Home > CMH > Vol. 33 (2024) > Iss. 2
Abstract
Liberation came at a high price to the already devastated city of Nijmegen during Operation Market Garden. It remained a frontline city for nearly seven months, during which time Nijmegen and the surrounding area came to be “occupied” by 1st Canadian Army. The presence of a friendly but foreign army was welcome but proved to be a mixed blessing as the local inhabitants sought to resume control of their lives in a time of shortages, suspension of normal morality and conflict between the Dutch themselves. The protracted stay of the Canadians after the war was frustrating for both the liberators and the liberated. The warm afterglow of Dutch gratitude to the Canadians rightly prevails today but should not lead us to see the liberation and its aftermath in solely heroic rather than in the very human terms reflected in diaries, newspapers and other sources from that unusual, chaotic time.
Recommended Citation
McGeer, Eric "“We are now getting a Canadian occupation”: Liberators and the Liberated in the Nijmegen Salient, 1944-45." Canadian Military History 33, 2 (2024)
