Feldgrau.net

You often hear of post war Werwolf/Wolverine activities in Germany as examples of current day resistance actions. However, I recently read in Speers' "Inside the Third Reich" that the reports of their activities were pretty much propaganda driven fabrications.

Does anyone have any info about how large the Wolverine movement actually was and for how long the actions continued?

Thanks

Brian

I think you are referring to the Werwolves.
There is an article on this very site that gives you the basic info: http://www.feldgrau.com/werwolf.html
A book on the topic you might find helpful is "Werwolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement 1944-1946" by Perry Biddiscombe.

/Marcus

Thanks for the correction Marcus. Yes, that is the group. Thanks for the reference.

Hello Brian:
You might like to read Stephen G. Fritz's book ENDKAMPF: SOLDIERS, CIVILIANS, AND THE DEATH OF THE THIRD REICH . It starts a little slow, but has some good info on the Werwolf movement and the Alpenfestung. His book has extensive footnotes and bibliography, and he relied on both German and English sources. The book mentioned by Marcus Wendel was one of Fritz's sources. Best wishes.

Coming to this late; add also Charles Whiting's "Werewolf" about the assasination of the mayor of Aachen after its liberation by the Americans....

There's no choesive history of the Werewolves.....yet, but the last identifiable Werewlof activity was not until 1948! In some areas of the American Zone local commanders had to resort to some VERY heavyhanded tactics to stop Werewolf raids and murders, even to the taking of "hostages"!!! As if they hadnt learned from the French that this didnt work.....

The extent of the resistance movement and its activities has ALWAYS been minimised if not actually kept secret.

phylo

Hi Phylo,

One thing is for sure, the fear of the Werewolf movement was much greater than the reality. Its limitations probably came as a welcome surprise to the Allies.

It is difficult to think of a country that was more passive under German occupation than Germany was under Allied occupation.

Cheers,

Sid.

Sid....nope! But i don't know enough myself yet! I've contacted the producers of the "1945" series in question, to see if they'd give me a list of their sources. There's no concise records of actual activites after the first immediate postwar months, BUT if you look at military incident reports etc - i.e. come at the problem by seeing how the Occupying Powers had to react - then theres a differnet picture starting to emerge right now! particularly in the American Zone. Dont forget the U.S. HAD its own examples of policing recently-occupied territories - in Cuba and the Philippines - and their tactics there and in Germany were heavy-handed enough to be noticable. Conversely, the British had a fine-tuned sense of how to deal with "occupational problems" and the problem seems VERY noticable by its LACK in the British Sector.
Maybe its because as German Reunification sets in properly, right down now at the social and psychological level, people are willing to talk about this more. I hope someone gets this stuff together before the first-hand verbal records die out, so to speak!

phylo

Hi Phylo,

I wonder if there is any official bodycount of US soldiers killed by armed resistance in Germany after the official end of the war?

Cheers,

Sid.

I'll have to chase that one down, Sid. I know the items i saw mentioned that a LOT of the actions were more raids and flag-showing in villages etc, to terrorise the locals into reducing their cooperations with the occupying powers. Hence TRUE terrorism, making the local citizens live in fear of the Werewolves more than they feared the Americans, British or French

phylo

Hi Phylo,

Which leads to the fundamental question as to what the purpose of Werewolf was. Was it an anti-Allied resistance movement or was it a Nazi tool for keeping the German population cowed until better times?

Cheers,

Sid.

Sid, id say it definitely began as the former, but once it became obvious exactly HOW total defeat and surrender was, it by necessity changed into the latter. Not an either-or situation.

phylo

Hi Phylo,

I'll buy that.

In any event, it proved pretty ineffective at either.

Cheers,

Sid.

hmmmmm.... perhaps.....and perhaps SOME day history will record the links between the south american Kamaraden, the Werewolves, and the present day NeoNazi organisations.....

phylo

...

Hi Phylo,

I doubt there will be any significant institutional continuity found between Werewolf and Neo-Nazism. Possibly no more than, say, that so far substantiated between Templars and Masons.

Even if all trace and memory of Nazism was expunged from the face of the earth, similar ideologies would still be formulated by some. Because all trace and memory of Nazism wasn't expunged, there remains a label to apply to them.

Ideologies are a permanent part of the human condition, rather like homosexuality, theism, left handedness, dwarfism, etc. Wipe out all their adherents, exponents or sufferers today and tomorrow they will begin to re-emerge amongst "pure" stock in similar proportions. The "pure" stock in this case being post-war West German liberal democracy.

Cheers,

Sid.