Werwolf (pronounced[ˈveːɐ̯vɔlf],German for "werewolf") was aNazi plan which began development in 1944,[1] to create aresistance force which would operate behind enemy lines as theAllies advanced throughGermany in parallel with theWehrmacht fighting in front of the lines. There is some argument that the plan, and subsequent reports of guerrilla activities, were created byJoseph Goebbels through propaganda disseminated in the waning weeks of the war through his "Radio Werwolf", something that was not connected in any way with the military unit.
How and by whom the name was chosen is unknown,[2] but it may have alluded to the title ofHermann Löns's novel,Der Wehrwolf, first published in 1910.[3] Set in theCelle region (Lower Saxony) during theThirty Years' War (1618–1648), the novel concerns apeasant named Harm Wulf. After marauding soldiers kill his family, Wulf organizes his neighbors into amilitia who pursue the soldiers and mercilessly execute any they capture, while referring to themselves asWehrwölfe. Löns wrote that the title was a dual reference to the fact that the peasants put up a fighting defense (sich wehren, see "Bundeswehr" – Federal Defense) and to the protagonist's surname ofWulf, but it also had obvious parallels with the wordWerwölfe in that Wulf's men came to enjoy killing.[4] While Löns was not himself a Nazi (he died in 1914), his work became popular with theGerman far right, and the Nazis celebrated it. Indeed,Celle's local newspaper beganserialisingDer Wehrwolf in January 1945.[5]
In 1942,Adolf Hitler named theOKW andOKH field headquarters, atVinnytsia inUkraine,"Werwolf",[6] and Hitler on a number of occasions had used "Wolf" as apseudonym for himself. Theetymology of the name "Adolf" itself carries connotations of noble (adal; Modern GermanAdel) wolf, while Hitler referred to his firstWorld War IIEastern Front military headquarters asWolfsschanze, commonly rendered in English as "Wolf's Lair" (literally "Wolf'sSconce").
In late summer/early autumn 1944,Heinrich Himmler initiatedUnternehmen Werwolf (Operation Werwolf), orderingSS ObergruppenführerHans-Adolf Prützmann to begin organizing an elite troop of volunteer forces to operate secretly behind enemy lines. As initially conceived, these Werwolf units were intended to be legitimate uniformed military or paramilitary[7] formations trained to engage in clandestine operations behind enemy lines in the same manner as Allied Special Forces such asCommandos.[8] They were never intended to act outside of the control of the German High Command (OKW), or to fight in civilian clothes, and they expected to be treated as soldiers if they were captured.[7]
Prützmann was namedGeneralinspekteur 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. Prützmann had studied the guerrilla tactics used bySoviet partisans while he was stationed in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and the idea was to teach these tactics to the members of Operation Werwolf.[9]
According to German officers who were interrogated after the war, those who were familiar with Prützmann's central office said that it was, like its commanding officer, inefficient, weak, and uninspired, and that Prützmann himself was, in addition, "vain, idle and boastful".Walter Schellenberg,Heinrich Himmler's head of foreign intelligence, claimed to have told Himmler that the whole operation was "criminal and stupid".[7]
Rumors of a secret Nazi guerrilla organization began to surface soon after theAllied invasion of Normandy.Time ran an article containing speculation that the Germans would try to prolong the war indefinitely by going underground after their defeat.[10]
The 27 January 1945 issue ofCollier's Weekly featured a detailed article by Major Edwin Lessner, stating that elite SS andHitler Youth were being trained to attack Allied forces and opening with a 1944 quote fromJoseph Goebbels:
"The enemy (invading German territory) will be taken in the rear by the fanatical population, which will ceaselessly worry him, tie down strong forces and allow him no rest or exploitation of any possible success."[11]
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On 23 March 1945 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 carried out by Werwolf members, as opposed to solo acts by fanatical Nazis or small groups of SS.[citation needed]
The Werwolfpropaganda station "Radio Werwolf" broadcast fromNauen near Berlin, beginning on 1 April 1945. Broadcasts began with the sound of a wolf howling, and a song featuring the lyrics, "My werewolf teeth bite the enemy / And then he's done and then he's gone / Hoo, hoo hoo."[12] The initial broadcast stated that the Nazi Party was ordering every German to "stand his ground and do or die against the Allied armies, who are preparing to enslave Germans."[13] EveryBolshevik, every Englishman, every American on our soil must be a target for our movement ... Any German, whatever his profession or class, who puts himself at the service of the enemy and collaborates with him will feel the effect of our avenging hand ... A single motto remains for us: 'Conquer or die.' "[14]
HistorianHugh Trevor-Roper, writing not long after the end of the war, asserts that Radio Werwolf had no actual connection to the Werwolf military unit, and was instead organized and run by Propaganda MinisterJoseph Goebbels, possibly in the hope of seizing control of the unit, which Goebbels deemed to be not radical enough. Trevor-Roper assesses Goebbels' Radio Werwolf as propagating "an ideological nihilism" which was not consonant with the limited aims of the actual unit. This disconnect between the broadcasts of Radio Werwolf and the purpose and actions of the military unit is, according to Trevor-Roper, the reason for popular misconceptions about the actual purpose of the unit, which was to attack the Allies from behind their lines, in parallel with the Germany Army fighting the Allies from the front, not to be a guerrilla-style resistance unit once Germany was defeated.[7]
British and American newspapers widely reported the text of Radio Werwolf broadcasts, fueling rumors among occupation forces.[15]Armed Forces Radio claimed:
"Every friendly German civilian is a disguised soldier of hate. Armed with the inner conviction that the Germans are still superior ... [they believe] that one day it will be their destiny to destroy you. Their hatred and their anger ... are deeply buried in their blood. A smile is their weapon by which to disarm you ... In heart, body and spirit every German is Hitler."[16]
According toBelgian Resistance operatives, the Werwolf name held clout in the general population in Northern Austria. Using an alleged link with the group as cover they were able to reroute a train of "refugees" (Belgian and French Nazicollaborators running away from justice) from Innsbruck back to Switzerland and then Brussels.[17]
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 nearErkelenz, which by early 1945 was training around 200 recruits mostly drawn from theHitler Youth.[18]
Werwolf originally had about five thousand members recruited from theSS and the Hitler Youth. These recruits were specially trained in guerrilla tactics. Operation Werwolf went so far as to establishfront companies to ensure continued fighting in those areas of Germany that were occupied (all of the "front companies" were discovered and shut down within eight months).[citation needed] However, as it became clear that the reputedly impregnableAlpine Fortress, from which operations were to be directed by the Nazi leadership if the rest of Germany was occupied, was yet another delusion, Werwolf was converted into aterrorist organisation in the last few weeks of the war.
Werwolf agents were supposed to have at their disposal a vast assortment of weapons, from fire-proof coats to silencedWalther pistols but in reality, this was merely on paper; Werwolf never actually had the necessary equipment, organisation, morale or coordination.[19] Given the dire supply situation German forces were facing in 1945, the commanding officers of existingWehrmacht 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.
Attempts were made to bury explosives, ammunition and weapons around the country (mainly in the pre-1939 German–Polish border region) to be used by Werwolf in resistance fighting after the defeat of Germany, but not only were the quantities of material to be buried very low, by that point the movement itself was so disorganised that few actual members or leaders knew where the materials were. A large portion of these "depots" were found by the Soviets, and little of the material was actually used by Werwolf.[20]
In the early months of 1945, SSObersturmbannführerOtto Skorzeny was involved in training recruits for the Werwolfs, but he soon discovered that the number of Werwolf cells had been greatly exaggerated and that they would be ineffective as a fighting force. Knowing, like many other Nazi leaders, that the war was lost, he decided that the Werwolfs would instead be used as part of a Nazi "underground railroad," facilitating travel along escape routes called "ratlines" that allowed thousands of SS officers and other Nazis to flee Germany after the fall of the Third Reich.[21]
On 28 April 1945Staff SergeantIb Melchior of the USCounter-Intelligence Corps captured six German officers and 25 enlisted men dressed in civilian clothes, who claimed to constitute a Werwolf cell under the command of Colonel Paul Krüger, operating inSchönsee,Bavaria. The group was captured while hiding in atunnel network which contained communications equipment, weapons, explosives and several months' food supplies. Two vehicles were hidden in the forest nearby. Documents discovered in the tunnels listed US military commanders as targets for assassination, including GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower.[22][23] Krüger stated that in 1943 a school was created in Poland to train men in guerrilla warfare. On 16 September 1944, it was relocated to the town of Thürenberg, Czechoslovakia.[24] Krüger claimed that a total of 1,200 men completed Werwolf training in the school in less than two years. On 1 April 1945, the school was moved to Schönsee and a subterranean base was constructed. The students were instructed to "stay behind, evade capture, and then harass and destroy supply lines ofUnited States troops ... Special emphasis was put on gasoline and oil supplies."[25] According to the G-2 report:
"Operations were to begin three or four weeks after being overrun by US troops. The plan was for each unit to receive designated targets from the headquarters. Bands of from 10 to 20 men were then to be sent out to destroy the target and to return immediately to their unit. No targets were to be located nearer than fifteen kilometers (9.3 mi) to the unit. Secrecy andcamouflage were relied upon for security and all personnel had strict orders to conceal themselves if US troops came into their area and under no circumstances to open fire in the bivouac area. No routes of escape had been planned. Members of the unit usually wore the Wehrmacht uniform, but a few members disguised themselves asforesters and were used as outposts to report any approaching danger. Their ordnance supplies consisted of mortars, machine guns, sub-machine guns, rifles, and various types of side arms. Each man was issued aLiliput pistol which could be very easily concealed on the person. The ammunition supply for each type weapon was ample for four months of ordinary operations. The unit had one civilian type sedan and one Wehrmacht motorcycle which were well hidden in the woods, and 120 horses which were dispersed on farms throughout the vicinity. Food consisting of canned meat, biscuits, crackers, chocolate, and canned vegetables was sufficient for over four months. Additional food supplies such as bread, potatoes, fresh vegetables, and smoked sausages were obtained from local sources. The unit was supplied with water by a brook passing through the area.Dugouts were constructed in such a manner as not to destroy the live trees around them. The dugouts were located on the slope of a hill which was densely covered withfir trees ... The entrance to the dugout was a hole approximately 24 inches (61 cm) in diameter and four to five feet (1.2 to 1.5 m) deep. Approximately two feet (61 cm) down, this hole extended horizontally to a length of eight to ten feet (2.4 to 3.0 m). The dugout has a capacity of three men and has a wooden floor and a drainage ditch. Walls and roof are reinforced with lumber."[25]
The following day a CIC unit led by Captain Oscar M. Grimes of the97th Infantry Division captured about two hundredGestapo officers and men in hiding nearHof, Bavaria. They were in possession of American army uniforms and equipment but had decided to surrender.[26][27][28]
In May 1945 CIC Major John Schwartzwalder arrested members of a Werwolf cell inBremen whose leader had fled. Schwartzwalder believed that the Werwolf never constituted a threat to Allied personnel:
"...the Bremen group of theJugend had received its orders to organize as a Werwolf cell only about four days before the fall of the city. By that time the Wehrmacht had taken all but the halt and the lame, and theVolkssturm had taken most of the rest. Nevertheless an organization had been started using the younger boys but it had not progressed to accumulating either weapons or supplies before the entry of the Allied troops...The only remaining fraction of the Werwolf that was of any importance was a residue of veterans of the last war who were physically ineligible for service in this one and who had weapons concealed here and there. These were not too hard to dispose of."[29]
HistoriansAntony Beevor andEarl F. Ziemke have argued that Werwolf never amounted to a serious threat, and furthermore propose that the plan barely existed. According to a study by former ambassadorJames Dobbins and a team ofRAND Corporation researchers, there were no American combat casualties after the German surrender.[30]
German historianGolo Mann, in hisThe History of Germany Since 1789 (1984) stated:
"The [Germans'] 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."[31]
HistorianRichard Bessel concurs that "'Werewolf' resistance to Allied occupation never really materialized," noting one exception in the form of the assassination of the American-installed mayor of Aachen,Franz Oppenhoff, on 28 March 1945.[32] He highlights that the threat was nonetheless taken seriously by the Allies and that fear of the Werwolf among the Americans may have had hysterical characteristics, pointing to the "Intelligence Information Bulletins" issued by the American 6th Army Group which anticipated a guerrilla war and warned American soldiers of concealed explosives and hidden strongholds.[32] Similarly, he observes that the NKVD appear to have believed that such an organization existed and posed a real threat to the Soviet occupation forces,[33] with the Soviets using unfounded suspicions of Werwolf activity as a pretext to tighten police control and secure forced labor.[32]
Perry Biddiscombe has offered a somewhat different view. In his booksWerwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946 (1998)[9] andThe Last Nazis: SS Werwolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe, 1944–1947 (2000), Biddiscombe asserts that after retreating to theBlack Forest and theHarz mountains, the Werwolf continued resisting the occupation until at least 1947, possibly until 1949–50. However, he characterizes German post-surrender resistance as "minor",[34] and calls the post-war Werwolfs "desperadoes"[35] and "fanatics living in forest huts".[36] He further cites U.S. Army intelligence reports that characterized Nazi partisans as "nomad bands"[37] and judged them as less serious threats than attacks by foreign slave laborers[38] and considered their sabotage and subversive activities to be insignificant.[39] 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."[40]
Biddiscombe also says that Werwolf violence failed to mobilize a spirit of popular national resistance, that the group was poorly led, poorly armed, and poorly organized, and that it was doomed to failure given thewar-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 Werwolfs 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.[9]
Nevertheless, says Biddiscombe, "The Werewolves were no bit players";[41] they caused tens of millions of dollars of property damage at a time when the European economies were in an already desperate state, and were responsible for the killing of thousands of people.[41]
A number of instances of resistance have been attributed to Werwolf activity:
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".[52]Ian Kershaw states that fear of Werwolf activities may have motivated atrocities against German civilians by Allied troops during and immediately after the war.[53]
The German resistance movement was successfully suppressed in 1945.[54] However,collective punishment for acts of resistance, such as fines and curfews, was still being imposed as late as 1948.[55] Biddiscombe estimates the total death toll as a direct result of Werewolf actions and the resulting reprisals as 3,000–5,000.[56]
In theSoviet occupation zone, thousands of youths were arrested as "Werwolves".[57][58] Evidently, arrests were arbitrary and in part based on denunciations.[57] The arrested boys were either executed or interned inNKVD special camps.[57] On 22 June 1945, Deputy Commissar of theNKVDIvan Serov reported to the head of the NKVDLavrentiy Beria the arrest of "more than 600" alleged Werwolf members,[59] mostly aged 15 to 17 years.[60]
The report, though referring to incidents where Soviet units came under fire from the woods,[59] 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 focused on attracting new members.[60] In October 1945, Beria reported toJoseph Stalin the "liquidation" of 359 alleged Werwolf groups.[57] Of those, 92 groups with 1,192 members were "liquidated" inSaxony alone.[57] On 5 August 1946,Soviet minister for internal affairsSergei Nikiforovich Kruglov reported that in the Soviet occupation zone, 332 "terrorist diversion groups and underground organizations" had been disclosed and "liquidated".[57] A total of about 10,000 youths were interned in NKVD special camps, half of whom did not return.[58] Parents as well as the East German administration and political parties, installed by the Soviets, were denied any information on the whereabouts of the arrested youths.[57] TheRed Army's torching ofDemmin, whichresulted in the suicide of hundreds of people, was blamed on alleged preceding Werwolf activities by theEast German regime.[61]
Eisenhower believed he would be faced with extensiveguerrilla warfare, based on theAlpine Redoubt.[52] The fear of Werwolf activity believed to be mustering aroundBerchtesgaden in theAlps 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.[62] An intelligence report stated "We should ... be prepared to undertake operations inSouthern Germany in order to overcome rapidly any organised resistance by theGerman Armed Forces or by guerrilla movements which may have retreated to the inner zone and to this redoubt".[62] On March 31 Eisenhower told Roosevelt, "I am hopeful of launching operations that should partially prevent a guerrilla control of any large area such as the southern mountain bastions".[62]
Eisenhower had previously also requested that the occupation directiveJCS 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."[52] The British were "mortified by such a suggestion", but theWar Department took considerable account of Eisenhower's wishes.[63] In addition, civilians held by the U.S. climbed from 1,000 in late March to 30,000 in late June, and more than 100,000 by the end of 1945.[64] Conditions were often poor in the camps for civilians.[64]
In April 1945 Churchill announced that the Allies would incarcerate all captured German officers for as long as a guerrilla threat existed.[63] Hundreds of thousands of German last-ditch troops were kept in the makeshiftRheinwiesenlager for months, "mainly to prevent Werwolf activity".[63]
Prior to the occupationSHAEF investigated the reprisal techniques the Germans had used in order to maintain control over occupied territories since they felt the Germans had had good success.[65] Directives were loosely defined and implementation of reprisal was largely left to the preferences of the various armies, with the British seeming uncomfortable with those involving bloodshed.[65] Rear-AdmiralH.T. Baillie Grohman for example stated that killing hostages was "not in accordance with our usual methods".[65] 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.[65]
From 1946 onward, Allied intelligence officials noted resistance activities by an organisation which had appropriated the name of the anti-Nazi resistance group, theEdelweiss 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 [movement]". It was regarded as a more serious menace to order than the Werwolf by US officials.[16]
A raid in March 1946 captured 80 former German officers who were members, and who possessed a list of 400 persons to be liquidated, includingWilhelm 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.[16]
In 2015, Danish police uncovered files in their archives outlining the Danish part of Operation Werwolf under the command ofHorst Paul Issel. Issel was arrested in Germany in 1949 and handed over to Denmark.[66] A total of 130 stashes of weapons and explosives were placed around Denmark and personnel were inserted into strategically important parts of society.
The remains of some military organizations which collaborated with Axis forces continued withraid activities likeCrusaders (guerrilla) (until 1950),Balli Kombëtar (until 1950).
TheIraqi insurgency was initially compared to the history of Werwolf by theBush Administration and otherIraq War supporters.[67][68] In speeches given on 25 August 2003 to theVeterans of Foreign Wars byNational Security AdvisorCondoleezza Rice andSecretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld parallels were drawn between the resistance faced by theMulti-National Force – Iraq'soccupation forces in Iraq to that encountered byoccupation 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 Werwolfs.[69]
Former Clinton-eraNational Security Council stafferDaniel Benjamin published a riposte inSlate magazine on 29 August 2003, entitled "Condi's Phony History: Sorry, Dr. Rice, postwar Germany was nothing like Iraq"[70] in which he took Rice and Rumsfeld to task for mentioning Werwolf, writing that the reality of postwar Germany bore no resemblance to the occupation of Iraq, and made reference toAntony Beevor'sBerlin: The Downfall 1945 and the US Army's official history,The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944–1946,[71] where the Werwolf were only mentioned twice in passing.[72] This did not prevent his political opponents from disagreeing with him, using Biddiscombe's book as a source.[73]
Citations
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