In my last post I wrote about how resisters in their own small community had to consider the current and future needs of that community. But there were, of course, examples of resistance actions in larger places where resisters acted without as much thought for the local residents.

In France, for example, there were times when outsiders decided to make a big statement by assassinating a German officer. They did it in a city then got away. But, predictably, the Germans inflicted reprisals on the local community for the assassination. So local men, usually men of high standing such as the mayor, the doctor, the banker, were executed as punishment for the assassination. And the occupation authorities never considered executing just one person for the life of a single German. The standard reprisal was 50 local people executed in reprisal for the death of one German.

The occupation authorities executed so many hostages, of course, as part of a policy of governing by terror. The idea was that if they made the cost of resistance that high, the local population would not support resistance. And then the resistance would not be able to function and it would be easier to administer the occupied territory. It worked to the extent that it muddied the moral waters for both resisters and the general public. It most probably did restrain some resisters from action.

But it also worked against the occupation authorities by giving the local people ever greater grievances against the occupation and pushing some people into resistance. That’s what happened to Audrey Hepburn’s family in the Netherlands. (For the story read Dutch Girl by Robert Matzen.)

Some resisters took the responsibility of provoking German reprisals very seriously and planned their attacks for uninhabited places. For example, John Weidner was delayed for an appointment in Paris once because resisters had blown up the train he was on in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately for Dutch-Paris and everyone they helped, Weidner knew that the safest place on a train was in the middle, so he was not injured. He helped those who were. But all of them had to wait quite a long time for official help and a new train to reach them in the middle of nowhere. And then the tracks had to be repaired.  The best that resisters who were planning violent acts could hope for was to minimize the inconvenience to the local community.  But if the choice was disrupted train travel or mass executions or the indefinite continuation of the occupation, by 1944 most civilians would have chosen disrupted train travel.