Werwolf:The Nazis fight back

NIK PARMEN

Banned
Werwolf was the name given to a last-ditch Nazi plan, developed during the closing months of the Second World War, to create a German commandoAllies advanced through Germany itself.Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels seized upon the idea of Werwolf, and began to foster the notion, primarily through Nazi radioWerwolf was a clandestine guerrilla organization comprising irregular German partisans, similar to the many insurgency groups which the Germans had encountered in the nations they occupied during the war. What if the Werwolf had give a hell to the allied occupation forces in 1945 Germany like now days in Iraq and Afganistan?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoCRgG_ay8w&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIpmcDVMy1A&feature=related
 
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I don't see popular support in the Western lands as much, as the Allies were more policing the post-war world that trying to dominate it. In East Germany, however, it may work. At least until Ivan stamped them out and began a genocide of sorts to discourage further attempts.
 

glowjack

Banned
Not really possible, the average german was suffering from war exhaustion and ironically the hardlinre Nazis were the ones who fought the most to the end but at the same time perpared the most for after the end (like exhanging german currency for valuables or others for after the war).

Also gureilla warfare requires people with high convictions, there wasn't much of that in German by the war's end and even less likely post war.

Furthermore, a few level-headed individuals will realise what will happen to the german population if the bitter and bloody allies had to treat them as potiental enemies.
 
Yeah, Turtledove's book wasn't alternate history but utter nonsense.


What if Werwolf gives the Allies trouble? The Allies do what ever it takes to stop Werwolf. Period. I won't even go into how the Soviets would handle such foolishness.
 

CalBear

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Werewolf was designed to be an "insurgent" campaign post occupation, not during the Allies advance. It would have been idiotic. The Soviets would have been even harsher, not their occupation was a bed of roses to begin with, and it would have given the French (who had all the reason on Earth) to be much harsher in their Zone as well as changing the British & especially U.S. attitude toward Germany.

In a very real way, that was the point of the units, to make the occupation much more harsh for the German people. Hitler and his inner circle were willing to throw all of Germany onto the fire because they had proved themselves "unworthy".

There was some limited activity by Werewolf units, but not much. Fortunately most of the units realized that they were in a hopeless position and fighting on for a dead dictator wasn't the best plan available.
 
When the Allied soldiers were told they'd be facing the Nazi Youths in combat they were given a very simple order, 'Aim lower'. If the Nazi's tried this, you would see mass reprisals from all sides.
In the US and British areas, they'd arrest men even remotely suspected of supporting this and they would be questioned very carefully. Streets would have security checks that would make entering North Korea look easy. Finally there would be big military operations to destroy suspected Werewolf buildings and fighters, and civilian casualties be damned. As for the press they'd be cheering from the sidelines.
In the French controlled areas, it would be similar to the US and Britain, but expect to see more brutality.
In the Soviet side, the Germans should start praying, and shoot themselves before the KGB or Red Army get them.

Terrorism worked well in Iraq because the US was playing nice. Immediately after WW2 the Allies have NO reason to show mercy.
 

Deleted member 5719

I don't see popular support in the Western lands as much, as the Allies were more policing the post-war world that trying to dominate it. In East Germany, however, it may work. At least until Ivan stamped them out and began a genocide of sorts to discourage further attempts.

Every single thing that you have written there, apart from "I don't see", is wrong and appears to be based on an understanding of history culled from the film "Red Dawn" and the television series "The A-Team".
 

MacCaulay

Banned
There was some limited activity by Werewolf units, but not much. Fortunately most of the units realized that they were in a hopeless position and fighting on for a dead dictator wasn't the best plan available.

According to Werwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement 1944-1946, in Schlesweig-Holstein "on 4 May, a sixty-man SS detachment from Segeburg overran the town of Heiderfeld, ambushing a British jeep in the process. The frightened Burgermeister fled the village and reported to a nearby British unit that this particular SS band had no intention of capitulating. SS raiders also swarmed through other towns in the area, ordering villagers to take down white flags and shooting those who protested...the Wehrmacht...was expected to guarantee that German elements obeyed the surrender. General Zouberzuig and his 8th Parachute Division, one of the Wehrmacht's last battle-worthy formations, were about to undertake a sweep of the forest. The operation began at dawn on 8 May."

The most interesting part of this whole thing, though, was that later "a British Military Government officer at Niebull, near the Danish frontier, reported in the summer of 1945 that a plot to replace a number of Polish and Russian farm workers with SS men had been uncovered. At Kiel, British officers were fired upon at night, and, after the Kiel Canal was repaired, passing ships were shot at and one of the locks was sabotaged. Near Flensburg, a band of a dozen troops attacked two German housewives because they had allegedly provided the British with information. Throughout 1945-46, there were numerous instances of line-cutting, the stringing of decapitation wires, illegal radio broadcasting, minor sabotage to Allied vehicles, underground pamphleteering, and other forms of illegal activity."
 

Commissar

Banned
Terrorism worked well in Iraq because the US was playing nice. Immediately after WW2 the Allies have NO reason to show mercy.

Blowing houses with a single suspected guerilla with 2,000 pound bombs, deliberately targeting people with White Phosphorus, using Napalm, shooting large amounts of highly toxic DU rounds, and utter disregard for civilian lives is not playing nice.
 
you would need a pod perhaps in late 1944 with the battle of the bulge being cancelled and this program being given some organization and funding for many months.

that said the reprisals would be swift and brutal. if it actually went on for a while the americans might not demobilize their army so quickly which has huge potential butterflies for Korea.

that being said though even the west would conduct brutal, ruthless anti partisan sweeps... the french would relish the chance to kill everybody and the americans wouldn't be far behind because they had a dangerous combination of alcohol and weapons available. hostages would be taken and indeed executed as reprisals... 1945 had nowere near the political correctness of today... the soldiers on occupation duty had seen some of the death camps vengance would be nasty

if they tried this in the soviet zone it would be worse. think massed t-34's lined up wheel to wheel smashing any partisan activity in a village with liberal amounts of sub machine guns, grenades and alcohol. if there were an attack they would kill half the population and deport the rest to siberia... you would think 4 years of brutal bloody war would teach them not to fuck with the russians
 
Terrorism worked well in Iraq because the US was playing nice.

The amout of Partisan activity in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union 1941 onwards gives me the impression that playing super-unnice as occupiers isn't much help either.

If the US was playing nice in Iraq, then their even nicer behaviour in Germany should have made their zone a paradise for the Werwolf.

All accounts in my family give high credit to the Allies for treating German well, although my grandfather considers porridge (in British POW-camps) as a crime against humanity.:D Even the opinions on the Russians are after all soft, ranging from "always been nice to kids" to "most of them weren't bad guys at all".

The approach to generally treat us Germans better than we deserved, even in the Soviet zone, was the best mean to stop "Werwolf" in its tracks. If you want a POD to get German partisans, change Allied policy. Morgenthau anyone?
 

CalBear

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Blowing houses with a single suspected guerilla with 2,000 pound bombs, deliberately targeting people with White Phosphorus, using Napalm, shooting large amounts of highly toxic DU rounds, and utter disregard for civilian lives is not playing nice.

If a house is being used by a sniper, it is a legitimate military target. It would be close to, if not actually, criminal for a commander to lose men if there was an alternative, especially in clearing a building, where one rifleman can make multiple kills long before he is taken. A single bomb (and mostly they were 500lb or 1000lb laser guided weapons) will cause no more overall damage, and often far less civilian casualties, than suppressing fire from infantry weapons. Bullets don't much care where they hit, and 7.62 rounds are lethal at better than a mile. If noncombatants are killed in suppressing a sniper, or a RPG grenadier, because the sniper decided to set up shop in a residential area, the blame lies with the sniper, not the troops firing in self defense.

If the U.S. and its allies hadn't cared about civilian casualties there wouldn't be a house standing in Iraq. Baghdad would look like 1945 Berlin. I would point out that during both the Gulf War, and the Iraq War, people continued to drive to work in Baghdad like nothing was happening up to the moment that the battle line actually reached them and that they resumed normal activity the minute it passed.

I would further point out that the American and British forces took WAY more casualties in Iraq in 2003-2009 than was militarily necessary in order to AVOID civilian casualties.

As far as Napalm, I defy you to find a single CONFIRMED instance where it was used by U.S. forces against civilians even accidentally since at least 1980, and to find any intentional use against purely civilian targets since the end of the Korean War.
 
Blowing houses with a single suspected guerilla with 2,000 pound bombs, deliberately targeting people with White Phosphorus, using Napalm, shooting large amounts of highly toxic DU rounds, and utter disregard for civilian lives is not playing nice.

Compare to historical conquerors, the US is extremely benign.

Where is the deliberate killing of all military-age men? Where is the killing of boys so they don't grow up to take revenge? Where is the mass rape? Where is the deportation?

To pacify Afghanistan, Alexander killed half the military-age male population (and neutralized others by marrying an Afghan princess) and took huge numbers of slaves.
 
The likely POD for this is a different relationship between the USSR and the Western allies (something happening to either change Stalin's views or stop his breathing)

Now in OTL a very early act of the West German government was to give a fairly wide amnesty to people who had been Nazis.

Now I suspect that had the victorious powers been more together very much larger numbers of relatively low down officials, officers would not be able to bet public employment and rather more War Criminals would have ended up at the end of a rope or in jail for a very long time.
 

Markus

Banned
Terrorism worked well in Iraq because the US was playing nice. Immediately after WW2 the Allies have NO reason to show mercy.

And what reason would the Germans have to continue to fight? They did not even fight the Soviets and those guys were not nearly as well behaved as western soldiers. And by reason I mean an actual one, not whatever Turtledove came up with. Morgenthau might work but that plan appears to have been dead soon.

Regarding Alexander Biddiscombe´s book, it is BS. He´s the sole person to make these claims, any other historian gives the issue passing attention at best and being German I can assure you a post-war SS uprising would the The News over here. But I never heard of it before the Bush administration came up with the absurd Germany-Iraq comparison.
 
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