Werwolf!: History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement 1944-46

(Hardback)

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Near the end of World War II, a National Socialist resistance movement, the Werewolves, briefly flickered to life in Germany and its borderlands. In this volume the author surveys a broad range of material in an effort to recount the story of the movement. Dedicated to delaying the advance of the victorious Allies and Soviets, the Werewolves succeeded in scattered acts of sabotage and violence, and they encouraged the evolution of combat into a savage, semi-guerilla phase of fighting, which was especially characteristic of the last weeks of the war. Contrary to established thought, the new evidence reveals that Hitler's Werewolves were active against both the Allies and the Soviets, and were also involved in internecine struggles against German "collaborators" and "defeatists". However, popular support for the Werewolves was limited, and the Nazi leadership made a bad problem worse by failing to co-ordinate the different agencies involved in the programme, which yielded a weaker guerilla movement than might otherwise have emerged.