Centerfield

Nazi Post-War Resistance

I've been reading The Fall of Berlin in 1945 by Antony Beevor (entitled The Downfall in its UK edition). It briefly touches on the attempt by Goebbels to create a resistance movement called Werwolf which would carry on a guerilla war against the Allied occupation. Werwolf never became more than a minor irritant

What did the Werwolf do? They sniped. They mined roads. They poured sand into the gas tanks of jeeps. (Sugar was in short supply, no doubt.) They were especially feared for the "decapitation wires" they strung across roads. They poisoned food stocks and liquor. (The Russians had the biggest problem with this.) They committed arson, though perhaps less than they are credited with: every unexplained fire or explosion associated with a military installation tended to be blamed on the Werwolf. These activities slackened off within a few months of the capitulation on May 7, though incidents were reported as late as 1947.

It's been said that the Germans were culturally not suited for partisan activity, but I don't buy that. Indeed, in the waning days of World War II, Goebbels distributed a film, Kolberg, emphasizing Prussian resistance to Napoleon. Instead, we perhaps we are lucky that Hitler chose to commit suicide, with Goebbels following soon thereafter, rather than going into hiding and try to carry on the war through terroristic means.