Werwolf

Werwolf was a Nazi plan at the end of World War II for a force which would aid the Wehrmacht by means of guerilla attacks against the Allies in the Allied-occupied regions of Germany. The word "Werwolf" is the German cognate of werewolf, in the sense of lycanthropy; it is also a pun on Wehrwolf, which means "military wolf". "Werwolf" was the favored name of the movement, although "Wehrwolf" was also sometimes used.

The original plan for Werwolf was to act as a guerilla force to harry the logistic trains of Allied armies preparing to assault the Nazis' "Alpine National Redoubt". It originally had about 5,000 members recruited from the SS and Hitler Youth, and specially trained in guerilla tactics. It even went so far as to establish front companies to ensure continued funding after occupation (all were discovered and shut down within eight months). However as it became increasingly clear that the Alpine Redoubt was yet another grandiose delusion, Werwolf was converted first into a terrorist organisation, and then largely dismantled by Heinrich Himmler and Wilhelm Keitel in the last few weeks of the war. On March 23, 1945, Adolf Hitler 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 actual Werwolf attacks, as against solo acts by fanatical Nazis or small groups of SS.

Typical Werwolf tactics included sniping attacks, arson, sabotage, and assassination although in Poland they also carried out massacres of civilians, and a few substantial attacks against Soviet troops. Their most costly single attack in the western zones of occupation was a bombing which killed 44 persons. Their most prominent victims were Dr. Franz Oppenhoff (the new anti-Nazi mayor of Aachen and most prominent democratic politician left in Germany), Major John Poston (Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's liaison officer) and possibly General Berzarin (Soviet commandant of Berlin). (Their radio propaganda also claimed the assassination of General Maurice Rose, the most senior Jewish US officer, though it is more likely his killers were ordinary soldiers who had no idea who he was).

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.

Recently the history of Werwolf has been employed in arguments about the American-led occupation of Iraq [1] (http://www.dod.gov/speeches/2003/sp20030825-secdef0403.html) [2] (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/08/20030825-1.html) [3] (http://slate.msn.com/id/2087768). Some aspects of Werwolf which are relevant to this discussion are: (1) Werwolf was principally a war stratagem of the Nazi government. It withered by the month after German surrender; the German people were tired of war. (2) As a war effort, Werwolf was truncated by the stratagem of accepting Western defeat to avoid defeat against the Russians. (3) Werwolf had a mythological reputation which was deliberately fostered by Nazi propaganda. Its psychological presence exceeded confirmed incidents, especially after surrender. (4) The Allied powers devoted massive resources to the pacification and reconstruction of Germany, partly for fear of insurgency. (5) Nonetheless, Werwolf was far weaker than many other historically significant guerrilla insurgencies, e.g., those in Vietnam and Iraq.

Bibliography

• Biddiscombe, Perry, Werwolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944-1946.de:Werwolf (Freischärlerbewegung)