Great question! I can focus my answer on French and German Resistance groups. The first known Resistance group was formed by Agnes Humbert, a curator from le Musee d’Homme. She and her colleagues used a makeshift printing press and distributed flyers around Paris. These flyers started out with inspirational messages about not giving up hope, and quickly developed into more overt Resistance directions (such as reading forbidden literature). Humbert was ultimately captured but survived forced labor in Germany. In her autobiography, Resistance, she describes that she and her fellow resistantes painted a Croix de Lorraine (the symbol of the Resistance) onto their uniforms to distinguish themselves form other prisoners.

“Litterature engage” or engaged literature, refers to the Resistance works that were published either publicly or clandestinely. Sartre’s play No Exit is one such example. In its famous line, “hell is other people,” Sartre refers to the occupying forces as “The Others.” Sartre’s audience would have understood the reference, but surprisingly it was still allowed to be played in theaters. This causes some historians to argue whether Sartre can be considered a Resistance writer at all. Another of his plays, The Flies, can also be considered engaged literature. Occupied Paris is recreated as an ancient Greek city where a usurper to the throne (the Nazis) is aided by the dethroned king’s wife (the Vichy government). Additionally, Sartre wrote the play Men without Shadows, which centers on a group of Resistance fighters imprisoned by the Germans. This play was published after the war and so was blatantly able to showcase Nazi atrocities.

Albert Camus differed from Sartre in that he was only able to publish clandestinely. He worked for the Resistance newspaper Combat, which was known to give up to date information on French victories. Sartre also wrote for various newspapers during this time but did not publish any Resistance messages within them. In 1947, Camus published The Plague, a novel about a small Algerian town cursed with a disease. Like the rise of Nazism, Camus warns that the plague could return if the townspeople were not vigilant.

Another well know Resistance piece was the Silence of the Sea, publsied secretly under the pen name Vercors (real name Jean Bruller). It centers on an old man and his niece who are forced to house a Nazi soldier. Although the soldier is outwardly polite, the two protagonists refuse to speak with him. It’s only when the soldier realizes the horrors of Nazism before leaving for the Eastern front that the old man and young woman speak to him. This plot is similar to Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise, which was written in 1942 but not published until the 1990s. Nemirovsky was Jewish and died in a concentration camp before her notebook could be sent to her publisher.

Resistance literature was also prevalent in Nazi Germany. Sophie Scholl, along with her brother and four friends, were members of The White Rose Society. All of the members were students at the University of Munich and were heavily influenced by Catholicism. They distributed leaflets around campus, and were ultimately arrested by the Gestapo. Sophie Scholl was executed by guillotine in 1943. The White Rose Society reached many college students, and the lawyer Helmuth von Moltke was instrumental in delivering the Society’s last leaflet to the Allies, who in turn made thousands of copies to rain down in Munich.

Most of the Resistance literature was published on homemade equipment and distributed secretly around the city. At times, networks of likeminded individuals were able to distribute this literature between cities and nations. Some authors were able to continue publishing under the occupation (and reach a wide audience) but had to obscure any Resistance references.

Sources

Atwood, Kathryn (2011). Women Heroes of World War II. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.

Jens, Inge (Editor) (2017). At the Heart of the White Rose, Letters and Diaries of Hans and Sophie Scholl. Plough Publishing House.

Rosbottom, Ronald (2015). When Paris went Dark. Back Bay Books.