Werwolf! : the history of the National Socialist guerrilla movement, 1944-1946 / Perry Biddiscombe.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Biddiscombe, Alexander Perry, 1959-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Unternehmen Werwolf.
• World War, 1939-1945--Germany.
• Guerrilla warfare.
• Sabotage--Germany.

Physical Description:

xi, 455 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, [1998]

Summary:

• Near the End of the Second World War, a National Socialist resistance movement known as the Werwolf briefly flickered to life in Germany and its borderlands. Dedicated to delaying the advance of the Allies on both fronts, the Werwolf succeeded in scattered acts of sabotage and violence. By the spring of 1945, it also began to show signs of being a vengeful Nazi reaction against the German populace itself. 'Collaborators' and 'defeatists' were frequently assassinated, and crude posters warned the population that certain death was the penalty for failure to resist the enemy.
• Werwolf violence failed to mobilize a spirit of national resistance. Biddiscombe argues that the group was poorly led, armed, and organized, and that it was doomed to failure given the war-weariness of the population and the hesitancy of youth to sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyre of the regime. He also demonstrates that although the group failed to assume a popular character, its influence was still great and its revolutionary sentiments would have grave implications for the future.
• Werwolf! is the most complete history to date of the Nazi partisan movement. It will be of great interest to general readers as well as to military historians.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [417]-424) and index.

ISBN:

0802008623

OCLC:

39210267