Werwolf

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Werwolf (also Wehrwolf, a less common variation) was a Nazi plan at the end of World War II for a clandestine force which would carry out attacks against the Allies in the Allied-occupied regions of Germany. It was thus one example of a stay-behind organization. The word "Werwolf" is the German cognate of werewolf, in the sense of lycanthropy; it is also a pun on Wehrwolf, which means "defence wolf". "Werwolf" was the favoured name of the movement, although "Wehrwolf" was also sometimes used. In the end, the name was chosen after the title of a novel about the 30 Years War, written by Hermann Löns in 1914. Löns was admired by the higher spheres of Nazism because of the nationalist ideas in some of his writings.

1 Plans
2 Operations
3 Werwolf references in politics today
4 Werwolf in fiction
5 Notes
6 See also
7 External links
8 Bibliography

[edit] Plans

The original plan for Werwolf was to act as a guerrilla force to interfere with the logistics of Allied armies preparing to assault the Nazis' "Alpine National Redoubt." Lt. General of the SS Hans Prutzmann was named Generalinspekteur für Spezialabwehr ("General Inspector of Special Defense") and was assigned the task of setting up the force's headquarters in Berlin and organizing and instructing this force. Prutzmann had studied guerilla tactics used by the Russians while stationed in the occupied territories of the Ukraine and the idea was to teach the Werwolf members these tactics.

It originally had about 5,000 members recruited from the SS and Hitler Youth, and specially trained in guerrilla 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.

Disorganized attempts were made to bury explosives, ammunition and weapons in different locations around the country (mainly in the pre 1939 German-Polish border) 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, at that point the movement itself was so disorganized 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. Almost none of these 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 organized Werwolf, combined with the effects of the "Werwolf" speech, caused considerable confusion about which subsequent attacks were actual Werwolf attacks, as opposed to solo acts by fanatical Nazis or small groups of SS.

The tactics that the organization could use included sniping attacks, arson, sabotage, and assassination. The plan included things like home-made explosives production, using simple things like "a can of soup" and pencils as detonators, and training every agent 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. In reality this was merely on paper; the Werwolf never actually had the necessary equipment, organization, morale or coordination.

[edit] Operations

Some historians, including Anthony Beevor have argued that the werewolves never amounted to a serious threat, in fact they are regarded by them as barely having existed. However, the only historian to have focused on the subject, Alexander Perry Biddiscombe in Werwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944-1946, 1998, comes to a very different conclusion. According to Biddiscombe; Retreating to the Black Forest and the Harz mountains they continued resisting the occupation until at least 1947, possibly to 1949-50, effecting the undermining of peace and stability.

Werwolf's most prominent victim was Dr. Franz Oppenhoff, the new anti-Nazi mayor of Allied-occupied Aachen, who was murdered outside his home in March of 1945. Alleged victims include

Major John Poston, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery's liaison officer (killed before Germany's surrender by unidentified assailants);
Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin, Soviet commandant of Berlin, killed on June 16, 1945 (Soviet reports claimed that Berzarin died in a vehicle accident).

Werwolf propaganda, "Radio Werwolf", also claimed the assassination of General Maurice Rose, the most senior Jewish U.S. officer. Actually he was killed by regular soldiers when his vehicle encountered a German tank. It has been claimed that in Poland the Werwolf carried out massacres of civilians, and a few substantial attacks against Soviet troops. There is no proof of any of this, however. Their most costly single attack in the western zones of occupation is said to be a bombing in Bremen which killed 44 persons. Yet it is more likely that the bomb was simply a dud bomb left from an air raid that exploded by accident (not uncommon after WW 2, dud bombs from WW 2 are still found in German cities today).

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.

The post-war longevity of German resistance movements, such as the Werwolf, was partly due to the continued desperation of the German people who for two years suffered under the U.S. occupation directive JCS 1067.^[1] ^[2]

[edit] Werwolf references in politics today

Recently the history of Werwolf has been employed in arguments about the American-led occupation of Iraq [1] [2] [3]. Some aspects of Werwolf which are relevant to this discussion are:

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.
As a war effort, Werwolf was truncated by the stratagem of accepting defeat at the hands of the Western Allies to avoid occupation by Russians.
Werwolf had a mythological reputation which was deliberately fostered by Nazi propaganda. Its psychological presence exceeded confirmed incidents, especially after surrender.
Nonetheless, Werwolf was far weaker than many other historically significant guerrilla insurgencies, for example, those in Vietnam and Iraq.

[edit] Werwolf in fiction

In the 1977 movie, Shock Waves, staring Peter Cushing, a "super-soldier" spin on the Wehrwolf soldier is used as a plot device. As well, the introduction of the movie hypes the fear and abilities of the Wehrwolves.

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 Werwolf. They fight to overthrow Britain using a battalion of artificially created vampires.

In the Lars von Trier film, Zentropa, Wehrwolf terrorist plots play a prominent role in the story.

Samuel Fuller directed the 1959 film Verboten! about the love between a GI and a German woman whose brother is active in the Werewolves.

In the graphic novel Hellboy: Wake the Devil, there is a mention of a Nazi project called "Vampir Sturm" (Vampire Storm/Assault), which would utilize the minions of the Romanian vampire Vladimir Giurescu against the Allies. It is almost certainly a takeoff on Werwolf.