Thread: Symbols of Victory

One of the first signs of public antipathy toward the German occupiers was the seditious handiwork of graffiti artists. For the most part, these patriots struck under cover of darkness, each night leaving a new crop of anti-German slogans and symbols for the scrutiny of countrymen on their way to work the next day. In Norway, patriots decorated walls and billboards with the initials of their King, Haakon VII, who had fled the country rather than submit to German rule. In France the most popular symbol of resistance was the double barred cross of Lorraine, adopted by the London based leader of the Free French, General Charles de Gaulle.
One symbol was used in all the occupied countries to invoke the day when the people would again be free-the V-for-Victory sign that came to be identified with that stubborn fighter, British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill. The letter V was carved on trees, scratched on coins, painted on cars, scrawled on walls and used to deface propaganda posters put up by the Germans. Frenchmen frequently combined the V with the cross of Lorraine (Below). On one such poster, a Parisian exhorted passerby to "make a stroke for de Gaulle," Fellow patriots followed his bidding and made row upon row of pencil marks signalling their allegiance to the general. The Germans cut out the marks, but the holes only increased the effect.
These furtive acts of patriotism were not enough for some citizens. At the risk of a heavy fine or even imprisonment, they worked various symbols of resistance into their jewellery and articles of clothing and wore them publicly to taunt the Germans.


In a picture sequence made by a Resistance photographer to document the resolve of ordinary citizens, a nocturnal graffiti artist in Paris rips down a German propaganda poster and crayons in its place the slogan "Vive de Gaulle." To the left" he scrawls a V-for-Victory sign and places inside it a cross of Lorraine, the emblem of a border region that France got back from Germany after WWI.

A pair of sunbathing Norwegians proclaim their patriotism in lipstick: "Down with N.S" this was the Nazi Party that was in Norway at the time. The girl on the left is showing the monogram of King Haakon VII.

Vexed by a provocative cap that was knitted with an image and in the same colours of the Royal Air Force bulls-eye emblem, here you see a German Soldier (Left) order the girl from Copenhagen has her name taken and recorded.

This picture shows a jockey at Paris Longchamps racetrack sporting a huge cross of Lorraine in June 1940, this was before the Germans realised that the cross was a symbol of Resistance.

A daring Dutchman strolling naked thru the streets of Amsterdam to protest about the strict German clothes rationing.

Here is a wonderful site that i found that has a picture of Charles de Gaulle. It also has a Nazi poster, Hitler himself standing by the Eiffel Tower. It is pretty interesting

it is at:
History of the French Resistance - the Alliance Reseau, Maquis, FTP and FFI