Resistance/Halik Kochanski

This is a detailed (too detailed in fact) account of the resistance movement in World War Two, principally in France, Norway, the Low Countries and Bohemia.

Although the author provides an abundance of statistical information that is difficult to absorb, there is no glossary of the resistance movements and their leaders which would offer reader benefit.

That Germany found it difficult to occupy a country where there was resistance is a valuable warning to Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine.

Resistance comes in various forms from sabotage to monitoring.

Monitoring is all the easier nowadays with smart phones.

Another factor of interest is that the satellite countries of Russia in 1940 were initially sympathetic to the German invasion – code named Operation Barbarossa – and indeed Ukraine had an Independent  party.

Nonetheless this is a tough read of over 800 pages begging the question “For whom?”

It is a work of impressive research but not leavened by much anecdote or humour.