collaborationism

Definition of collaborationism

Noun

collaborationism (plural collaborationisms)

1. The act of collaborating, especially with an enemy

Further reading

Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions, pillage, and economic exploitation or participation in a puppet government.

Etymology

The term collaborate dates from 1871, and is a back-formation from collaborator (1802), from the French collaborateur as used during the Napoleonic Wars against smugglers trading with England and assisting in the escape of monarchists, and is itself derived from the Latin collaboratus, past participle of collaborare "work with", from com- "with" + labore "to work." The meaning of "traitorous cooperation with the enemy" dates from 1940, originally in reference to the Vichy Government of France and those who cooperated with or helped the Nazis, following the French defeat in the Battle of France.

World War II

- German-occupied zones (France)

In France, a distinction emerged between the collaborateur and the collaborationniste. The latter expression is mainly used to describe individuals enrolled in pseudo-Nazi parties, often based in Paris, who had an overwhelming belief in fascist ideology or were simply anti-communists. Collaborateurs on the other hand, could engage in collaboration for a number of more pragmatic reasons, such as preventing infrastructure damage for use by the occupation forces or personal ambition, and were not necessarily believers in fascism per se. Arch-collaborators like Pierre Laval or René Bousquet are thus distinct from collaborationists.

Recent research by the British historian, Simon Kitson, has shown that French authorities did not wait until the Liberation to begin pursuing collaborationists. The Vichy government, itself heavily engaged in collaboration, arrested around 2000 individuals on charges of passing information to the Germans. Their reasons for doing so was to centralise collaboration to ensure that the state maintained a monopoly in Franco-German relations and to defend sovereignty so that they could negotiate from a position of strength. It was among the many compromises that the government engaged along the way.

- Low countries

The collaborators in Belgium were chiefly Walloons organized into the Rexist movement. There was an active collaboration movement in the Netherlands.

- Norway

Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), a senior officer in the Norwegian army, served the Nazis as prime minister. He gave his name to the high profile government collaborator.

- Yugoslavia

Leon Rupnik (1880-1946) was a Slovene general who collaborated as he took control of the semi-independent region of the Italian-occupied southern Slovenia known as the Province of Ljubljana, which came under German control in 1943.