Iraq Attacks Recall Nazi 'Werewolves', Part 2 /2

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

Werwolf tales have been a favorite of schlock novels, but the reality bore 
no resemblance to Iraq today. As Antony Beevor observes in The Fall of 
Berlin 1945, the Nazis began creating Werwolf as a resistance 
organization in September 1944. "In theory, the training programmes 
covered sabotage using tins of Heinz oxtail soup packed with plastic 
explosive and detonated with captured British time pencils," Beevor 
writes. "… Werwolf recruits were taught to kill sentries with a 
slip-knotted garrotte about a metre long or a Walther pistol with 
silencer. …" 

In practice, Werwolf amounted to next to nothing. The mayor of Aachen was 
assassinated on March 25, 1945, on Himmler's orders. This was not a nice 
thing to do, but it happened before the May 7 Nazi surrender at Reims. 
It's hardly surprising that Berlin sought to undermine the American 
occupation before the war was over. And as the U.S. Army's official 
history, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944-1946, points 
out, the killing was "probably the Werwolf's most sensational 
achievement." 

Indeed, the organization merits but two passing mentions in Occupation of 
Germany, which dwells far more on how docile the Germans were once the 
Americans rolled in—and fraternization between former enemies was a 
bigger problem for the military than confrontation. Although Gen. 
Eisenhower had been worrying about guerrilla warfare as early as August 
1944, little materialized. There was no major campaign of sabotage. There 
was no destruction of water mains or energy plants worth noting. In fact, 
the far greater problem for the occupying forces was the misbehavior of 
desperate displaced persons, who accounted for much of the crime in the 
American zone. 

The Army history records that while there were the occasional 
anti-occupation leaflets and graffiti, the GIs had reason to feel safe. 
When an officer in Hesse was asked to investigate rumors that troops were 
being attacked and castrated, he reported back that there had not been a 
single attack against an American soldier in four months of occupation. 
As the distinguished German historian Golo Mann summed it up in The 
History of Germany Since 1789, "The [Germans'] readiness to work with the 
victors, to carry out their orders, to accept their advice and their help 

was genuine; of the resistance which the Allies had expected in the way 
of 'werewolf' units and nocturnal guerrilla activities, there was no 
sign. …"


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