Posted on 07/24/2003 7:58:27 PM PDT by Angelus Errare
Minutemen of the Third Reich.(history of the Nazi Werewolf guerilla movement) Author/s: Perry Biddiscombe Issue: Oct, 2000
AS WORRIES INCREASE about neo-Nazi and skinhead violence in Germany, it is worth remembering that this type of terrorism is a nasty constant in the history of the German radical-right. A case in point is the Nazi Werewolf guerrilla movement founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1944, which fought the occupying forces of Britain, America and Russia until at least 1947.
The Werewolves were originally organised by the SS and the Hitler Youth as a diversionary operation on the fringes of the Third Reich, which were occupied by the Western Allies and the Soviets in the autumn of 1944. Some 5,000 -- 6,000 recruits were raised by the winter of 1944-45, but numbers rose considerably in the following spring when the Nazi Party and the Propaganda Ministry launched a popular call to arms, beseeching everybody in the occupied areas -- even women and children -- to launch themselves upon the enemy. In typical Nazi fashion, this expansion was not co-ordinated by the relevant bodies, which were instead involved in a bureaucratic war among themselves over control of the project. The result was that the movement functioned on two largely unrelated levels: the first as a real force of specially trained SS, Hitler Youth and Nazi Party guerrillas; the second as an outlet for casual violence by fanatics.
The Werewolves specialised in ambushes and sniping, and took the lives of many Allied and Soviet soldiers and officers -- perhaps even that of the first Soviet commandant of Berlin, General N.E. Berzarin, who was rumoured to have been waylaid in Charlottenburg during an incident in June 1945. Buildings housing Allied and Soviet staffs were favourite targets for Werewolf bombings; an explosion in the Bremen police headquarters, also in June 1945, killed five Americans and thirty-nine Germans. Techniques for harassing the occupiers were given widespread publicity through Werewolf leaflets and radio propaganda, and long after May 1945 the sabotage methods promoted by the Werewolves were still being used against the occupying powers.
Although the Werewolves originally limited themselves to guerrilla warfare with the invading armies, they soon began to undertake scorched-earth measures and vigilante actions against German `collaborators' or `defeatists'. They damaged Germany's economic infrastructure, already battered by Allied bombing and ground fighting, and tried to prevent anything of value from falling into enemy hands. Attempts to blow up factories, power plants or waterworks occasionally provoked melees between Werewolves and desperate German workers trying to save the physical basis of their employment, particularly in the Ruhr and Upper Silesia.
Several sprees of vandalism through stocks of art and antiques, stored by the Berlin Museum in a flak tower at Friedrichshain, caused millions of dollars worth of damage and cultural losses of inestimable value. In addition, vigilante attacks caused the deaths of a number of small-town mayors and, in late March 1945, a Werewolf paratroop squad assassinated the Lord Mayor of Aachen, Dr Franz Oppenhoff, probably the most prominent German statesman to have emerged in the occupied fringes over the winter of 1944-45. This spate of killings, part of a larger Nazi terror campaign that consumed the Third Reich after the failed anti-Hitler putsch of July 20th, 1944, can be interpreted as a psychological retreat back into opposition, even while Nazi leaders were still clinging to their last few months of power.
Although the Werewolves managed to make themselves a nuisance to small Allied and Soviet units, they failed to stop or delay the invasion and occupation of Germany, and did not succeed in rousing the population into widespread opposition to the new order. The SS and Hitler Youth organisations at the core of the Werewolf movement were poorly led, short of supplies and weapons, and crippled by infighting. Their mandate was a conservative one of tactical harassment, at least until the final days of the war, and even when they did begin to envision the possibility of an underground resistance that could survive the Third Reich's collapse, they had to contend with widespread civilian war-weariness and fear of enemy reprisals. In Western Germany, no one wanted to do anything that would diminish the pace of Anglo-American advance and possibly thereby allow the Red Army to push further westward.
Despite its failure, however, the Werewolf project had a huge impact, widening the psychological and spiritual gap between Germans and their occupiers. Werewolf killings and intimidation of `collaborators' scared almost everybody, giving German civilians a clear glimpse into the nihilistic heart of Nazism. It was difficult for people working under threat of such violence to devote themselves unreservedly to the initial tasks of reconstruction. Worse still, the Allies and Soviets reacted to the movement with extremely tough controls, curtailing the right of assembly of German civilians. Challenges of any sort were met by collective reprisals -- especially on the part of the Soviets and the French. In a few cases the occupiers even shot hostages and cleared out towns where instances of sabotage occurred. It was standard practice for the Soviets to destroy whole communities if they faced a single act of resistance. In the eastern fringes of the `Greater Reich', now annexed by the Poles and the Czechoslovaks, Werewolf harassment handed the new authorities an excuse to rush the deportations of millions of ethnic Germans to occupied Germany.
Such policies were understandable, but they created an unbridgeable gulf between the German people and the occupation forces who had pledged to impose essential reforms. It was hard, in such conditions, for the occupiers to encourage reform, and even harder to persuade the Germans that it was necessary.
By the time that this rough opposition to the occupation had started to soften, the Cold War was under way and reform became equally difficult to implement. As a result, both German states created in 1949 were not so dissimilar to their predecessor as might have been hoped, and changes in attitudes and institutions developed only slowly. Thanks partly to the Werewolves there was no German revolution in 1945, either imposed from above or generated from below.
The Last Nazis by Perry Biddiscombe, is published this month by Tempus. The book explores the background to the movement, its operations and its wholly negative legacy to the history of reconstruction in postwar Germany.
The Last Nazis is available in bookshops, priced 19.99/$32.50 [pounds sterling], or by calling 01453 883300 (UK) or 001-888-313-2665 (North America).
COPYRIGHT 2000 History Today Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group
Hardly! While they were not Rightists, in the context of their times, they were almost all substantial property owners, whether from business interests or as landed proprietors. Probably the best way to describe them would be as Libertarians, or "Classic Liberals," with a very considerable divergence, among them, as to just how "Liberal," they were. I believe that most of them considered themselves "Whigs," in terms of British politics of the time.
However, their Revolution was really a counter-revolution, against increased outside meddling in their affairs--following the French & Indian Wars. It was very much a revolt to vindicate property rights, and the right to do business with minimal intrusion by Government. In this is was a natural heir to Magna Carta, so the roots were very Conservative.
The Nazi and Communist Revolutions, on the other hand, while there may have been educated men of property involved, pulling strings, were basically uprisings of the mob in the street--heirs to the French Revolution, also manipulated, of course. The principles of the American Revolution, vindicating the right to be let alone, were the furthest thing from the mob manipulation that the Communists & Nazis employed.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
"I do not condone what OJ did...but I understand"
Again, the fundamental question remains unanswered: how many Americans died in combat in post-war German guerrilla action? If that question can't be answered, or even an estimate approximated, then the attempt to make a comparison falls flat.
BTW, I am skeptical on another count. Most Germans, even former Nazis, in the American zone had little reason to resist because they were happy to be under American not Soviet occupation.
I think you are missing the essential point, which has to do with how the rights of the individual rightist are to be protected from the mass of humanity. Those who sat on the Right in the French Assembly wanted to be safe from the mob. So too did the Founding Fathers--although they might not have been so snobbish about it--but that is almost precisely what Madison's comments on Democracy were about.
The Great movements of the Left, Communism, National Socialism, and various other varieties of Socialism, all embrace the mob--the power of numbers.
Again, see Political Spectrum, to illustrate my argument.
On the other side of the coin, the idea & importance of an American presence in Germany, for an extended period, at a time when Russia was already in the process of grabbing Eastern Europe, was far more justifiable than the notion of a long term presence in Iraq. And the notion that the resistance in Iraq will soon evaporate, because the Germans, who after all shared a common Western heritage, soon quieted down, does not scan as a reasoned argument. One need only glance a few hundred miles to the West, in the Israeli occupied territories, to see that such resistance actually feeds on its own losses.
We need an early exit strategy from Iraq, and I fail to understand why some would resist the idea so strenuously. There are obviously substantial numbers of Iraqis who are grateful to be rid of a butchering tyrant. Every day that we remain, unnecessarily, will only tend to waste what good will we have gained among such people, for no likely benefit to any American interest.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
I called the Center for Military History in Washington, D.C. and they dismissed the claims of significant postwar reistance in Germany as overblown. I also asked a good friend who is a specialist in twentieth century German history and he said the same thing. I am perfectly willing to have an open mind but would like to see evidence that it was comparable. None has been presented.
See, they lost me right there. What's so difficult to remember about National Socialism being a proud member of the radical left?
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