerilla fighters
Carl Walpusk has a soft spot in his heart for Serbia - he owes his life to the Serbs. In 1944 he jumped out of a B-24 bomber into Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia and the hands of a rag-tag band of Serbian guerilla fighters. For 33 days, the Chetniks escorted Walpusk and 9 other from one Serbian village to another - risking their lives and those of villagers - to keep the airmen safe from the German army. "The people there were poor. They were mighty poor ... but they'd give you anything they had." Led by General Draza Mihailovich they saved hundreds of knocked down American fliers.     [ timesonline :: 2008-03-10 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

Ukraine: Red Army vets protest first official celebration of partisans
For the first time since World War II, Ukrainian partisans celebrated their nationalist army's creation with the full governmental approval, despite efforts by angry communists to break up gathering. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, UPA, battled both Soviet and Nazi forces, and for years after WW2 carried out raids against the Soviets. Since the 1991 Soviet collapse, the partisans have sought recognition similar to what Red Army veterans. President Yushchenko, whose father was a Red Army soldier who spent 4 years in a Nazi camp, called for study of the role of the 100,000 partisans. His efforts for the partisans have met resistance from Red Army veterans.     [ iht :: 2007-10-15 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

Giovanni Pesce: leading Italian partisan, who kept fighting for freedom
Working class hero Giovanni Pesce was buried in Milan. When his coffin was brought out, a thousand people saluted with red flags, trade union banners, choruses of "The Internationale" and Italian partisan song "Bella Ciao". Among the many things he did in his life, Pesce signed up to fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War - and inside his body was shrapnel from the wounds he received on the Saragozza front in 1936. He was one of only 5 people to be awarded a Gold Medal of the Resistance. As he explained, "You need to understand that the vast majority of Italians were passive, they were frightened. But deep down they hated the Germans."     [ socialistworker :: 2007-08-08 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

Book Reveals the Great Partisan Efforts Against Germans in WW II
On Dec 10, 1944, W.B. Berry is shot down over the Brenner Pass. "No Time For Fear" follows his account as he becomes involved in the underground exploits and sabotage against the German occupation troops in the Italian Alps. This story chronicles the events that encompassed the author and his Partisan and Special Forces counterparts while undertaking sabotage, espionage and combat aggressions against the German occupation armies. He became attached to the British Number 1 Special Forces and became commander of a 44 man Partisan outpost.     [ primenewswire :: 2007-05-12 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

Ukraine leader seeks recognition for World War II guerrillas
Viktor Yushchenko urged Ukrainians to overcome their divisions to help fighters of a World War II guerrilla movement that fought both the Red army and Nazi invaders to win recognition as combatants. Post-Soviet attempts to extend recognition to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which had 100,000 men in its ranks at its peak in 1943, have foundered on fierce resistance from Red Army veterans. "I believe the endeavour to settle the legal status of those who fought for Ukraine and its independence through the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, will at last be resolved and embodied as the truth, historical justice."     [ alertnet :: 2007-05-10 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

The only documented case of resistance stopping a train to save lives
In the dark amid the steam engine's hisses, Simon Gronowski snuggled against his mother on a cattle train bound for Auschwitz. Suddenly there were shrieks of brakes, and gunfire. Outside, Robert Maistriau's fake stoplight had done its work and the Belgian resistance fighter forced open a car. It was April 19, 1943, the only documented case of resistance fighters stopping a train bound for Auschwitz. Simon had practiced jumping for freedom from the top beds ever since the Gestapo had locked up his family. And when the train lost speed, he took the leap of his life, a 100 franc bill tucked in his sock. "Then I waited for my mother." She never came.     [ iht :: 2007-04-20 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

Film recounts Nazi resistance - Tuvia Bielski
The dramatic "David and Goliath'' World War II story of Tuvia Bielski will be told for the first time on the History Channel. Tuvia Sielski's heroics rival those of Oskar Schindler, who saved 1,200 persons. In 1941 as the Nazis were mounting their campaign across Europe, and the Bielski brothers went into hiding in forests near their homes and began putting together a guerrilla army of 200 fighters. "They would get their weapons and ammunition from the Nazis they killed. They caused so much damage to the Nazis that a 100,000-mark bounty was put on his head."     [ news-press :: 2006-11-12 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

Anti-Soviet fighters rally for recognition as vets in Ukraine
Nationalist fighters who battled both Soviet and Nazi forces during World War II rallied in Kiev, demanding the same recognition as Red Army vets. The issue of how to recognize the nationalists - as freedom fighters or traitors - has split Ukraine. The divisions were apparent at rally, as some of the 2,000 nationalists battled with counter-rally socialists. The "best sons of Ukraine gave up their lives for our Motherland. Unfortunately we have not been recognized yet. It is a shame," said ex-partisan Orest Vaskul. Since Yushchenko, whose father was a Red Army soldier, came to power he has been striving to recognize 100,000 partisans.     [ seattletimes :: 2006-10-15 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

1941-1945: Andartiko - the Greek Resistance partisans
Andartiko - the Greek Resistance partisans who fought against Italian and German fascist occupation. Nowhere was resistance as simple as good guys in the hills with rusty rifles, and bad guys wearing swastikas and burning villages, but Greece was particularly complex. Even the Italian decision to invade seems bizarre, motivated by a desire to counter German influence in Rumania. After the Italians were humiliated by the Greek Army, the Wehrmacht stepped in and broke the resistance in April 1941. The Germans turned over most of the occupation to the Italians. At least in spirit much of the Greek population embraced resistance.     [ libcom :: 2006-09-18 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

Klaus Konrad - Lieutenant of the 274th infantry regiment
As the Germans retreated in Italy after the collapse of the Fascist regime in 1943, they were harried by Italian partisans. The Germans and the local Fascists struck back. In one such incident, in July 1944, Klaus Konrad, lieutenant of the 274th infantry regiment of the German army, was one of three officers in charge of a unit ordered to free 19 German soldiers captured by partisans. His unit was engaged in a heavy firefight near the village of Pietramala. The villagers were taken to the nearby village of San Polo, where six suspected partisans were shot instantly, and 48 men later.     [ independent :: 2006-09-03 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

Collective punishment by Nazi Germany to stop resistance
As commander of a Nazi einsatzgruppen death squad Dr. Werner Best believed that the most effective response to terrorism was collective punishment. "Active" resistance, the killing of a German in uniform, would be met by reprisal killings of civilians. He was trying to protect German troops. The guerillas killed more German troops. The cycle of violence was spiraling out of control. Finally Adolf Hitler himself got into the act. Convinced that measure was failing because it wasn't severe enough, the führer issued an order to use "the harshest measures" in areas where the Resistance was active. Hitler ordered that 50 civilians be executed for each German soldier killed.     [ commondreams :: 2006-07-21 :: Resistance & Opposition: Anti Nazi ]

Guerrilla operations against the Nazi occupiers
From 1943 Francis Cammaerts was one of the star performers of the "independent French" section of Special Operations Executive (SOE), which run guerrilla operations against the Nazi occupiers and Vichy regime during the second world war. His brother Pieter's early death as an RAF pilot changed his mind about violent opposition to Nazism. Through his friend he secured an entry to SOE in 1942, where F, the independent French section, took him on and sent him on their paramilitary training courses. Training staff reported that he would make a competent sabotage instructor, but did not appear to have leadership qualities.     [ guardian :: 2006-07-07 :: Intelligence, Espionage & WWII Spies ]

War heroine Nancy Wake honoured - Led an army of 7,000
The Australian WWII heroine dubbed the 'White Mouse' by the Gestapo because they could not catch her has finally been honoured in the land of her birth, New Zealand. Nancy Wake has been awarded the NZ Returned Services Association's highest honour, the RSA Badge in Gold, as well as life membership for her work with the French resistance during the war. She is the first woman to be awarded the Badge in Gold. The RSA said as a saboteur and resistance organiser and fighter, the feisty woman led an army of 7,000 Marquis troops in guerrilla warfare against the Nazis in France.     [ aap :: 2006-04-28 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

17-year-old girl fighting with the partisans
She dragged herself out of the heap of bodies that had once been her family, shot to death by Nazi soldiers. Alone among the dead in the dark forest of eastern Poland, it would have been easy for a sickly 17-year-old girl to give up, to sink to the ground and die. But she found the partisan fighters in that forest, and convinced them that a girl was strong enough to fight alongside the men. Fighting with the partisans was Gertrude Boyarski's act of resistance. By the summer of 1940 the Nazis had already stolen her family and her childhood. She spent the next four years fighting them.     [ palmbeachpost :: 2006-04-25 :: Resistance & Opposition: Anti Nazi ]

Red Army Veterans Clash With Partisans in Kiev
Thousands of aging Red Army veterans and their supporters clashed Saturday in downtown Kiev with partisans who fought the Soviets and Nazis during World War II and now want pensions and official recognition as veterans. Hostility toward the partisans runs deep in Ukraine because they initially sought support from the Nazis, believing the Germans would grant Ukraine independence.     [ ua-reporter :: 2005-10-16 :: Mistreated WWII Veterans ]

Caught between Stalin's Red Army and Hitler's elite SS
Caught between Stalin's advancing Red Army and Hitler's elite SS, a rag-tag army of partisans fought a last desperate battle for Polish independence. But 63 days later, 275,000 lay dead, and the capital was razed to the ground. 5pm, W-hour, Men are building a frontline barricade and the first shots are fired at the Nazis. The Uprising against the Third Reich has begun. Elite divisions of the SS plus special units of the Wehrmacht army were held in combat by ill-armed partisans fighting literally from underground, from sewers and cellars, for longer than it had taken the Nazis to invade entire countries earlier in the war.     [ guardian :: 2004-07-05 :: Warsaw Ghetto uprisings (1943, 1944) ]

Adolf Pilch - Heroic figure of the Polish underground army
Major Adolf Pilch was a blunt, ironic man, and a cool strategist much feared by the German and Soviet occupying forces. He came to England to train for the special operations executive (SOE). Parachuted back into Poland in Feb 1943, Pilch took charge of a 40-strong group of partisans, which within two months had became 400, and, by the end of the year, had grown to 1,000. Pilch fought in more than 200 engagements, never lost a battle, and was subsequently awarded four fighting crosses, the medal of Warsaw, the king's medal for courage, and Poland's highest military honour, the virtuti militari.     [ guardian :: 2000-02-19 :: Guerrilla Warfare - Partisans ]

See also

'U.S. Army Rangers'

'American Paratroopers'

'Special Forces'

'SAS'

'Nazi Helmets'.

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Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2008. All rights reserved.