Hans von Dach

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Swiss army Major Hans von Dach is the author of several army manuals, including the seminal stay-behind warfare book Der totale Widerstand: Eine Kleinkriegsanleitung für Jedermann ("Total Resistance: A Guerrilla War Manual for Everyone"), which first appeared 1957. It is now available as an English translation under the title Total Resistance (book).

Contents

[edit] Der Totale Widerstand

There are various editions of the book, ranging from 64 through 287 pages. The book was originally written for wide dissemination to the Swiss population via the SUOV (Schweizer Unteroffiziersverband, ie. Swiss NCO association)[1] during a time when there was a public perception that Switzerland needed to be prepared to resist external aggressors.[2] As of 2007, at least one of von Dach's books (on chemical weapons) ships with sealed pages and the instruction "NUR BEI KRIEGSMOBILMACHUNG OEFFNEN" (=open only in case of mobilization).[3]

The book contains advice on how to defend Switzerland through stay-behind guerrilla warfare in case of an enemy invasion. Detailed information on how to organize small "armies" and resistance groups is given; the readers are also taught on how to build explosives (which earned the book a ban in several countries, including Germany).

Summarized in a few words, the book explains:

  • the operative, tactical, technical and psychological basics of guerrilla warfare
  • how to build-up, organize and command a guerrilla warfare
  • how to build-up and command a civilian resistance movement
  • the enemy's methods of suppressing and combating guerrilla warfare
  • explosives techniques, with the focus on placing the charges, optimizing the effects, and knowledge of the various types of explosives

Views of the book as an obsolete legend due to today's technological standards, as it studies old cases like the German Wehrmacht occupying Warsaw and the Soviet intrusion into Prague and Budapest, have been disproven in Iraq today. Iraq's insurgency very much resembles the doctrines taught in the book. That the book doesn't cover today's internet and readily available message encryption like PGP has been proven irrelevant in Iraq's insurgency today; and the book's not covering newer weapons similarly has been proven irrelevant in the Iraq insurgency. Another points are that this combat manual only addresses how to organize the resistance locally, but not how to deter the occupation of a whole country. The fact that the book focuses on the situation that prevails in Switzerland (hilly and mountainous landscape has not kept its doctrines from being successfully used by Iraq's insurgents.

[edit] Bibliography

Der Totale Widerstand is by far von Dach's most well-known book.

Other works of von Dach are titled Gefechtstechnik ("Combat technique", various editions from 1958 to 1957), Kampfbeispiele ("Examples of Combat", 1977) and Kampfverfahren der Verteidigung ("Combat procedures of the Defense", 1959).

A sequel to von Dach's seminal work, titled Der Totale Widerstand II, Chemische Kampfstoffe (Total Resistance II: Chemical Weapons), appears to exist.[3] It promises instruction about "Chemische Kampfstoffe für Widerstandskämpfer. Herstellung unter einer Besatzungsmacht mit einfachsten Mitteln im Küchenlabor" (Chemical weapons for resistance fighters. Production during occupation with the simplest of means in a kitchen laboratory).

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ SUOV Homepage
  2. ^ During the same time period, Switzerland also had a secret nuclear weapons program. As of 2007, legally mandated nuclear bomb shelter capacity for 100% of the Swiss population continues to be available. [1]
  3. ^ a b Swiss Firearms Trade

[edit] External links

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