Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistance

Discussions on every day life in the Weimar Republic, pre-anschluss Austria, Third Reich and the occupied territories. Hosted by Vikki.
Sid Guttridge
Member
Posts: 10158
Joined: 12 Jun 2008, 12:19

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#61

Post by Sid Guttridge » 31 Oct 2012, 12:02

Hi pingpongtweet,

I will look out Werewolf.

It seems inherently unlikely that the Nationalist Chinese press had independent correspondents roaming Europe reporting freely on the embarrassment of their allies so soon after the war.

If the Chinese press is accurate, its source seems most likely to have been the same western press agencies as were informing (or not being allowed to inform) the western media.

Cheers,

Sid.

eldar1
Member
Posts: 104
Joined: 28 Sep 2010, 19:00

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#62

Post by eldar1 » 11 Mar 2013, 09:04

My father worked with a werewolf fighter in 1972.In respect to his family I call him Mr R.Mr R showed my father photos of himself after the war.Apperantlly they were Hitleryouth organized under adult commanders.Mr R's unit specialized in commuinication sabotage.Mr R's unit was in the soviet zone.He managed to elude capture till about 1947 .In 47 the soviets wre closining in on him .He got out of Europe and ended up hear in the states.Sadly he still refered to Hitler as our Adolf,and still honered him.


Frankfurter
Member
Posts: 408
Joined: 12 Jan 2009, 01:51

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#63

Post by Frankfurter » 13 Mar 2013, 15:18

1. the defeat was so thorough that all Nazis with the exception the the most suicidal blockheads saw no chance in succeeding with resistance.
2. guerilla warfare was (and thankfully still is) despised by Germans, and the guerilla war in the East even made that attitude against irregulars even stronger.
3. they had other things to do, struggling for bare survival. Especially the Nazis with families.
4. Rebuilding Germany was more important not just for the politically disinterested middle-of-the-road citizen, but also for the typical nationalistic, chauvinistic German who was once a Nazi or a sympathizer, than shooting out of the rubble.
5. the influence of family and friends, and seeing that the vast majority of Germans had had enough.

Sid Guttridge
Member
Posts: 10158
Joined: 12 Jun 2008, 12:19

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#64

Post by Sid Guttridge » 16 Mar 2013, 14:15

Hi Frankfurter,

I agree with much of that.

However, I don't think the presumed German dislike of guerrilla warfare reflects much more than the fact that, for almost all the Franco-Prussian, First and Second World Wars, Germany was an occupying rather than occupied power and therefore necessarily more likely to be the victim rather than executor of guerrilla warfare.

I would suggest that the revolt in the Tyrol against Napoleonic France shows that German speakers were as ready as anybody to resort to guerrilla warfare under the right circumstances. However, the right circumstances (i.e. some realistic prospect of success) did not prevail after WWII.

Cheers,

Sid.

User avatar
BillHermann
Member
Posts: 742
Joined: 04 Jan 2012, 16:35
Location: Authie

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#65

Post by BillHermann » 21 Mar 2013, 09:07

Indeed the will was not there except in the young and fanatical. One other point that needs to be made is that some of the moderate leaders saw the benefit of moving on rebuilding and allying themselves with the allies. Due to the politics of the day they knew that with corporation in time it would benefit Germany's future. Having met many Germans over the last 25 to 30 years many have said that it was a relief and time to move on. The regime had collapsed, there was little organization left to keep up the fight unlike what happened in when Germany occupied both east and west.

One other point is resistance needs funds and external support german resitance had no allies, no external puppet master, no money, few wanted or cared to support, where as the French, Dutch, Czech, Norwegians, Polish, .... had the Allies directing and funding them against the Germans.

CJK1990
Member
Posts: 350
Joined: 10 Apr 2010, 21:15

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#66

Post by CJK1990 » 20 May 2013, 00:01

I just wanted to add one more item of interest: a document written by an aide to Goebbels talking about a resistance movement in April 1945:


The Time to Decide



by Werner Naumann


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teletype to all RPA-Heads:

As was to be expected, the establishment of the Werewolves in the areas occupied by the enemy, but also in the Reich itself, has called forth all the most active fighters of our people. The proclamation of unconditional resistance will force a decision in Germany. Now it will become clear who is really ready to stand without compromise for the principles proclaimed during good times, and who belongs to the lukewarm and weary whose cowardly conduct in these days only proves that they do not belong to us. Each National Socialist sees in unconditional resistance the best chance to end this war victoriously under Adolf Hitler’s leadership. We have no thoughts of whether giving up might lead to an agreement with the enemy, or whether we might be able to save our lives by surrendering. For us, those who believe that we can save ourselves by surrendering now and “trying again” in 20 years are cowardly creatures who instantly leave our ranks by even thinking of such a thing. Anyone who even discusses such a “Stresemann policy” does not belong to us.

We know the enemy’s plans, and realize that after a German defeat he will never give us the chance for a German revival as we had after 1918. Only genuine idiots can believe that Vansittard (sic), Morgentau (sic), and Ilja Ehrenburg would give up their hateful plans after a German surrender. If there is still a chance for the German people to emerge from this war with unbroken ethnic strength, it exists only in fanatic resistance regardless of where it finds the enemy. The major objections of cowards against the Werewolf movement are:
1.It gives the enemy an excuse for repression;
2.It disrupts our image abroad;
3.The German people is not suited for partisan warfare, etc, etc.

These are easy to refute. The Anglo-Americans murdered 50,000 Germans recently in Dresden, disregarding the Geneva Convention. They will continue their efforts to annihilate the German people regardless of whether or not the Werewolf movement exists. It is wrong to believe that cowardly surrender will somehow impress the enemy. The only that that impresses the enemy is bravery, never cowardice. Our image abroad will be improved more by determined and fanatic resistance than by raising white flags.

We do not expect that the overwhelming majority of the German people will become Werewolf fighters in the next few days. As the Peasant Wars in particular, but also the Free Corps in Upper Silesia and Schlageter, have proven, the German people can be won over to “partisan warfare.” The enemy’s great worry today is that he will not find a “government” in Germany that will offer to capitulate as he did in 1918, turning itself over to international gangsters. If the Allies want tribute, leading English newspapers wrote recently, they will have to fetch it themselves. Since the German people will not quietly and obediently stand aside as these tribute seekers and traitors to the German people attempt such criminal work, the Werewolf movement will certainly succeed.

Those critics of the Werewolf movement who do their best to come up with clever arguments against the call for total resistance must be pitilessly exposed, making it clear that their arguments are based only on their own miserable cowardice. It is plain from their behavior that they are too cowardly to themselves make the sacrifice that millions of our people’s best have made on all fronts, and that they themselves never tired of demanding of others during the war. During this great crisis of our people, the Werewolf movement cannot be too fanatic or revolutionary. The underground movements in Poland, France, etc., that cost us a the greatest sacrifices and seriously hindered our military operations had similar foundations. We must admit today that the severe repressions that we conducted against these underground movements did not weaken their resistance, but only strengthened them.

Our situation is grave and difficult. The only way to escape this situation is unconditional resistance. If we make the enemy occupation of Germany hellishly difficult, sooner than some today expect he will rather give up than force his already weary troops to fight an underground terror movement.

During the past weeks, a part of the population in the west has not acted in this way. There is no point in trying to determine the reasons at this point. Nonetheless, we do not doubt that those in the west as well as in the German east will display determined resistance. We cannot allow the thousand-year history of the German Reich to be wiped out by a few hundred American tanks only because a few units of our fighting troops and parts of our population lack the necessary wisdom and hardness. In the history of the peoples there are no hopeless situations, at most only hopeless people. This is particularly true of our current situation.

We still have the possibility of winning the war. For those who have always had a fighting spirit, this situation is nothing new. Our whole effort must be to build a fanatic will to resist. In the areas threatened by the enemy, our primary task is to call into life the largest possible underground movement that will enable the population to resist Anglo-American occupation.

For us, the Werewolf movement is the symbol of unconditional resistance. We propagandists must now devote our full effort to that end.

Signed: Dr. Naumann

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/naumann1.htm

CJK1990
Member
Posts: 350
Joined: 10 Apr 2010, 21:15

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#67

Post by CJK1990 » 20 May 2013, 00:15

Okay I lied. Here's another extremely fascinating article from TIME magazine in August 1944:

Foreign News: War Without End?

While U.S. tanks clanked into the suburbs of Paris, the London News Chronicle's political correspondent, E. P. Montgomery, brooded over a nightmare that worries a lot of other people: by going underground the Nazis might be able to prolong the war indefinitely.

Groaned Correspondent Montgomery: "The war [in Germany] will go on-underground. Allied military patrols will be ambushed . . . administrators assassinated . . . commanders will die mysteriously. . . . Hitler and the Nazis—particularly Himmler—have learned from their own bitter experience how effective the underground resistance can be. . . .

"There will be a strange reluctance on the part of every German to accept any post of responsibility under the Allied military authorities. A Nazi equivalent of our word 'quisling' will be invented and whispered from mouth to mouth, and when one or two of them have been found beaten to death with the most fiendish tortures, every 'good' German will know what it means. . . .

"[The Nazis] intend to turn their hard-learned lessons against the Allies in the hope that eventually the Allied Governments will get so sick of it they will withdraw their occupying forces, leaving Germany once more to what is left of the Nazis. . . . It is not a pretty prospect, this war without end the Nazis are planning."

Correspondent Montgomery may have underestimated the difficulty of maintaining an underground movement without support from outside. But he had pointed up one possibility: all the shooting of this war may not end abruptly on one happy Armistice Day when people can hang out flags and dance in the streets.

http://web.archive.org/web/201011260707 ... z2TmNq9DIF

merdiolu
Member
Posts: 132
Joined: 07 Jan 2010, 01:47

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#68

Post by merdiolu » 22 May 2013, 16:01

CJK1990 wrote:I just wanted to add one more item of interest: a document written by an aide to Goebbels talking about a resistance movement in April 1945:


The Time to Decide



by Werner Naumann


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teletype to all RPA-Heads:

As was to be expected, the establishment of the Werewolves in the areas occupied by the enemy, but also in the Reich itself, has called forth all the most active fighters of our people. The proclamation of unconditional resistance will force a decision in Germany. Now it will become clear who is really ready to stand without compromise for the principles proclaimed during good times, and who belongs to the lukewarm and weary whose cowardly conduct in these days only proves that they do not belong to us. Each National Socialist sees in unconditional resistance the best chance to end this war victoriously under Adolf Hitler’s leadership. We have no thoughts of whether giving up might lead to an agreement with the enemy, or whether we might be able to save our lives by surrendering. For us, those who believe that we can save ourselves by surrendering now and “trying again” in 20 years are cowardly creatures who instantly leave our ranks by even thinking of such a thing. Anyone who even discusses such a “Stresemann policy” does not belong to us.

We know the enemy’s plans, and realize that after a German defeat he will never give us the chance for a German revival as we had after 1918. Only genuine idiots can believe that Vansittard (sic), Morgentau (sic), and Ilja Ehrenburg would give up their hateful plans after a German surrender. If there is still a chance for the German people to emerge from this war with unbroken ethnic strength, it exists only in fanatic resistance regardless of where it finds the enemy. The major objections of cowards against the Werewolf movement are:
1.It gives the enemy an excuse for repression;
2.It disrupts our image abroad;
3.The German people is not suited for partisan warfare, etc, etc.

These are easy to refute. The Anglo-Americans murdered 50,000 Germans recently in Dresden, disregarding the Geneva Convention. They will continue their efforts to annihilate the German people regardless of whether or not the Werewolf movement exists. It is wrong to believe that cowardly surrender will somehow impress the enemy. The only that that impresses the enemy is bravery, never cowardice. Our image abroad will be improved more by determined and fanatic resistance than by raising white flags.

We do not expect that the overwhelming majority of the German people will become Werewolf fighters in the next few days. As the Peasant Wars in particular, but also the Free Corps in Upper Silesia and Schlageter, have proven, the German people can be won over to “partisan warfare.” The enemy’s great worry today is that he will not find a “government” in Germany that will offer to capitulate as he did in 1918, turning itself over to international gangsters. If the Allies want tribute, leading English newspapers wrote recently, they will have to fetch it themselves. Since the German people will not quietly and obediently stand aside as these tribute seekers and traitors to the German people attempt such criminal work, the Werewolf movement will certainly succeed.

Those critics of the Werewolf movement who do their best to come up with clever arguments against the call for total resistance must be pitilessly exposed, making it clear that their arguments are based only on their own miserable cowardice. It is plain from their behavior that they are too cowardly to themselves make the sacrifice that millions of our people’s best have made on all fronts, and that they themselves never tired of demanding of others during the war. During this great crisis of our people, the Werewolf movement cannot be too fanatic or revolutionary. The underground movements in Poland, France, etc., that cost us a the greatest sacrifices and seriously hindered our military operations had similar foundations. We must admit today that the severe repressions that we conducted against these underground movements did not weaken their resistance, but only strengthened them.

Our situation is grave and difficult. The only way to escape this situation is unconditional resistance. If we make the enemy occupation of Germany hellishly difficult, sooner than some today expect he will rather give up than force his already weary troops to fight an underground terror movement.

During the past weeks, a part of the population in the west has not acted in this way. There is no point in trying to determine the reasons at this point. Nonetheless, we do not doubt that those in the west as well as in the German east will display determined resistance. We cannot allow the thousand-year history of the German Reich to be wiped out by a few hundred American tanks only because a few units of our fighting troops and parts of our population lack the necessary wisdom and hardness. In the history of the peoples there are no hopeless situations, at most only hopeless people. This is particularly true of our current situation.

We still have the possibility of winning the war. For those who have always had a fighting spirit, this situation is nothing new. Our whole effort must be to build a fanatic will to resist. In the areas threatened by the enemy, our primary task is to call into life the largest possible underground movement that will enable the population to resist Anglo-American occupation.

For us, the Werewolf movement is the symbol of unconditional resistance. We propagandists must now devote our full effort to that end.

Signed: Dr. Naumann

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/naumann1.htm

Existence of this document is reason enough that why there was no post war resistance. Nazis and their stupid ideology were so wrong about everything and everyone from beginning to end they might even have came out from a poorly constructed fictional novel. Morgenthau Plan ? That was dumped after 1944 fall. Anglo Americans actually dedicated to rebuild Germany after the war. Even Stalin tried to rein Ilya Ehlenburg's hate propaganda albeit too late. While German people were living hand-to-mouth , the keys to their bare existance were at the hands of Allies in spring 1945. And this Goebbels drivel actually tries to resist against whom what ? It is easy for Herr Minister to write these nonsense while he and his family ate their daily meal every day in their cozy warm bomb sheters at the exense of people whom trying to cope with daily survival. Nazi leaders and their thinking were complately seperated from German people in 1945 and people were just resigned. Despite National Socialist heroic romantic "fight to last"mentality , not everybody (actually propably not %96,66666 of German population ) was born as a hero in Germany. They were just human beings trying to survive , to adjust changing conditions , sick of war , losses , bombing , hunger , deprivation. They were scared of Russian reprisals. They were just human beings realized the game was up , aware that there was something disasterously wrong with German leadership for last 12 years.

A joke "Hitler said "Give me 10 years and you won't recognize Germany" A regular German citizen proably thought "Yeah. He was right about that" Resist ' Yeah sure. Resist to whom for what end ?
Last edited by merdiolu on 23 May 2013, 07:07, edited 2 times in total.

AJFFM
Member
Posts: 607
Joined: 22 Mar 2013, 21:37

Re: Theories as to why there was no postwar German resistanc

#69

Post by AJFFM » 22 May 2013, 22:13

Easy, there were no men left to fight a guerrilla war.

The common factor between all guerrilla movements across the world was the existence of a large body of young unemployed men that have some military experience and some grievance against the occupier. In 1945 The German male population was either too young, too old, dead or POWs.

Post Reply

Return to “Life in the Third Reich & Weimar Republic”