German Guerrilla War In The Eastern Front After World War II

[Edward L. Hsiao]

Gentlermen,

Were there anymore instances of German soldiers who refused to surrender to the Soviets at the end of World War II in 1945 on the Eastern Front and started guerrilla warfare against the Soviet military by attacking military installations, killing Soviet soldiers, blowing up ammo dumps whatsoever for a few years? I already knew that Leutnant Hennecke Kardel, a Knight's Cross holder, had started partisan operations in the Baltics following the capitulation, together with the Latvians. There were some German units that didn't get the order to surrender to the Soviets in May of 1945 and continues to fight against the Soviet military for many more months. Can you name some more instances?


Edward L. Hsiao

[Glider42]

Hi Edward,

I am currently reading a fascinating book which touches on this very subject. It's called "Endgame 1945: Victory, Retribution, Liberation" by David Stafford. He writes very vividly about what happened in Germany and Europe after VE Day. In particular, some sporadic fighting continued for a few months in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, led by SS and so-called "werewolf" units. Interestingly, the Nazis had intended the Alps to be the centre of a much lengthier and organised resistance post-the fall of Berlin than did actually happen.

Cheers,

Glider42

Edit: Oh, and in keeping with the thread title: Russian forces were in Austria on VE Day, so that was technically the Eastern Front

[ManfredV]

Really? Werwolf and SS units fighting after german capitulation? Werwolf was only a small group which did some murder and Dönitz abolished it before war ended.
Mayby some few men of Werwolf and SS tried to escape from imprisonment and fired against allied soldiers.
"Alpenfestung" and "Werwolf" were nothing more than a propaganda thing, but there was a kind of "Werwolf hysteria" among the allies. In soviet zone it was a pretence to arrest many people.

[Edward L. Hsiao]

Never underestimate the resistance of the fighting abilities of Germans against the Allied and Soviet victors even when WWII in Europe was over. Plenty of German soldiers and Hitler youths took to the forest and mountains of Germany and continued to resist their enemies who conquered their land even when WWII was over. I remember reading about a Luftwaffe major and his soldiers and Hitler youths that took to the Harz mountains and continued to inflict havoc on the Allied military up to at least to 1947. Otto Skorzeny's SS special operators were still on the lose and continued to make trouble to the Allies especially the Soviets. I won't be surprised that a special unit of German Wehrmacht veterans especially the Waffen-SS would conduct sabotage operations in East Germany during the Communist rule. Of coarse they knew the risk of being caught by the East German secret police.

Edward L. Hsiao

[Glider42]

Here's an excerpt from the Stafford book I mentioned earlier:

"... throughout the rest of Germany law and order were in short supply. Violence by roaming groups of freed slave labourers troubled the country for months, and remnants of the Werewolves and die-hard Nazis continued to cause problems. In remote areas, such as parts of Saxony and the Bavarian Alps, bands of Werhmacht and SS troops carried out attacks and raids throughout the summer and autumn, until winter forced them out of their hiding-places.

The Werewolves proved less of a headache than allied intelligence had anticipated, but a few groups remained active well after VE Day, especially in Polish-occupied Silesia and the Sudetenland. Some caused trouble in the western zones of Germany, too." (p. 545)

Stafford acknowledges that, for information on these rearguard actions, he relied on the following book:

Biddiscombe, Perry, The Last Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerilla Resistance in Europe 1944-1947, Stroud, Tempus, 2004.

I have not read that book.

Glider42

[Edward L. Hsiao]

There were known instances of Skorzeny's SS Special Forces men infiltrated the East German Secret Police (Stasi)and pretended to be loyal to the Communist regime maybe being awarded the East German Communist Loyalty medals along the way. Maybe there were secret battles of wits and physical violence between the SS Special ops and the Soviet KGB as well after WWII.


Edward L. Hsiao

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Edward,

You seem to live in a fantasy world of widespread German post-war resistance.

There was certainly a little inside Germany, but it was minuscule compared with what had been planned and hoped for by the Nazis.

There were also a small number of Germans who joined various Eastern European anti-Soviet guerrillas, but again they are few. One swallow doesn't make a summer.

What you won't find, I would suggest, is much evidence of organized German guerrilla units carrying on in Eastern Europe long after the war.

Cheers,

Sid

[eindhoven]

There were known instances of Skorzeny's SS Special Forces men infiltrated the East German Secret Police (Stasi)and pretended to be loyal to the Communist regime maybe being awarded the East German Communist Loyalty medals along the way. Maybe there were secret battles of wits and physical violence between the SS Special ops and the Soviet KGB as well after WWII.


Edward L. Hsiao

You seem to want to believe a narrative where the SS are special forces, they were not, and Skorzeny is their god when in fact he was an operational failure, a liar, and a personality disorder on full display. This is not a video game forum. Unlike Glider42 who presented sourced material you are making wild claims with zero sourcing but I am willing to bet you are using a certain hot air balloon's memoirs. 'Maybe' is not reality.

Please read
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=32180&hilit=Otto+Skorzeny+debunked

Whatever post-war resistance was presented was mopped up quickly. Look to any post-war periodical, like a period newspaper, to see the stories of this and how little it achieved. Unlike your golden idol who fled his mission to get fat in another country some of those young post-war "resistance fighters" if we can call some of them that were shot and killed.

Try something academic like this

German Failure to Resist Post World War II Reconstruction
AIR COMMAND AND STAFF COLL MAXWELL AFB 01 Jan 2010

"Germany planned, organized and equipped forces to resist the Allies, but in the end was entirely unsuccessful in its efforts. The Allies incorporated occupation planning early in the war and trained and organized forces to handle occupation and reconstruction. The Allies were also concerned about the German people engaging in resistance after occupation and therefore planned operations to shape the public opinion in the Allies favor. The outcome of the war is well known and Germany did not resist (organized or large scale resistance) but cooperated with the allies and rebuilt the country into the one of the worlds leading economic powers.'
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1019103.pdf

[ManfredV]

Thats true.
Only a handful fanatics fought, but in most cases these were SS men who feared to be arrested. There were also gangs of bandits with Wehrmacht weapons that caused trouble, but this was no "resistance" but criminal activity.
In Bohemian forest was a secret werwolf radio station that reported about "resistance" but that was only propaganda and it was found and stopped in summer 45. Of course in Sudetenland some attacks happened but its not clear if this was organized "Werwolf" or only desperated men. "Sudetendeutsche" who tried to defend there homeland?
But Soviets and communists used "Werwolf resistance" as false pretences to arrest ten thousands of people.
And in US zone some some Hitler Jugend boys were executed because of american "Werwolf hysteria".
So this hysteria in all zones and esp. soviet political plans caused many victims but "german resistance" didn't exist.

[ManfredV]

Another point: all top ranking Nazi leaders and Wehrmacht generals were arrested/caught as POW, tried to escape or committed suicide. No one of them went to "underground" and tried to organize "resistance". No Göring hidden in the Alps to command Alpenfestung, no Himmler somewhere in Harz oder Lüneburger Heide with partisan troups, no Goebbels in a secret radio station. Dönitz and his gouvernement waited in Flensburg until they were caught.
Many higher SS, SD, Gestapo , KZ leaders took false papers and false names, hide themselves in forrest huts, mountain pastures, refuge camps,some in monastaries, some tried to escape to South America, Spain etc but no one fought in resistance or organized new units.

[ManfredV]

A very good book (in german) by german historian Volker Koop: Himmlers letztes Aufgebot - Die NS-Organisation Werwolf, Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar Wien

[Atrevida]

Manfred V

In your posting of 1 May at 16:32 your opening paragraph is false. Named by Hitler in Part 2 of his Political Testament as the Minister of Propaganda after his death, Dr Werner Naumann, who had previously been Goebbels' Deputy and a senior SS officer, arrived in Argentina in 1946 where he worked with the Reich organization in that country for a number of years arranging its affairs.

[Ironmachine]

Manfred V

In your posting of 1 May at 16:32 your opening paragraph is false. Named by Hitler in Part 2 of his Political Testament as the Minister of Propaganda after his death, Dr Werner Naumann, who had previously been Goebbels' Deputy and a senior SS officer, arrived in Argentina in 1946 where he worked with the Reich organization in that country for a number of years arranging its affairs.

I can't see why you are claiming that opening paragraph is false. It says:

Another point: all top ranking Nazi leaders and Wehrmacht generals were arrested/caught as POW, tried to escape or committed suicide. No one of them went to "underground" and tried to organize "resistance". No Göring hidden in the Alps to command Alpenfestung, no Himmler somewhere in Harz oder Lüneburger Heide with partisan troups, no Goebbels in a secret radio station. Dönitz and his gouvernement waited in Flensburg until they were caught.

So yes, Naumann was just one of those who tried to escape. You can argue that he not only tried, but indeed managed to escape, but anyway he didn't go "underground" or tried to organize "resistance". He was not involved in any kind of "guerrilla war" or "armed resistance" against the Allies, which is the point of this thread. So I say it again, I can't see the falsehood in that opening paragraph. So am I missing something?

[ManfredV]

Did I say :"no one escaped"?

[Edward L. Hsiao]

All right guys maybe I'm stretching my imagination too far on the serious situation of German resistance after WWII in Europe and I'm sorry. Einhoven(forgive me if I don't spell your name right),I am not playing 'Video Game Forum' as you call it. I'm trying to be a serious researcher about the strength and weakness of the German military and the German soldier of WWII years and the post WWII years. I know I sometimes don't do a good job every time but you had insulted me and my intelligence too far. I know I tried to find what source that I got the information about German resistance after WWII in Germany and other areas of the Eastern Front but it wasn't easy. That is all I got to say for now.


Edward L. Hsiao