How useful are Sources B and C and Interpretation D for a historian studying Nazi occupation in western Europe between 1940 and 1945?
In your answer, refer to the two sources and the interpretation as well as your own knowledge.
Source B
A poster published in the Netherlands during occupation. The words say, ‘Men of the Netherlands, for your honour and conscience! Take a stand against communism. The Waffen-SS calls you!’
The Waffen-SS was the military wing of the SS. It fought alongside the regular German army.
Source C
An extract from an article in an illegal Dutch newspaper. The newspaper was called ‘Our People’ and the article was published in October 1943.
At the end of April this year, the German military commander announced that Dutch ex-soldiers were to be transported to Germany to work as forced labourers. Those who resisted risked the isolation, boredom and hardship of a German prison camp. Hundreds of thousands of our families saw their breadwinners in danger.
We must not underestimate our enemy. Certainly, the Germans have suffered defeat after defeat during the last year, but the Beast is not yet defeated. We cannot relax our struggles. We must persevere with fierce anger and push ourselves to the limit.
A breadwinner is a person in a family who works to provide the money that the family needs to live on.
Interpretation D
An extract from a book by historian Tony Judt. The book was published in 2011.
Typically, the Nazi occupiers joined forces with a local group within the occupied nation. In this way, a political group or minority that had been at a disadvantage in peacetime was now able to exploit the occupation to settle local scores. This also meant the Germans didn’t always have to administer and police the local territory all by themselves: they could rely on others to do it for them.
For example, in occupied Belgium, some Flemish-speaking nationalists were tempted by the idea of German rule as a way of breaking away from their French-speaking rulers. The Nazis willingly played along as it suited their purposes. They released Flemish-speaking Belgian prisoners of war in 1940 when hostilities ceased, whereas French-speaking Belgians remained in prisoner of war camps throughout the war.