Did France hate Germany in World War 2?

Answer 1

The French have hated Germany since Germany was united in a single nation by Bismarck in the 1860s. This development, threatening to French continental domination, so upset the French that they picked a fight with the new German nation, started a war, and promptly lost (the Franco-Prussian War). As part of the humiliating peace of that war the French had to give up to Germany the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. This really stuck in the French craw, and they burned for revenge for the next forty years, and for the recovery of the lost provinces.

In WWI Germany invaded France, the French could not expel them, and an entire generation of Frenchmen were slaughtered trying. Finally, with help from her Allies, the Germans were beaten, the lost provinces recovered, and Germany's face mashed into and scrubbed around in it, in the humiliating peace terms imposed on the Germans in the peace after THAT war.

And none of this was forgotten when, twenty years later, the French and Germans went into WWII. This time, the Germans, once they started an active campaign against France, completely conquered France in six weeks.

So for patriotic Frenchmen, the Germans were unspeakably horrible, but there they were, all over the country. The French formed a Resistance movement, in which French Communists were very prominent, acting out of solidarity with their Soviet Communist brothers, whom the Germans were slaughtering on the Eastern Front. This Resistance - also called "the Maquis", or the FFI (French Forces of the Interior) - did what they could to damage the German war effort, much like Iraqis, whom we call "insurgents", are doing to the US today. Sabotage, ambushes, and so on. "Sabotage", the word, actually comes from the wooden shoes, "sabots" worn by French peasants.

All that being said, nations are made up of individuals, and each individual had his or her own reaction to the occupying Germans. The patriots felt as outlined above. Many women decided to make the best of things, and started dating German soldiers (after France was liberated, these women had their heads publicly shaved by the Resistance fighters). The Germans set up a puppet government in France, manned by "collaborationists", headed by the ancient Field Marshal Petain, then in his 80s. hero of WWI. This government was based in Vichy, France, and is called the Vichy regime. Many Frenchmen detested it, but it was the official government of France, and a German ally. As the French government it controlled the colonies of France, such as Morocco and Algeria, where the US landed troops in November, 1942. We do not always remember that for the first three or four days after those landings US troops fought French troops, under the orders of Vichy, until the Frenchmen quit and came over to our side.

After the war, there were a large number of criminal trials in France of persons who had collaborated with the Germans, and who faced death sentences. Many were executed.

But there are right-wing fascists in every country, including the US today. Many of these felt about things just like the Nazis, and were happy to see the Nazis in France, and wanted to help the Nazis. There was an entire SS division of Frenchmen, the Charlemange Division, fighting for Germany on the Eastern Front.

Today the French like to remember the Resistance, and forget the Charlemange Division. The answer to your question is as complicated as millions of individuals, with their varying reactions to the situation, could possibly make it.

Answer 2

That's a complicated question. Some of France (the Free French Forces) fought with the allies to defeat the Axis.

However, other parts of France (Vichy France) fought with the Axis.