Wehrwolf: German resistance to the Allied occupation

[eriksteffen]

It is vague... all the stories are from one time or another.. i'm not sure about the timeline. thats why i was asking for help. what could have happened and when... i'm really not sure of the dates.

[Heimatschuss]

Hello eriksteffen,

as you already said the stories are rather vague. Parts of it show some resemblance to known history but on the whole it does not form a cohesive picture.

I remember seeing a web page briefly mentioning acts of resistance in the Black Forest in 1945/46 when I did an internet search on the Werwolf last year but I can’t find the site any longer.

The anti-tank unit is perhaps HJ-Panzervernichtungsregiment 21 Baden (Hitler Youth Tank Destroyer Regiment 21) that was set up in Triberg (Black Forest) on 18/04/1945 from members of the Hitler Youth. Over the next fortnight the unit moved SW across Württemberg to the Allgäu mountains at the border between Württemberg and Bavaria though it remains unclear if there was more than occasionally skirmishing with the pursuing French forces.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzervernichtungseinheit
http://www.campus.de/t/pdf/leseproben/l ... 384474.pdf


French occupation authorities held a trial against several young Werwolf members in Freiburg in 1950 for shooting 8 Russian POWs in the southern Black Forrest in late April 1945 and destroying evidence of the crime in autumn 1945. The group consisted of 20 boys (all born in 1928) that had served as Flak helpers since 1943 and were led by HJ-Bannführer Kurt Rahäuser, French authorities only managed to identify 9 of them.
http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/dokumen ... op=SPIEGEL
http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/brd/files/brd893.htm


Don’t know much about the deployment of the French forces in the Black Forrest in 1945/46 but units from Maroc were definitely amongst those conquering Württemberg in April 1945. The Maroccans earned themselves an abominable reputation in South-West Germany because of their mass rapes in Stuttgart, Freudenstadt and Magstadt to name just a few places.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudenstadt
http://www.adv-boeblingen.de/zrbb/magst/kr_end.html


Perhaps your acquaintance did not reveal all of his past when he immigrated to the U.S. and is worried that he might be kicked out of the country. As far as I know this would also mean that he would lose his U.S. pension so there might be a reason not to talk too much about things. This would explain his remark to his wife.

Best regards
Torsten

[Helly Angel]

Hello,

To the interested:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4224142/SS-We ... -File-Size

Best regards,


Helly

PD: I´m not the owner of the file.

[slacky]

i have this book its good on alot but of basics of foods that can be found are not there because the ppl of the day knew them already
but its a good buy

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

"Werwolf, The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement 1944-1946"

Why only up to 1946?

In fact the last active bands of Werwolf were destroyed not in 1946, not in 1948, but in August / September of 1949 - "Jungenbund der Freien Stadt Danzig" (operating near Gdansk) and "Freikorps Gross-Mossdorf" (operating near Opole). This is according to "Werwolf - Tajne Operacje w Polsce" by R. Primke and M. Szczerepa. This book was published in 2008. In total Polish security services destroyed almost 70 bands of Werwolf since the end of the war. They numbered up to 10,000 members (including remnants of Wehrmacht and other military branches) - according to the same source.

[Jan-Hendrik]

What was his source?

on the territory of the later GDR 10,000s of young men were arrrested and deported to those infamous 'Speziallager' (were many thousands of them died), all sentenced as "Werewolf"-members...about 99% were nothing more than young men from RAD, HJ, Wehrmacht, trying to find a way home, to their families. So I would take it with big caution when coumminist reported about this matter

Jan-Hendrik

[Dieter Zinke]

This may be of interest concerning the bio of the famous german diabetologist Hellmut Mehner (Träger der Paracelsus-Medaille der deutschen Ärzteschaft), who was arrested using the pretext of having been a Werwolf-member (17 years old)

from http://www.bundesaerztekammer.de/arzt20 ... rtikel.htm

Hellmut Mehnert wurde am 22. Februar 1928 in Leipzig als Sohn des Facharztes für Innere Krankheiten Dr. med. Manfred Mehnert geboren. Seine Schulzeit verbrachte er in Leipzig, wo er am humanistischen Thomasgymnasium zunächst das Kriegsabitur und nach Einberufung zum Volkssturm nach Kriegsende in einem weiteren Kurs das Abitur 1946 absolvierte. Unmittelbar darauf wurde er wegen seiner Volkssturmtätigkeit als „Werwolf“ von der sowjetischen Besatzungsmacht verhaftet und zweieinhalb Jahre lang bis Juli 1948 inhaftiert. In dem Internierungslager, in dem von 12 000 Insassen 7 000 an Hungerdystrophie und vor allem an Tuberkulose starben, reifte in Hellmut Mehnert, der als Sanitäter tätig war, der Entschluss, nach seiner Entlassung Medizin zu studieren. Da dieses in Leipzig aus politischen Gründen nicht möglich war, plante er die Flucht aus der DDR nach der Entlassung aus sowjetischer Haft. Hellmut Mehnert floh 1948 nach Westdeutschland, ....

and from http://www.stiftung-bg.de/gums/de/gesch ... zial05.htm

Das Sowjetische Speziallager Sachsenhausen Nr. 7/ Nr. 1
Andere waren auf Grund von Denunziationen oder bloßer Willkür verhaftet worden. So kamen 1946 beispielsweise 38 Jugendliche aus der thüringischen Kleinstadt Greußen ins Lager, die von einem geltungssüchtigen Kommunisten als "Werwölfe" denunziert und von einem sowjetischen Militärgericht verurteilt worden waren. Sie wurden selbst dann nicht entlassen, als der Denunziant wegen erwiesener Unhaltbarkeit seiner Anschuldigungen von einem DDR-Gericht verurteilt wurde. Nur 14 der Jugendlichen überlebten die Haft.

Dieter Z.

[tom_deba]

In fact the last active bands of Werwolf were destroyed not in 1946, not in 1948, but in August / September of 1949 - "Jungenbund der Freien Stadt Danzig" (operating near Gdansk) and "Freikorps Gross-Mossdorf" (operating near Opole). This is according to "Werwolf - Tajne Operacje w Polsce" by R. Primke and M. Szczerepa. This book was published in 2008. In total Polish security services destroyed almost 70 bands of Werwolf since the end of the war. They numbered up to 10,000 members (including remnants of Wehrmacht and other military branches) - according to the same source.

The problem with documents of Polish security service (UB) as well as memoirs and books of men who served in UB is that many times "Wehrwolf" meant actually remnants of German frontline troops which hadn't surrendered or Germans with negative attitude to Polish communist state. I suppose that word "Wehrwolf and Wehrwolf-member" was overused as many times as words "reactionary crminial" or "Polish fascist" or "Gestapo agent" or "traitor of homeland". These epithets were used by communists for description of their political enemies.
I suppose we will never be able to separate truth from fake accusations for certain people connected with Wehrwolf.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Quite a few years ago I read a account by a claimed former Werewolf. His story was his team of four or six teenagers was deployed somewhere east of Vienna. Their orders were to set up a observation post and report on the passing Soviet army on a highway. They reported via radio. Part of the team & the radio was destroyed by Soviet soldiers. The remaining team members faded into the local Austrian population using the identification papers they had been given as part of the preperation. This 'Werwolf' spent the next year or so searching out the caches laid in for his team and selling the food, clothing, and other sundry items.

[ljadw]

I had a picture (sadly,I lost it ) of German boys executed by US soldiers ;I think they were Werewolf members or suspected of beying Werewolf .

[Panzermahn]

I believed Fred Borth wrote a book about his experience as a leader of a 60-man Werewolf/Hitlerjugend Kampfgruppe and their mission behind Soviet lines in Austria from April to May 1945.

The title of the book (in German) is Nicht zu Jung zum Sterben (I believed it means "Not Too Young To Die"). Perry Biddiscombe used it as a source for his books Werewolf (1998) and The Last Nazis (2005)

Panzermahn

[Helly Angel]

I really recommend read The Last Nazis by Perry Biddiscombe and not lose time about the werwolf crazy tales. In that book you will found a lot of survivor WW histories.

[Penn44]

All he took with him was his (insert vocabulary term here) book that proved he was German/Christian back to the 14th century.

Is he an Immortal like Connor MacCloud, the Highlander? There can be only ONE!

He is now a voting American citizen and so is she.

Oh, good, another lunatic in the country.

Penn44

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[stellung]

Why the hostility toward this person?

It is not impossible, certainly. Some members of the SS retreated to the Black Forest at the end of the war.

I have a Weekly Intelligence Summary dated for "Week Ending 10 Jul 1945." Listed are Renegades who refused to lay down their arms. Also included are Werewolf arrests. There were isolated German forces in the east still fighting Russian troops after the war officially ended. Some people who do no research suppose that there was an orderly laying down of arms at the appointed time and all complied. Some German aircraft were still evacuating from northern airfields after the official deadline. Partisans in the east were still putting up resistance against the Russians into the 1950s.

[Penn44]

Why the hostility toward this person? .

I am suspicious of his account.

It is not impossible, certainly.

There is also a possibility that some members of this forum may actually engage in sexual relations with a member of the opposite sex once in their lives, although I highly doubt it.

Some members of the SS retreated to the Black Forest at the end of the war.

Doesn’t mean they were “Werewolves.”

I have a Weekly Intelligence Summary dated for "Week Ending 10 Jul 1945." Listed are Renegades who refused to lay down their arms. Also included are Werewolf arrests.

How many were arrested as “Werewolves”? Were they eventually confirmed as “Werewolves”?

There were isolated German forces in the east still fighting Russian troops after the war officially ended.

Doesn’t mean they were “Werewolves.”

Some people who do no research suppose that there was an orderly laying down of arms at the appointed time and all complied.

And some people believe anything they hear or read.

Some German aircraft were still evacuating from northern airfields after the official deadline

Are you claiming these were “Werewolves”?

Partisans in the east were still putting up resistance against the Russians into the 1950s.

Are you claiming these were “Werewolves”?

While participating on a NATO exercise in Germany in 1992, I was driving a HMMWV (US Army) when this German woman in a Mercedes pulled up beside me, and gave me the finger. Before I could return her the favor, she sped off. Using the reasoning of some who believe that every German who engaged in anti-Allied resistance was a Werewolf, this cow who gave me the finger must have also been a Werewolf.

Penn44

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