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| German historian ], in his ''The History of Germany Since 1789'' (1984) also states that "The readiness to work with the victors, to carry out their orders, to accept their advice and their help was genuine; of the resistance which the Allies had expected in the way of 'werwolf' units and nocturnal guerrilla activities, there was no sign."<ref name="golomann">{{cite book | last = Mann | first = Golo | authorlink = Golo Mann | title = The History of Germany Since 1789 | publisher = Vintage/Ebury | year = 1984 | pages = 560 | isbn = 978-0701113469 }}</ref> | German historian ], in his ''The History of Germany Since 1789'' (1984) also states that "The readiness to work with the victors, to carry out their orders, to accept their advice and their help was genuine; of the resistance which the Allies had expected in the way of 'werwolf' units and nocturnal guerrilla activities, there was no sign."<ref name="golomann">{{cite book | last = Mann | first = Golo | authorlink = Golo Mann | title = The History of Germany Since 1789 | publisher = Vintage/Ebury | year = 1984 | pages = 560 | isbn = 978-0701113469 }}</ref> | ||
| ] is the only{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} historian to have presented a somewhat different view. In his books ''Werwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946'' (1998)<ref name="biddis"/> and ''The Last Nazis: SS Werwolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe, 1944-1947'' (2000), Biddiscombe asserts that after retreating to the ] and the ], the Werwolf continued resisting the occupation until at least 1947, possibly until 1949–50. However, he characterises German post-surrender resistance as "minor",<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=275}}</ref> and calls the post-war Werwolfs "desperadoes"<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=151}}</ref> and "fanatics living in forest huts".<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=80}}</ref> | ] is the only{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} historian to have presented a somewhat different view. In his books ''Werwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946'' (1998)<ref name="biddis"/> and ''The Last Nazis: SS Werwolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe, 1944-1947'' (2000), Biddiscombe asserts that after retreating to the ] and the ], the Werwolf continued resisting the occupation until at least 1947, possibly until 1949–50. However, he characterises German post-surrender resistance as "minor",<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=275}}</ref> and calls the post-war Werwolfs "desperadoes"<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=151}}</ref> and "fanatics living in forest huts".<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=80}}</ref> He further cites U.S. Army intelligence reports that characterised partisans as "nomad bands"<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=197}}</ref> and judged them as less serious threats than attacks by foreign slave labourers<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=152}}</ref> and considered their sabotage and subversive activities to be insignificant.<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=115}}</ref> He also notes that: "The Americans and British concluded, even in the summer of 1945, that, as a nationwide network, the original Werwolf was irrevocably destroyed, and that it no longer posed a threat to the occupation."<ref>{{harv|Biddiscombe|1998|p=51}}</ref> | ||
| Biddiscombe also says that Werwolf violence failed to mobilise a spirit of popular national resistance, that the group was poorly led, armed, and organised, and that it was doomed to failure given the war-weariness of the populace and the hesitancy of young Germans to sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyre of the former Nazi regime. He concludes that the only significant achievement of the Werwolves was to spark distrust of the German populace in the Allies as they occupied Germany, which caused them in some cases to act more repressively than they might have done otherwise, which in turn fostered resentments that helped to enable Far Right ideas to survive in Germany, at least in pockets, into the post-war era.<ref name="biddis"/> | |||
| One often overlooked aspect of Werwolf is that the Hitler Youth component was also responsible for developing a new political youth movement{{Clarify|date=July 2009}} which was intended to outlast the war, and which was called "neo-Nazism". Some current German ] groups refer to themselves as "Werwolf" or "Wehrwolf", some of which use the '']'' symbol (German for "wolf's hook") whose horizontal variant is known as "werewolf".{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}} | One often overlooked aspect of Werwolf is that the Hitler Youth component was also responsible for developing a new political youth movement{{Clarify|date=July 2009}} which was intended to outlast the war, and which was called "neo-Nazism". Some current German ] groups refer to themselves as "Werwolf" or "Wehrwolf", some of which use the '']'' symbol (German for "wolf's hook") whose horizontal variant is known as "werewolf".{{Citation needed|date=February 2007}} | ||
Revision as of 13:10, 17 May 2010
Not to be confused with Werewolf.
Werwolf (German for "werewolf", sometimes spelled "Wehrwolf") was the name given to a last-ditch Nazi plan, developed during the closing months of the Second World War, to create a German commando force which would operate behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced through Germany itself. Werwolf remained entirely ineffectual as a combat force, however, and in practical terms, its value as propaganda far outweighed its actual achievements. The allies however overestimated the threat and reacted accordingly. For example, the perceived Werwolf threat delayed dissolution of Rheinwiesenlager open air camps in the west, while 10,000 youths were interned in NKVD special camps in the east where half of them died.
Misperceptions
After it became clear, by March 1945, that the remaining German forces had no chance of stopping the Allied advance, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels seized upon the idea of Werwolf, and began to foster the notion, primarily through Nazi radio broadcasts, that Werwolf was a clandestine guerrilla organization comprising irregular German partisans, similar to the many insurgency groups which the Germans had encountered in the nations they occupied during the war. Despite such propaganda, however, this was never the actual nature of Werwolf, which in reality was always intended to be a commando unit comprising uniformed troops. Another popular myth about Werwolf is that it was intended to continue fighting underground even after the surrender of the Nazi government and the German military. In fact, no effort was ever made by the Nazi leadership to develop an insurgency to continue fighting in the event of defeat, in large measure because Adolf Hitler, as well as other Nazi leaders, refused to believe that a German defeat was possible, and they regarded anyone who even discussed the possibility as defeatists and traitors. As a result, no contingency plans to deal with defeat were ever authorized. However, as a result of Goebbels' efforts, Werwolf had, and in many cases continues to have, a mythological reputation as having been an underground Nazi resistance movement, with some even claiming that Werwolf attacks continued for months, or even years, after the end of the war. Its perceived influence went far beyond its actual operations, especially after the dissolution of the Nazi regime.
Historian Perry Biddiscombe has also asserted that Werwolf represented a re-emergence of a genuinely radical, social-revolutionary current within National Socialism, something which had been present in the movement in its early days but which had been suppressed following the Nazi assumption of power in 1933.
Nomenclature
The name was chosen after the title of Hermann Löns' novel, Der Wehrwolf (1910). Set in the Celle region, Lower Saxony, during the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), the novel concerns a peasant, Harm Wulf, who after his family is killed by marauding soldiers, organises his neighbours into a militia who pursue the soldiers mercilessly and execute any they capture, referring to themselves as Wehrwölfe. Löns said that the title was a dual reference to the fact that the peasants put up a fight (sich wehren) and to the protagonist's surname of Wulf, but it also had obvious connotations with the word Werwölfe in that Wulf's men came to enjoy killing. While not himself a Nazi (he died in 1914) Löns' work was popular with the German far right, and the Nazis celebrated his work. Indeed, Celle's local newspaper began serialising Der Wehrwolf in January 1945.
It may also be of relevance to the naming of the organisation that in 1942 OKW and OKH's field headquarters at Vinnitsa in the Ukraine were christened "Werwolf" by Adolf Hitler, and Hitler on a number of occasions had used "Wolf" as a pseudonym for himself. The etymology of the name Adolf is Noble (adal neudeutsch edel/edler) Wolf.
Plans
In late summer/early autumn 1944, Heinrich Himmler initiated Unternehmen Werwolf (Operation Werwolf), ordering SS Obergruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prützmann to begin organising an elite troop of volunteer forces to operate secretly behind enemy lines. As originally conceived, these Werwolf units were intended to be legitimate uniformed military formations trained to engage in clandestine operations behind enemy lines in the same manner as Allied Special Forces such as Commandos. Prützmann was named Generalinspekteur für Spezialabwehr (General Inspector of Special Defence) and assigned the task of setting up the force's headquarters in Berlin and organising and instructing the force. Prutzmann had studied the guerrilla tactics used by Soviet partisans while stationed in the occupied territories of the Ukraine and the idea was to teach these tactics to the members of Operation Werwolf.
Gauleiters were to suggest suitable recruits, who would then be trained at secret locations in the Rhineland and Berlin. The chief training centre in the West was at Hülchrath Castle near Erkelenz, which by early 1945 was training around 200 recruits mostly drawn from the Hitler Youth.
The tactics available to the organisation included sniping attacks, arson, sabotage, and assassination. Training was to include such topics as the production of home-made explosives, manufacturing detonators from common articles such as pencils and "a can of soup", and every member was to be trained in how to jump into a guard tower and strangle the sentry in one swift movement, using only a metre of string. Werwolf agents were supposed to have at their disposal a vast assortment of weapons, from fire-proof coats to silenced Walther pistols but in reality this was merely on paper; the Werwolf never actually had the necessary equipment, organisation, morale or coordination. Given the dire supply situation German forces were facing in 1945, the commanding officers of existing Wehrmacht and SS units were unwilling to turn over what little equipment they still had for the sake of an organization whose actual strategic value was doubtful.
Werwolf originally had about five thousand members recruited from the "SS" (Schutzstaffel) and the Hitler Youth (Hitler-Jugend). These recruits were specially trained in guerrilla tactics. Operation Werwolf went so far as to establish front companies to ensure continued funding in those areas of Germany which were occupied (all of the "front companies" were discovered and shut down within eight months). However, as it became increasingly clear that the reputedly impregnable Alpine Redoubt, from which their operations were to be directed by the Nazi leadership in the event that the rest of Germany had been occupied, was yet another grandiose delusion, Werwolf was converted into a terrorist organisation and in the last few weeks of the war, Operation Werwolf was largely dismantled by Heinrich Himmler and Wilhelm Keitel.
Disorganised attempts were made to bury explosives, ammunition and weapons in different locations around the country (mainly in the pre-1939 German–Polish border region) to be used by the Werwolf in their terrorist acts after the defeat of Germany, but not only were the amounts of material to be "buried" prohibitively low, by that point the movement itself was so disorganised that few actual members or leaders knew where the materials were, how to use them, or what to do with them. A large portion of these "depots" were found by the Russians and virtually none of the materials were actually used by the Werwolf.
On March 23, 1945, Joseph Goebbels gave a speech, known as the "Werwolf speech", in which he urged every German to fight to the death. The partial dismantling of the organised Werwolf, combined with the effects of the "Werwolf" speech, caused considerable confusion about which subsequent attacks were actually carried out by Werwolf members, as opposed to solo acts by fanatical Nazis or small groups of SS.
Antony Beevor and Earl F. Ziemke have argued that Werwolf never amounted to a serious threat, in fact they are regarded by them as barely having existed. This view is supported by the RAND Corporation, which surveyed the history of US occupations with an eye to advising on Iraq. According to a study by former Ambassador James Dobbins and a team of RAND researchers, the total number of post-conflict American combat casualties in Germany was zero.
German historian Golo Mann, in his The History of Germany Since 1789 (1984) also states that "The readiness to work with the victors, to carry out their orders, to accept their advice and their help was genuine; of the resistance which the Allies had expected in the way of 'werwolf' units and nocturnal guerrilla activities, there was no sign."
Perry Biddiscombe is the only historian to have presented a somewhat different view. In his books Werwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946 (1998) and The Last Nazis: SS Werwolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe, 1944-1947 (2000), Biddiscombe asserts that after retreating to the Black Forest and the Harz mountains, the Werwolf continued resisting the occupation until at least 1947, possibly until 1949–50. However, he characterises German post-surrender resistance as "minor", and calls the post-war Werwolfs "desperadoes" and "fanatics living in forest huts". He further cites U.S. Army intelligence reports that characterised partisans as "nomad bands" and judged them as less serious threats than attacks by foreign slave labourers and considered their sabotage and subversive activities to be insignificant. He also notes that: "The Americans and British concluded, even in the summer of 1945, that, as a nationwide network, the original Werwolf was irrevocably destroyed, and that it no longer posed a threat to the occupation."
Biddiscombe also says that Werwolf violence failed to mobilise a spirit of popular national resistance, that the group was poorly led, armed, and organised, and that it was doomed to failure given the war-weariness of the populace and the hesitancy of young Germans to sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyre of the former Nazi regime. He concludes that the only significant achievement of the Werwolves was to spark distrust of the German populace in the Allies as they occupied Germany, which caused them in some cases to act more repressively than they might have done otherwise, which in turn fostered resentments that helped to enable Far Right ideas to survive in Germany, at least in pockets, into the post-war era.
One often overlooked aspect of Werwolf is that the Hitler Youth component was also responsible for developing a new political youth movement which was intended to outlast the war, and which was called "neo-Nazism". Some current German neo-Nazi groups refer to themselves as "Werwolf" or "Wehrwolf", some of which use the Wolfsangel symbol (German for "wolf's hook") whose horizontal variant is known as "werewolf".
Alleged Werwolf actions
A number of instances of post-war violence have been attributed to Werwolf activity, but none have been proven.
- It has been claimed that the destruction of the United States Military Government police headquarters in Bremen on June 5, 1945 by two explosions which resulted in 44 deaths was a Werwolf-related attack. There is, however, no proof that it was due to Werwolf actions rather than to unexploded bombs or delayed-action ordnance.
- Dr. Franz Oppenhoff, the newly appointed mayor of Aachen, was murdered outside his home in March 1945, allegedly by Werwolfs, but was in fact assassinated by an SS unit which was composed of Werwolf trainees from Hülchrath Castle. They were flown in at the order of Heinrich Himmler.
- Major John Poston, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery's liaison officer was ambushed and killed a few days before Germany's surrender by unidentified assailants; in reality Poston died in an ambush by regular troops.
- Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin, Soviet commandant of Berlin is often claimed to have been assassinated by Werwolfs, but actually died in a motorcycle accident on June 16, 1945.
- The Werwolf propaganda station "Radio Werwolf" (which actually broadcast from Nauen near Berlin during April 1945), also claimed responsibility for the assassination of Major General Maurice Rose, commander of the US 3rd Armored Division on 30 March 1945, who was in reality killed in action by regular troops on 31 March.
- On 31 July 1945 an ammunition dump in Ústí nad Labem (Aussig an der Elbe), a largely ethnic German city in northern Bohemia ("Sudetenland"), exploded, killing 26 or 27 people and injuring dozens. The explosion resulted in the "Ústí massacre" of ethnic Germans and was blamed on the Werwolf organization. A book published following the 1989 Velvet Revolution states that the explosion and massacre was perpetrated by Communists within the Czechoslovak secret services, specifically Bedřich Pokorný, leader of the Ministry of Interior's Defensive Intelligence (Obranné zpravodajství) department, as a pretext for the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia.
Allied reprisals
According to Biddiscombe "the threat of Nazi partisan warfare had a generally unhealthy effect on broad issues of policy among the occupying powers. As well, it prompted the development of Draconian reprisal measures that resulted in the destruction of much German property and the deaths of thousands of civilians and soldiers".(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 252)
In the Soviet occupation zone, thousands of youths were arrested as "Werwolfs". Evidently, arrests were arbitrary and in part based on denunciations. The arrested boys were either "shot at dawn" or interned in NKVD special camps. On 22 June 1945, Deputy Commissar of the NKVD Ivan Serov reported to the head of the NKVD Lavrentiy Beria the arrest of "more than 600" alleged Werwolf members, mostly aged 15 to 17 years. The report, though referring to incidents where Soviet units came under fire from the woods, asserts that most of the arrested had not been involved in any action against the Soviets, which Serov explained with interrogation results allegedly showing that the boys had been "waiting" for the right moment and in the meantime focussed on attracting new members. In October 1945, Beria reported to Joseph Stalin the "liquidation" of 359 alleged Werwolf groups. Of those, 92 groups with 1.192 members were "liquidated" in Saxony alone. On 5 August 1946, Soviet minister for internal affairs Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov reported that in the Soviet occupation zone, 332 "terrorist diversion groups and underground organizations" had been disclosed and "liquidated". A total of about 10,000 minors was interned in NKVD special camps, half of whom did not return. Parents as well as the East German administration and political parties, installed by the Soviets, were denied any information on the whereabout of the arrested youths.
Eisenhower believed he would be faced with extensive guerilla warfare, based on the Alpine Redoubt.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 252) The fear of Werwolf activity believed to be mustering around Berchtesgarden in the Alps also led to the switch in U.S. operational targets in the middle of March 1945 away from the drive towards Berlin and instead shifted the thrust towards the south and on linking up with the Russians first.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 267) An intelligence report stated "We should...be prepared to undertake operations in Southern Germany in order to overcome rapidly any organised resistance by the German Armed Froces or by guerilla movements which may have retreated to the inner zone and to this redoubt"(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 267) On March 31 Eisenhower told Roosevelt, "I am hopeful of launching operations that should partially prevent a guerilla control of any large area such as the southern mountain bastions".(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 267)
Eisenhower had previously also requested that the occupation directive JCS 1067 not make him responsible for maintaining living conditions in Germany under the expected circumstances; "..probably guerrilla fighting and possibly even civil war in certain districts... If conditions in Germany turn out as described it will be utterly impossible effectively to control or save the economic structure of the country .. and we feel we should not assume the responsibility for its support and control."(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 252) The British were "mortified by such a suggestion", but the War Department took considerable account of Eisenhower's wishes.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 253)
In April 1945 Churchill announced that the Allies would hold all captured German officer incarcerated for as long as a guerrilla threat existed.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 253) Hundreds of thousands of German last ditch troops were kept in the makeshift Rheinwiesenlager for months, "mainly to prevent Werwolf activity".(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 253) In addition to these captives the civilian detainees held by the U.S. alone climbed from 1000 in late March, 30,000 late June, more than 100,000 end of 1945.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 254) Also in the camps for civilians were the conditions often poor.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 254)
Prior to the occupation SHAEF investigated the retaliation techniques the Germans had used in order to maintain control over occupied territories, since they felt the Germans had had good success.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 257) Directives were loosely defined and implementation of retaliation was largely left to the preferences of the various armies, with the British seeming uncomfortable with those involving bloodshed.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 257) Rear-Admiral H.T. Baillie Grohman for example stated that killing hostages was "not in accordance with our usual methods".(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 257) Thanks to feelings such as this, and relative light guerrilla activity in their area, relatively few reprisals took place in the UK zone of operations.(Biddiscombe 1998, p. 257) In April 1945 General Eisenhower ordered that all partisans were to be shot. As a consequence, some war crimes (summary executions without trial and the like) followed. Contrary to Section IV of the Hague Convention of 1907, "The Laws and Customs of War on Land", the SHAEF "counter insurgency manual" included provisions for forced labour and hostage taking.
- At Seedorf UK forces randomly selected and burned 2 cottages on April 21.
- At the town of Sogel the Canadian First Army evacuated the civilians from the city center whereupon it was systematically demolished.
- In 1945, it is believed that Canadian forces set civilian houses and a church on fire in reprisal for the death of the unit's commanding officer in battle. Maj.-Gen. Christopher Vokes, commanding the 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division ordered the town to be destroyed. "We used the rubble to make traversable roads for our tanks," Vokes wrote later.
- Unless the citizens of the city of Stuppach within 3 hours produced the German officer that the U.S. forces believed was hiding there they were informed that: all male inhabitants would be shot, women and children expelled to the surrounding wilderness and the city razed.
- U.S. combat troops destroyed the town of Bruchsal, in retaliation for SS activities.
- At the city of Constance in the French occupation zone in mid-May 400 hostages were taken, two persons who resisted French orders had been shot, part of the city evacuated and threats were made to burn the evacuated part down.
- French forces expelled more than 25,000 civilians from their homes. Some of them were then forced to clear minefields in Alsace.
- Killing of hostages by the French took place amongst others in Markdorf and Reutlingen.
- The city of Lichtental was pillaged by the French.
- Jarmin was demolished by Soviet troops.
- At the town of Schivelbein all men were shot and all women and girls raped by Soviet troops.
The German resistance movement was successfully suppressed in 1945. However, collective punishment for acts of resistance, such as fines and curfews, was still being imposed as late as 1948.
Biddiscombe estimates the total death toll as a direct result of Werewolf actions and the resulting reprisals as 3,000–5,000.
Similar organizations
Within Germany
From 1946 onward Allied intelligence officials noted resistance activities by an organisation which had appropriated the name of the anti-Nazi resistance group, the Edelweiss Piraten (Edelweiss Pirates). The group was reported to be composed mainly of former members and officers of Hitler Youth units, ex-soldiers and drifters, and was described by an intelligence report as "a sentimental, adventurous, and romantically anti-social ". It was regarded as a more serious menace to order than the Werwolf by US officials.
A raid in March 1946 captured 80 former German officers who were members, and who possessed a list of 400 persons to be liquidated, including Wilhelm Hoegner, the prime minister of Bavaria. Further members of the group were seized with caches of ammunition and even anti-tank rockets. In late 1946 reports of activities gradually died away.
Outside Germany
Although not connected with Werwolf in any way, there was some sporadic armed resistance and sabotage in the years immediately after the war carried out by ethnic Germans in the Soviet-controlled territories of western Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. These activities were virtually unknown to the Western Allies, primarily because they were kept out of the official news channels by Soviet censors. These actions, however, are more correctly to be understood as resistance to the brutality of Soviet occupation and reprisals (for example, many ethnic Germans in eastern Europe were forcibly deported to Siberia as slave laborers, from where few would ever return alive), rather than as an effort to resurrect the aims of the Nazi regime.
Also similar to Werwolf were the Forest Brothers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who continued to wage armed guerrilla resistance against the Soviet occupation of their nations from the end of the Second World War until as late as 1957. Although few Forest Brothers were of German ethnicity, many of them had originally served in military units which had been allied with the Third Reich. As with the resistance movement among ethnic Germans in eastern Europe, however, the Forest Brothers were only interested in the liberation of their lands from Soviet rule, rather than an attempted resurrection of Nazi war aims.
In recent politics
The history of Werwolf was compared to the Iraqi insurgency by the Bush Administration and other Iraq War supporters. In speeches given on August 25, 2003 to the Veterans of Foreign Wars by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld parallels were drawn between the problems faced by the coalition's occupation forces in Iraq to those encountered by occupation forces in post-World War II Germany, asserting that the Iraqi insurgency would ultimately prove to be as futile in realizing its objectives as had the Werwolves.
Former National Security Council staffer Daniel Benjamin published a riposte in Slate magazine on August 29, 2003, entitled "Condi’s Phony History: Sorry, Dr. Rice, postwar Germany was nothing like Iraq" in which he took Rice and Rumsfeld to task for mentioning the Werwolf, writing that the reality of postwar Germany bore no resemblance to the occupation of Iraq, and made reference to Anthony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin 1945 and the US Army's official history, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944-1946, where the Werwolf were only mentioned twice in passing. This did not prevent his political opponents from disagreeing with him, using Biddiscombe's book as a source.
Given the events that came to pass after the Bush Administration's comparison, the most striking difference is the fact that in Iraq, many more (over twenty times as many) coalition soldiers were killed in combat after victory had been declared by President Bush on 1 May 2003 than had been killed during the initial invasion. In Germany, not a single Allied soldier was ever proven to have been killed as a result of hostile action after the German surrender on 8 May 1945. Another is that Biddiscombe maintains that what little resistance to the occupation there was in Germany had evaporated within two years of the end of the war, while violent opposition to the occupation of Iraq and its new government has continued (as of this writing) for more than six years after the invasion.
In popular culture
- In the manga Hellsing, a secret British organisation fights against a Nazi battalion based in Brazil. It moved there during the last months of the war and some of its officers are referred as being Werwölfe. They fight to overthrow Britain using a battalion of artificially created vampires.
- In the Lars von Trier film, Europa (released in North America as Zentropa), Werwolf terrorist plots months after the end of the war play a prominent role in the story. Here, Werwolf is shown as not only surviving the war, but of having been a genuine threat to the occupation. One of their attacks is a highly fictionalized version of the assassination of Dr. Franz Oppenhoff (named Ravenstein in the film), although his death is depicted as taking place in late 1945, when in fact it had occurred in March 1945, while the war was still going on.
- Samuel Fuller directed the 1959 film Verboten! about the love between a GI (James Best) and a German woman (Susan Cummings) whose brother is active in the Werewolves.
- In the French comic book "Anton Six" (José Louis Bocquet/Arno) the U.S Secret Service sent an agent to meet Werwolf soldiers in Ukraine which possessed information about Stalin and the Red Army.
- In the 2007 movie, Grindhouse, Rob Zombie directed a short fictional movie preview, titled "Werewolf Women of the SS".
- Operation Werwolf is referred to in passing in the both the book and movie The Odessa File.
- In the James Bond novel Moonraker, the villain Hugo Drax is described as having been part of a Werwolf operation behind Allied lines during World War II.
- The 2008 alternate history novel The Man with the Iron Heart by Harry Turtledove is premised on the idea of a successful Werwolf insurgency led by Reinhard Heydrich.
- Although Werwolf is not mentioned by name, Roberto Rossellini's 1948 film, Germany Year Zero depicts a young boy living in the ruins of Berlin in the aftermath of the war who encounters a former teacher who is part of an underground Nazi network. Seeing an opportunity to revive Nazi ideology in the post-war generation, the teacher seduces the boy to euthanise his own sick father, in accordance with the Nazi belief in the survival of the fittest.
- In The Illuminatus! Trilogy, the Werewolves are mentioned as being controlled by the Vehmic courts, who are in turn controlled by the Illuminati.
- In the 1947 novel 'Gimlet Mops Up' by W.E. Johns, Gimlet uncovers a werwolf cell operating in Britain, attempting to assassinate high profile members of the British Armed forces for 'War Crimes'. In this story the Nazis wear werewolf masks to hide their identity.
See also
- Latvian national partisans, the post-war resistance movement in Latvia.
- Lithuanian partisans, the post-war resistance movement in Lithuania.
- The Alpine National Redoubt of Germany
- Japanese holdout
- ODESSA
- Operation Gladio
- Operation Paperclip
- Stille Hilfe
- HIAG
- Ratlines (history)
References
Notes
- ^ (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 464)
- Beevor, Antony (2002). The Fall of Berlin 1945. Penguin. p. 173. ISBN 0142002801.
- Watt, Roderick H. (1992). "Wehrwolf or Werwolf? Literature, Legend, or Lexical Error into Nazi Propaganda?". The Modern Language Review. 87 (4): 879–895.
{{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Neumann, Klaus (2000). Shifting Memories: The Nazi Past in the New Germany. University of Michigan Press. p. 50. ISBN 047208710X.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Warlimont, Walter (1964). Inside Hitler's Headquarters, 1939–45. F.A. Praeger. p. 246.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Klemperer, Victor (1997). An Annotated Edition of Victor Klemperer's LTI, Notizbuch eines Philologen. E. Mellen Press. p. 305. ISBN 077348681X.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - Dearn, Alan (2006). The Hitler Youth 1933–45. Osprey Publishing. p. 16. ISBN 184176874X.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - Beevor, Antony (2002). The Fall of Berlin 1945. Viking. p. 490. ISBN 978-0670030415.
- Dobbins, James; McGinn, John G.; Crane, Keith; Jones, Seth G.; Lal, Rollie; Rathmell, Andrew; Swanger, Rachel M.; Timilsina, Anga, America's Role in Nation-Building From Germany to Iraq (PDF), RAND Corporation, retrieved 2007-08-03
- Mann, Golo (1984). The History of Germany Since 1789. Vintage/Ebury. p. 560. ISBN 978-0701113469.
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 275)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 151)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 80)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 197)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 152)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 115)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 51)
- Roehner, Bertrand M., RELATIONS BETWEEN ALLIED FORCES AND THE POPULATION OF GERMANY (PDF), retrieved 2007-08-03
- Rempel, Gerhard (1989). Hitler's Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. UNC Press. p. 244. ISBN 0807842990.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Whiting, Charles (2002). Monty's Greatest Victory. Leo Cooper. p. 83.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - "Voice of Russia: Commandant of Berlin". Retrieved 2007-08-03.
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 139)
- Miller, Edward G. (2007). Nothing Less Than Full Victory. Naval Institute Press. p. 254. ISBN 1591144949.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Weber, Petra (2000). Justiz und Diktatur: Justizverwaltung und politische Strafjustiz in Thüringen 1945-1961. Veröffentlichungen zur SBZ-/DDR -Forschung im Institut für Zeitgeschichte. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. p. 99. ISBN 3486564633.
- ^ Fruth, Pia (7 May 2010, 8:30 – 9:00 CEST). "Die Lüge vom Werwolf. Warum Tausende Jugendliche in sowjetischen Lagern landeten" (PDF). Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk 2 (in German). Retrieved 16 May 2010.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Reif-Spirek, Peter; Ritscher, Bodo (1999). Speziallager in der SBZ (in German). Ch. Links Verlag. p. 138. ISBN 3861531933.
- ^ Reif-Spirek, Peter; Ritscher, Bodo (1999). Speziallager in der SBZ (in German). Ch. Links Verlag. p. 139. ISBN 3861531933.
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 254)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 256)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 257)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 258)
- Canadian Legion – The End Of Darkness
- ^ (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 259)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 261)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 263). In the footnote further referred to Hillel, "L'Occupation Francaise en Allemagne", p.85
- ^ (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 270)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 263)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 265)
- (Biddiscombe 1998, p. 276)
- ^ Fritz, Stephen G. (2004). Endkampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the Third Reich. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 218–219. ISBN 0813123259.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Rumsfeld, Donald H (2006-07-19). "DefenseLink Speech: Veterans of Foreign Wars". Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defence. US Department of Defence. Retrieved 2008-08-12.
- Rice, Condoleezza (2003-08-25). "National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice Remarks to Veterans of Foreign Wars". Office of the Press Secretary. White House. Retrieved 2008-08-12.
- Carafano, James (September 23, 2003). "A Phony "Phony History"". Heritage Foundation. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Benjamin, Daniel (2003-08-29). "Condi Rice's phony history". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2008-08-12.
- Earl F. Ziemke (1990). "ARMY HISTORICAL SERIES: THE U.S. ARMY IN THE OCCUPATION OF GERMANY," CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
- ^ Benjamin, Daniel (2003-08-29). "Condi's Phony History". Slate magazine. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - Marek, Ed (September 1, 2003). "The occupation of Germany, the occupation of Iraq, many parallels". Talking Proud!. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Iraq Coalition Casualty Count: Coalition Deaths by Country
Further reading
- Hellmuth Auerbach, 'Die Organisation des "Werwolf"'
- Arno Rose, Werwolf, 1944–1945
- Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Die amerikanische Besetzung Deutschlands
- Charles Whiting, Hitler's Werewolves
- James Lucas, Kommando (part 4)
Bibliography
- Biddiscombe, Perry (1998), Werwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946, University of Toronto Press, p. 464, ISBN 978-0802008626
External links
- Review of Werwolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946 Canadian Journal of History, Dec 1999 by Lawrence D Stokes
