Operation François was an attempt made by the German Army's Abwehr to use the dissident Qashqai people in Iran to sabotage British and American supplies bound for the Soviet Union.

Operation François was led by Otto Skorzeny who sent 502nd SS Jäger Battalion to parachute into Iran, in their first mission during the summer of 1943. Skorzeny, who remained behind to train more recruits, characterized Operation François as "a failure" due mainly to inadequate reinforcements and supplies needed for the mission.

It is stated in Paul Ernst Fackenheim's biography, written by Michael Bar-Zohar, that during his captivity in Latrun, where the British also kept nazi-sympathizer General Fazlollah Zahedi, he saw "six or seven SS prisoners who parachuted into southern Iran, loaded with explosives and gold, and tried to bribe the Qashqai into rebelling against the British ... once they ran out of gold, the Qashqai turned them to the British"

The Gran Sasso raid refers to Operation Eiche (German for 'Oak'), the rescue of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini by German paratroopers led by Major Otto-Harald Mors and Waffen-SS commandos in September 1943, during World War II. The airborne operation was personally ordered by Adolf Hitler, planned by Major Harald Mors and approved by General Kurt Student.

On 25 July 1943, a few weeks after the Allied invasion of Sicily and bombing of Rome, the Italian Grand Council of Fascism voted to depose Mussolini and replaced him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Mussolini was subsequently arrested on King Victor Emmanuel's orders.

After his arrest, Mussolini was transported around Italy by his captors. Intercepting a coded Italian radio message, Otto Skorzeny used his own reconnaissance to determine that Mussolini was being imprisoned at Campo Imperatore Hotel, a ski resort at Campo Imperatore, an alpine meadow at the Gran Sasso massif, high in the Apennine Mountains. On 12 September 1943, Skorzeny joined the team—led by Major Harald Mors—to rescue Mussolini in a high-risk glider mission.

The operation on the ground at Campo Imperatore was led by Lieutenant Count Otto von Berlepsch, planned by Major Harald Mors and under orders from General Kurt Student, all Fallschirmjäger (German Air Force Paratroopers) officers. According to Otto Skorzeny's Memoir, he commanded this mission and was on the ground while rescuing Mussolini.

The commandos crashed their nine DFS 230 gliders into the nearby mountains, then overwhelmed Mussolini's guards without a single shot being fired. The carabinieri guarding Mussolini were ordered to not put up any resistance by an Italian general, Fernando Soleti, that the Germans had brought along on the raid. Skorzeny attacked the radio operator and his equipment, and formally greeted Mussolini with "Duce, the Führer has sent me to set you free!" to which Mussolini replied "I knew that my friend would not forsake me!"

Mussolini was first flown from Campo Imperatore in a Luftwaffe Fieseler Fi 156C-3/Trop Storch STOL liaison aircraft, Werknummer (serial number) 1268, initially flown in by Captain Walter Gerlach, then taking off with Mussolini and Skorzeny (even though the weight of an extra passenger almost caused the tiny plane to crash) to the military airport of Pratica di Mare (near Rome) then embarked in an Heinkel HE111 on to Vienna, where Mussolini stayed overnight at the Hotel Imperial and was given a hero's welcome. The Storch involved in rescuing Mussolini bore the radio code letters, or Stammkennzeichen, of "SJ + LL" in motion picture coverage, for propaganda purposes, of the daring rescue.

The operation granted a rare late-war public relations opportunity to Hermann Göring. Benito Mussolini was made leader of the Italian Social Republic (a German puppet state consisting of the German-occupied portion of Italy).

Otto Skorzeny gained a large amount of success from this mission; he received a promotion to Sturmbannführer, the award of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
and fame that led to his "most dangerous man in Europe" image

Nazi propaganda hailed the operation for months, the Axis otherwise having little about which to boast in the fall of 1943. As it turned out, it was the last of Hitler's spectacular gambles to bear fruit.

Operation Long Jump" was the alleged codename given to a plot to assassinate the "Big Three" (Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt) at the 1943 Tehran Conference. Hitler supposedly gave the command of the operation to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the RSHA, who in turn gave the mission to Skorzeny. Knowledge of the whole scheme was presented to the Western Allies by Stalin's NKVD at the Tehran conference. The Soviets said they had learned about its existence from counter espionage activities against German intelligence. Their agents had found out the Nazis knew the time and place of this meeting because they had cracked a US Naval code. However the NKVD said the assassination plot was foiled after they identified the German spies in Iran forcing Skorzeny to call off the mission due to inadequate intelligence.

However following Tehran, the story was treated with incredulity by the British and Americans who dismissed it as Soviet propaganda. Skorzeny supported this view by stating in his post-war memoirs that no such operation ever existed. He said the story about the plans being leaked to Soviet spy Nikolai Kuznetsov by an SS Sturmbannfuhrer named Hans Ulrich von Ortel as a complete Soviet invention; Hans Ulrich von Ortel never existed.

Skorzeny always maintained his name was only used to add credibility to the story because the NKVD knew his renowned record as an SS commando would make the existence of such an operation more plausible.

Operation Panzerfaust, known as Unternehmen Eisenfaust in Germany, was a military operation to keep the Kingdom of Hungary at Germany's side in the war, conducted in October 1944 by the German military (Wehrmacht). When German dictator Adolf Hitler received word that Hungary's Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, was secretly negotiating his country's surrender to the advancing Red Army, he sent commando leader Waffen-SS Lieutenant-Colonel Otto Skorzeny to Hungary. Hitler feared that Hungary's surrender would expose his southern flank, where the Kingdom of Romania had just joined with the Soviets and cut off a million German troops still fighting the Soviet advance in the Balkan peninsula. The operation came on the heels of Operation Margarethe in March 1944, which was the forced, but peaceful, occupation of Hungary by German forces, which Hitler had hoped would secure Hungary's place in the Axis powers.

Having anticipated Horthy's move, Skorzeny had been instructed to remove Horthy from power. Horthy's son Miklós Horthy, Jr. was meeting with Soviet representatives. Miklós Jr. was informed by the German Security Service through intermediaries that envoys of Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia wanted to meet with him. Miklós Jr. had failed to keep a prior meeting when he observed suspicious individuals near the proposed meeting place. A second meeting was set for early 15 October at the offices of Felix Bornemisza, the Director of the Hungarian Danube ports. He hoped that the Yugoslavian representatives might have important news, but upon entering the building, Skorzeny and his troops attacked and beat him into submission. They then kidnapped Miklós at gunpoint, trussed him up in a carpet, immediately drove him to the airport and flew him to Vienna. From there, he was transported to the concentration camp at Mauthausen.

Working through his trustworthy General Béla Miklós, who was in contact with Soviet forces in eastern Hungary, Horthy attempted to negotiate the end of the war, seeking to surrender to the Soviets while preserving the government's autonomy. Although Horthy was an intractable anti-Communist, his dealings with the Nazis led him to conclude the Soviets were the lesser evil. The Soviets willingly promised that Hungary would remain autonomous and sovereign.

Horthy governed from Castle Hill in central Budapest, an ancient and now well-guarded fortress. He blamed the German government for "forcing" Hungary into war, and during a meeting of the Crown Council declared that:

Today it is obvious to any sober-minded person that the German Reich has lost the war. All governments responsible for the destiny of their countries must draw the appropriate conclusions from this fact, for as a great German statesman, Bismarck, once said, "No nation ought to sacrifice itself on the altar of an alliance." … I decided to safeguard Hungary’s honour even against her former ally, although this ally, instead of supplying the promised military help, meant finally to rob the Hungarian nation of its greatest treasure, its freedom and independence. I informed a representative of the German Reich that we were about to conclude a military armistice with our former enemies and to cease all hostilities against them

At 2:00 p.m. on 15 October 1944, Horthy announced in a national radio broadcast that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviets. However, the Germans had been aware of Horthy's behind-the-scenes maneuvering and had already set in motion plans to replace his government with forces loyal to the German cause, effectively occupying Hungary. With Nazi help, the Arrow Cross Party seized the radio station shortly after Horthy signed off. A party member wrote a counter-proclamation and used the name of the Hungarian Army's Chief of the General Staff, General Vörös. The commanding officer and his assistant of the two remaining Hungarian army units in Budapest were arrested or disappeared, and their soldiers fell in line with the Arrow-Cross party.

Given that many Hungarian units were controlled by the German army, it is unclear whether orders, if issued, ever reached most of the line troops. There had also been considerable propaganda about the harsh, punitive treatment of prisoners by the Soviets.

Skorzeny then brazenly led a convoy of German troops and four Tiger II tanks to the Vienna Gates of Castle Hill. Horthy recognized that he had no means to fight the German armor and superior forces. He issued orders that "no resistance should be made." One unit did not get these orders, and fought the Germans for about 30 minutes. The Germans quickly and with minimal bloodshed captured Castle Hill. Only seven soldiers were killed and 26 men were wounded.

Horthy was taken into custody by Edmund Veesenmayer and his staff later on 15 October. Kept overnight in the Waffen SS offices, he returned to the Palace to collect his personal belongings. There he was confronted with a demand to sign a typewritten statement handed to him by Premier Géza Lakatos. The statement announced that Horthy was renouncing the armistice and abdicating in favour of Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi. Surprised that his loyal friend would encourage him to sign the document, Horthy was told by Lakatos that his son's life was at stake. When Horthy asked Veesenmayer if this was true, Veesenmayer confirmed the threat. The regent understood that this was an effort to put the stamp of his prestige on a Nazi-sponsored Arrow Cross coup, but signed anyway.

Horthy later explained his capitulation:

I neither resigned nor appointed Szálasi Premier, I merely exchanged my signature for my son’s life. A signature wrung from a man at machine-gun point can have little legality.

Despite Veesenmayer's solemn promise to obtain Horthy's son's release from the German concentration camp, Miklós Jr. remained a prisoner until the war's end on 8 May 1945. Horthy himself was transported to the Schloss Hirschberg near Weilheim, Germany, and guarded by 100 Waffen SS men at all times. On 1 May 1945, Lt. Gen. Alexander Patch, the commander of the US 36th Division, visited Horthy in his castle prison. Because Hungary had fought on to the end defending Germany, Horthy was considered a prisoner of war. Seven months later, on 17 December 1945, he was released from the Nuremberg penitentiary and was reunited with his family in a private home in Weilheim.

Operation Greif was a special false flag operation commanded by Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and its purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse river before they could be destroyed. German soldiers, wearing captured British & US Army uniforms and using captured vehicles were to cause confusion in the rear of the Allied lines. A lack of vehicles, uniforms and equipment limited the operation and it never achieved its original aim of securing the Meuse bridges.

Skorzeny had become one of Hitler's favorites following the success of "Operation Panzerfaust" in which he had supervised the kidnapping of Miklós Horthy, Jr., the son of Hungary's Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy to force Horthy's resignation. Following his return to Germany, Skorzeny was summoned to meet Hitler at his headquarters at Rastenburg (Ketrzyn) in East Prussia on 22 October 1944. After congratulating Skorzeny and announcing that he had been promoted to Obersturmbannführer, Hitler outlined the planned Ardennes Offensive and the role he was to play in it.

Skorzeny was to form a special brigade - Panzer Brigade 150 - whose purpose would be to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse river before they could be destroyed. Hitler informed him that he had decided this could be accomplished more quickly and with fewer losses if Skorzeny and his men wore US uniforms. Hitler also remarked that small units in enemy uniform could cause great confusion among the enemy by giving false orders, upsetting communications, and misdirecting troops.

I want you to command a group of American and British troops and get them across the Meuse and seize one of the bridges. Not, my dear Skorzeny, real Americans or British. I want you to create special units wearing American and British uniforms. They will travel in captured Allied tanks. Think of the confusion you could cause! I envisage a whole string of false orders which will upset communications and attack morale.

—Butler, Rupert (1979). The Black Angels. New York: St. Martin's Press

Skorzeny was well aware that under the Hague Convention of 1907 anyone under his command who was captured in US uniform would face execution and this possibility caused much discussion with Generaloberst Jodl and Field Marshal von Rundstedt.

The timing of the Ardennes Offensive meant that Skorzeny had only 5 or 6 weeks to recruit and train a brand new unit for what Hitler named Operation Greif ("Gryphon"). Within four days he sent his plans for Panzer Brigade 150 to Generaloberst Alfred Jodl. Despite asking for 3,300 men he was given an immediate go-ahead and promised full support. The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht issued an order on 25 October requesting suitable soldiers for the operation with "knowledge of the English language and also the American dialect" which was passed on to every headquarters on the Western Front, and this request soon became known to the Allies.

The new brigade needed US Army vehicles, weapons and uniforms; OB West was asked to find 15 tanks, 20 armoured cars, 20 self-propelled guns, 100 jeeps, 40 motorcycles, 120 trucks, and British and US Army uniforms all to be delivered to the brigade's training camp which had been set up at Grafenwöhr in eastern Bavaria. The equipment delivered fell short of the requirements, including only two Sherman tanks in poor condition, and Skorzeny had to use German substitutes, 5 tanks (Panzer V "Panther") and 6 armoured cars. Because of the low number of actual American equipment, German equipment was modified, or just painted green and given US stars, to resemble US vehicles. The 5 Panthers and 5 Sturmgeschütze were "modified" with thin metal plates. The Panthers clearly were meant to resemble the M10, and the result was not all that bad. What the Sturmgeschütze were meant to look like is unknown - but they were green with stars. 1 Sherman (out of 2 captured) was in operational condition the night before the attack, but it came down with problems, and did therefore not take part of the action.

The brigade was also flooded by Polish and Russian equipment sent by units who had no idea what the request was for. As far as English-speaking soldiers went, only 10 men who spoke perfect English and had some knowledge of American idiom were found, 30-40 men who spoke English well but had no knowledge of slang, 120-150 who spoke English moderately well, and 200 or so who had learned English at school.

Faced with these setbacks, Skorzeny scaled down Panzer Brigade 150 from three battalions to two and assembled the 150 best English speakers into a commando unit named Einheit Stielau. Skorzeny also recruited a company of SS-Jagdverbände "Mitte" and two companies from SS-Fallschirmjäger-Abteilung 600, and was given two Luftwaffe parachute battalions formerly of KG 200, tank crews from Panzer regiments, and gunners from artillery units. A total of 2,500 men were eventually assembled at Grafenwöhr, 800 less than had been hoped.

The final total of equipment assembled was also less than had been hoped; only enough US Army weapons had been found to equip the commando unit, and only 4 US Army scout cars, 30 jeeps, and 15 trucks were found, the difference being made up with German vehicles painted in US olive drab with Allied markings applied. Only a single Sherman tank was available, and the brigade's Panther tanks were disguised as M10 Wolverine tank destroyers by removing their cupolas and disguising their hulls and turrets with thin sheet metal. The problem of recognition by their own forces was crucial, and they were to identify themselves by various methods: displaying a small yellow triangle at the rear of their vehicles; tanks keeping their guns pointing in the nine o' clock position; troops wearing pink or blue scarves and removing their helmets; and flashes from a blue or red torch at night.

As the brigade prepared for action, rumours began to fly that they were to relieve the besieged towns of Dunkirk or Lorient, capture Antwerp, or to capture the Allied Supreme Command at SHAEF at Paris. It was not until 10 December that Skorzeny's own commanders were made aware of the brigade's true plans. Panzerbrigade 150 was to attempt to capture at least two of the bridges over the Meuse river at Amay, Huy, and Andenne before they could be destroyed, the troops to begin their operation when the Panzer advance reached the High Fens, between the Ardennes and the Eifel highlands. The three groups (Kampfgruppe X, Kampfgruppe Y, and Kampfgruppe Z) would then move towards the separate bridges.

When Unternehmen Greif started, the brigade was held up in the massive traffic jams which caused major problems to the entire offensive. After losing two days this way, the original goals of the brigade was more or less given up and it was to fight as a regular formation.

It was given the task of capturing Malmedy, but a deserter warned the US forces of the plans. The attack was met with heavy fire and the Germans were forced to retreat. The US artillery took a heavy toll on the unit even when it was withdrawn from the actual fighting, the wounded included Otto Skorzeny himself who was hit by shrapnel.

The Einheit Stielau commando unit had been assembled from the brigade's best English speakers, but few of them had much if any experience of undercover operations or sabotage. There was little time to train them properly, but they were given short courses in demolition and radio skills, studied the organization of the US Army and its badges of rank and drill, and some were even sent to POW camps at Küstrin and Limburg to refresh their language skills through contact with US POWs.

Dressed in US Army uniforms (the highest US Army rank used was that of Colonel), armed with US weapons and using jeeps, the commandos were to execute three missions:

- Demolition squads of 5 or 6 men were to destroy bridges, ammunition dumps, and fuel stores.

- Reconnaissance patrols of 3 or 4 men were to reconnoiter on both sides of the Meuse river and also pass on bogus orders to any US units they met, reverse road signs, remove minefield warnings, and cordon off roads with warnings of nonexistent mines.

- "Lead" commando units would work closely with the attacking units to disrupt the US chain of command by destroying field telephone wires and radio stations, and issuing false orders.

On 14 December Panzerbrigade 150 was assembled near Münsterreifel and on the afternoon of 16 December it moved out, advancing behind the three attacking Panzer divisions, the 1st SS Panzer Division, the 12th SS Panzer Division, and the 12th Volksgrenadier Division, with the aim of moving around them when they reached the High Fens. However, when the 1st SS Panzer Division failed to reach the start point within two days Skorzeny realized that Operation Greif's initial aims were now doomed.

As a consequence, on 17 December Skorzeny attended a staff conference at the 6th Panzer Army's HQ, and suggested that his brigade be used as a normal army unit. This was agreed, and he was ordered to assemble south of Malmedy and report to the 1st SS Panzer Division's HQ in Ligneuville.

On 21 December 1944 this brigade, under Skorzeny's command tried to take Malmedy. Several assaults of the Skorzeny brigade were eventually successfully repelled by the American defenders. This would constitute the only noticeable attempt from the Germans to take Malmedy during the battle of the Bulge.

Skorzeny described the activities of the Einheit Stielau in an interview with the US Army in August 1945 following his surrender. According to him, four units of reconnaissance commandos and two units of demolition commandos were sent out during the first few days of the attack, and three units went with the 1st SS Panzer Division, 12th SS Panzer Division, and 12th Volks Grenadier Division, with another three units accompanying Panzerbrigade 150's three groups. Skorzeny reported that one commando team entered Malmedy on 16 December, and another team managed to persuade a US Army unit to withdraw from Poteau the same day. Another team switched around road signs and sent an entire American regiment in the wrong direction. American troops began asking one another questions that they felt only other Americans would know the answers to in order to flush out the German infiltrators. This had results such as an American brigadier general being held at gunpoint for several hours after he said the Chicago Cubs were in the American league and a captain spending a week in detention after he was caught wearing German boots. General Omar Bradley was repeatedly stopped in his staff car by checkpoint guards who seemed to enjoy asking him such questions. In all, forty-four men were sent through US lines, and all but 8 returned, with the last men being sent through the lines on 19 December; after this, the element of surprise had been lost and they reverted to wearing German uniform.

It was not an uncommon practice at the time to send camouflaged reconnaissance units behind enemy lines, but because of the immense psychological impact of Operation Greif, every occurrence of this was attributed to Skorzeny's men. In addition, German infantry often salvaged any items of US Army clothing they found, thus it was not out of the question that regular German troops might be killed or captured wearing items of US uniform.

So great was the confusion caused by Operation Greif that the US Army saw spies and saboteurs everywhere. Perhaps the largest panic was created when a commando team was captured near Aywaille on 17 December. Comprising Unteroffizier Manfred Pernass, Oberfähnrich Günther Billing, and Gefreiter Wilhelm Schmidt, they were captured when they failed to give the correct password. It was Schmidt who gave credence to a rumour that Skorzeny intended to capture General Eisenhower and his staff. A document outlining Operation Greif's elements of deception (though not its objectives) had earlier been captured by the US 106th Infantry Division near Heckhuscheid, - the German word "Greif" translating to "seize!" in English. In reality, the word "Greif" was used probably in a non-communicative sense, simply meaning the heraldic beast griffin. Because Skorzeny was already well-known for rescuing Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and kidnapping the son of Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy, the Americans were more than willing to believe Eisenhower was his next target. Because of the perceived threat, Eisenhower was confined to his headquarters for several days, and thousands of American MP's were put to work trying to hunt down Skorzeny's men. Checkpoints were soon set up all over the Allied rear, greatly slowing the movement of soldiers and equipment. Military policemen drilled servicemen on things which every American was expected to know, such as the identity of Mickey Mouse's girlfriend, baseball scores, or the capital of Illinois. This latter question resulted in the brief detention of General Omar Bradley himself; although he gave the correct answer—Springfield—the GI who questioned him apparently believed that the capital was Chicago.

Eisenhower was reportedly unamused by having to spend Christmas 1944 isolated for security reasons. After several days of confinement, he left his office, angrily declaring he had to get out and that he didn't care if anyone tried to kill him.

44 Germans wearing US uniforms managed to slip through the US lines and return alive. 8 were killed. Another 18 of its men were captured and executed as spies.

Pernass, Billing, and Schmidt were given a military trial at Henri-Chapelle, sentenced to death, and executed by a firing squad on 23 December. Thirteen other men were tried and shot at either Henri-Chapelle or Huy.The brigade was finally withdrawn from the front lines on 28 Dec, being replaced by 18th Volksgrenadier Division.

Ironically, the overall mission was regarded by Skorzeny as a failure. Because a total breakthrough wasn't achieved on the first day of the battle, Skorzeny had to use most of his Panzer brigade as ordinary combat troops, in German uniform.

Skorzeny was tried as a war criminal at the Dachau Trials in 1947 for allegedly violating the laws of war during the Battle of the Bulge, he and officers of Panzerbrigade 150 being charged with improperly using American uniforms to infiltrate American lines. All the defendants were acquitted, the military tribunal drawing a distinction between using enemy uniforms during combat and for other purposes including deception; it could not be shown that Skorzeny had actually given any orders to fight in US uniform.[10] A surprise defence witness was F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, GC, MC & Bar, Croix de Guerre, a former Allied SOE agent who testified that he had himself worn German uniforms behind enemy lines.

There was an earlier military operation which used this name; an anti-partisan operation conducted by the German Army Wehrmacht Heer, begun on August 14, 1944, in the vicinity of Orsha and Vitebsk, USSR.

Werwolf (German for "werewolf") was the name given to a Nazi plan, which began development in 1944,[1] to create a commando force which would operate behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced through Germany itself. Werwolf remained entirely ineffectual as a combat force, however, and in practical terms, its value as propaganda far outweighed its actual achievements.

Misconceptions

After it became clear, by March 1945, that the remaining German forces had no chance of stopping the Allied advance, Minister of Propaganda Josef Göbbels seized upon the idea of Werwolf, and began to foster the notion, primarily through Nazi radio broadcasts, that Werwolf was a clandestine guerrilla organization comprising irregular German partisans, similar to the many insurgency groups which the Germans had encountered in the nations they occupied during the war. Despite such propaganda, however, this was never the actual nature of Werwolf, which in reality was always intended to be a commando unit comprising uniformed troops. Another popular myth about Werwolf is that it was intended to continue fighting underground even after the surrender of the Nazi government and the German military. In fact, no effort was ever made by the Nazi leadership to develop an insurgency to continue fighting in the event of defeat, in large measure because Adolf Hitler, as well as other Nazi leaders, refused to believe that a German defeat was possible, and they regarded anyone who even discussed the possibility as defeatists and traitors. As a result, no contingency plans to deal with defeat were ever authorized. However, as a result of Goebbels' efforts, Werwolf had, and in many cases continues to have, a mythological reputation as having been an underground Nazi resistance movement, with some even claiming that Werwolf attacks continued for months, or even years, after the end of the war. Its perceived influence went far beyond its actual operations, especially after the dissolution of the Nazi regime.

Historian Perry Biddiscombe has also asserted that Werwolf represented a re-emergence of a genuinely radical, social-revolutionary current within National Socialism, something which had been present in the movement in its early days but which had been suppressed following the Nazi assumption of power in 1933.

Nomenclature

The name was chosen after the title of Hermann Löns' novel, Der Wehrwolf (1910).[3] Set in the Celle region, Lower Saxony, during the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), the novel concerns a peasant, Harm Wulf, who after his family is killed by marauding soldiers, organises his neighbours into a militia who pursue the soldiers mercilessly and execute any they capture, referring to themselves as Wehrwölfe. Löns said that the title was a dual reference to the fact that the peasants put up a fighting defence (sich wehren, see "Bundeswehr" - Federal Defense) and to the protagonist's surname of Wulf, but it also had obvious connotations with the word Werwölfe in that Wulf's men came to enjoy killing. While not himself a Nazi (he died in 1914) Löns' work was popular with the German far right, and the Nazis celebrated it. Indeed, Celle's local newspaper began serialising Der Wehrwolf in January 1945.

It may also be of relevance to the naming of the organisation that in 1942 OKW and OKH's field headquarters at Vinnitsa in Ukraine were christened "Werwolf" by Adolf Hitler, and Hitler on a number of occasions had used "Wolf" as a pseudonym for himself. The etymology of the name Adolf itself is Noble (adal; Mod. German Adel) Wolf, while Hitler's first World War II Eastern Front military headquarters were labeled Wolfsschanze, commonly rendered in English as "Wolf's Lair", though the literal translation would be "Wolf's Sconce".

Plans

In late summer/early autumn 1944, Heinrich Himmler initiated Unternehmen Werwolf (Operation Werwolf), ordering SS Obergruppenführer Hans-Adolf Prützmann to begin organising an elite troop of volunteer forces to operate secretly behind enemy lines. As originally conceived, these Werwolf units were intended to be legitimate uniformed military formations trained to engage in clandestine operations behind enemy lines in the same manner as Allied Special Forces such as Commandos. Prützmann was named Generalinspekteur für Spezialabwehr (General Inspector of Special Defence) and assigned the task of setting up the force's headquarters in Berlin and organising and instructing the force. Prutzmann had studied the guerrilla tactics used by Soviet partisans while stationed in the occupied territories of Ukraine and the idea was to teach these tactics to the members of Operation Werwolf.

Gauleiters were to suggest suitable recruits, who would then be trained at secret locations in the Rhineland and Berlin. The chief training centre in the West was at Hülchrath Castle near Erkelenz, which by early 1945 was training around 200 recruits mostly drawn from the Hitler Youth.

The tactics available to the organisation included sniping attacks, arson, sabotage, and assassination. Training was to include such topics as the production of home-made explosives, manufacturing detonators from common articles such as pencils and "a can of soup", and every member was to be trained in how to jump into a guard tower and strangle the sentry in one swift movement, using only a metre of string. Werwolf agents were supposed to have at their disposal a vast assortment of weapons, from fire-proof coats to silenced Walther pistols but in reality this was merely on paper; the Werwolf never actually had the necessary equipment, organisation, morale or coordination. Given the dire supply situation German forces were facing in 1945, the commanding officers of existing Wehrmacht and SS units were unwilling to turn over what little equipment they still had for the sake of an organization whose actual strategic value was doubtful.

Werwolf originally had about five thousand members recruited from the SS and the Hitler Youth. These recruits were specially trained in guerrilla tactics. Operation Werwolf went so far as to establish front companies to ensure continued fighting in those areas of Germany which were occupied (all of the "front companies" were discovered and shut down within eight months). However, as it became increasingly clear that the reputedly impregnable Alpine Redoubt, from which their operations were to be directed by the Nazi leadership in the event that the rest of Germany had been occupied, was yet another grandiose delusion, Werwolf was converted into a terrorist organisation and in the last few weeks of the war, Operation Werwolf was largely dismantled by Heinrich Himmler and Wilhelm Keitel.

Disorganised attempts were made to bury explosives, ammunition and weapons in different locations around the country (mainly in the pre-1939 German–Polish border region) to be used by the Werwolf in their terrorist acts after the defeat of Germany, but not only were the amounts of material to be "buried" prohibitively low, by that point the movement itself was so disorganised that few actual members or leaders knew where the materials were, how to use them, or what to do with them. A large portion of these "depots" were found by the Russians and virtually none of the materials were actually used by the Werwolf.

On March 23, 1945, Josef Göbbels gave a speech, known as the "Werwolf speech", in which he urged every German to fight to the death. The partial dismantling of the organised Werwolf, combined with the effects of the "Werwolf" speech, caused considerable confusion about which subsequent attacks were actually carried out by Werwolf members, as opposed to solo acts by fanatical Nazis or small groups of SS.

Assessment by historians

Historians Antony Beevor and Earl F. Ziemke have argued that Werwolf never amounted to a serious threat, and furthermore propose that the plan barely existed. This view is supported by the RAND Corporation, which surveyed the history of US occupations with an eye to advising on Iraq. According to a study by former Ambassador James Dobbins and a team of RAND researchers, there were no American combat casualties after the German surrender.

German historian Golo Mann, in his The History of Germany Since 1789 (1984) also states that "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 'werwolf' units and nocturnal guerrilla activities, there was no sign."

Perry Biddiscombe has offered a somewhat different view. In his books Werwolf!: The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946 (1998) and The Last Nazis: SS Werwolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe, 1944-1947 (2000), Biddiscombe asserts that after retreating to the Black Forest and the Harz mountains, the Werwolf continued resisting the occupation until at least 1947, possibly until 1949–50. However, he characterizes German post-surrender resistance as "minor", and calls the post-war Werwolfs "desperadoes" and "fanatics living in forest huts". He further cites U.S. Army intelligence reports that characterized Nazi partisans as "nomad bands" and judged them as less serious threats than attacks by foreign slave laborers and considered their sabotage and subversive activities to be insignificant. He also notes that: "The Americans and British concluded, even in the summer of 1945, that, as a nationwide network, the original Werwolf was irrevocably destroyed, and that it no longer posed a threat to the occupation."

Biddiscombe also says that Werwolf violence failed to mobilize a spirit of popular national resistance, that the group was poorly led, armed, and organized, and that it was doomed to failure given the war-weariness of the populace and the hesitancy of young Germans to sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyre of the former Nazi regime. He concludes that the only significant achievement of the Werwolves was to spark distrust of the German populace in the Allies as they occupied Germany, which caused them in some cases to act more repressively than they might have done otherwise, which in turn fostered resentments that helped to enable far right ideas to survive in Germany, at least in pockets, into the post-war era.

Alleged Werwolf actions

A number of instances of post-war violence have been attributed to Werwolf activity, but none have been proven.

It has been claimed that the destruction of the United States Military Government police headquarters in Bremen on June 5, 1945 by two explosions which resulted in 44 deaths was a Werwolf-related attack. There is, however, no proof that it was due to Werwolf actions rather than to unexploded bombs or delayed-action ordnance.

Dr. Franz Oppenhoff, the newly appointed mayor of Aachen, was murdered outside his home in March 1945 by an SS unit which was composed of Werwolf trainees from Hülchrath Castle. They were flown in at the order of Heinrich Himmler.

Major John Poston, Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery's liaison officer was ambushed and killed a few days before Germany's surrender by unidentified assailants; in reality Poston died in an ambush by regular troops.

Colonel-General Nikolai Berzarin, Soviet commandant of Berlin is often claimed to have been assassinated by Werwolfs, but actually died in a motorcycle accident on June 16, 1945.

The Werwolf propaganda station "Radio Werwolf" (which actually broadcast from Nauen near Berlin during April 1945), also claimed responsibility for the assassination of Major General Maurice Rose, commander of the US 3rd Armored Division on 30 March 1945,[23] who was in reality killed in action by regular troops on 31 March.

On 31 July 1945 an ammunition dump in Ústí nad Labem (Aussig an der Elbe), a largely ethnic German city in northern Bohemia ("Sudetenland") exploded, killing 26 or 27[citation needed] people and injuring dozens. The explosion resulted in the "Ústí massacre" of ethnic Germans and was blamed on the Werwolf organization.

Allied reprisals

According to Biddiscombe "the threat of Nazi partisan warfare had a generally unhealthy effect on broad issues of policy among the occupying powers. As well, it prompted the development of Draconian reprisal measures that resulted in the destruction of much German property and the deaths of thousands of civilians and soldiers".

In the Soviet occupation zone, thousands of youths were arrested as "Werwolfs". Evidently, arrests were arbitrary and in part based on denunciations. The arrested boys were either "shot at dawn" or interned in NKVD special camps. On 22 June 1945, Deputy Commissar of the NKVD Ivan Serov reported to the head of the NKVD Lavrentiy Beria the arrest of "more than 600" alleged Werwolf members, mostly aged 15 to 17 years. The report, though referring to incidents where Soviet units came under fire from the woods, asserts that most of the arrested had not been involved in any action against the Soviets, which Serov explained with interrogation results allegedly showing that the boys had been "waiting" for the right moment and in the meantime focussed on attracting new members. In October 1945, Beria reported to Josef Stalin the "liquidation" of 359 alleged Werwolf groups. Of those, 92 groups with 1.192 members were "liquidated" in Saxony alone.] On 5 August 1946, Soviet minister for internal affairs Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov reported that in the Soviet occupation zone, 332 "terrorist diversion groups and underground organizations" had been disclosed and "liquidated". A total of about 10,000 youths were interned in NKVD special camps, half of whom did not return. Parents as well as the East German administration and political parties, installed by the Soviets, were denied any information on the whereabouts of the arrested youths. The Red Army's torching of Demmin, which resulted in the suicide of hundreds of people, was blamed on alleged preceding Werwolf activities by the East German regime.

Eisenhower believed he would be faced with extensive guerrilla warfare, based on the Alpine Redoubt. The fear of Werwolf activity believed to be mustering around Berchtesgaden in the Alps also led to the switch in U.S. operational targets in the middle of March 1945 away from the drive towards Berlin and instead shifted the thrust towards the south and on linking up with the Russians first. An intelligence report stated "We should...be prepared to undertake operations in Southern Germany in order to overcome rapidly any organised resistance by the German Armed Forces or by guerrilla movements which may have retreated to the inner zone and to this redoubt" On March 31 Eisenhower told Roosevelt, "I am hopeful of launching operations that should partially prevent a guerrilla control of any large area such as the southern mountain bastions".

Eisenhower had previously also requested that the occupation directive JCS 1067 not make him responsible for maintaining living conditions in Germany under the expected circumstances; "..probably guerrilla fighting and possibly even civil war in certain districts... If conditions in Germany turn out as described, it will be utterly impossible effectively to control or save the economic structure of the country .. and we feel we should not assume the responsibility for its support and control." The British were "mortified by such a suggestion", but the War Department took considerable account of Eisenhower's wishes.

In April 1945 Churchill announced that the Allies would incarcerate all captured German officers for as long as a guerrilla threat existed. Hundreds of thousands of German last-ditch troops were kept in the makeshift Rheinwiesenlager for months, "mainly to prevent Werwolf activity". In addition to these captives the civilian detainees held by the U.S. alone climbed from 1000 in late March to 30,000 in late June, and more than 100,000 by the end of 1945. Also in the camps for civilians were the conditions often poor.

Prior to the occupation SHAEF investigated the retaliation techniques the Germans had used in order to maintain control over occupied territories since they felt the Germans had had good success. Directives were loosely defined and implementation of retaliation was largely left to the preferences of the various armies, with the British seeming uncomfortable with those involving bloodshed. Rear-Admiral H.T. Baillie Grohman for example stated that killing hostages was "not in accordance with our usual methods". Thanks to feelings such as this, and relative light guerrilla activity in their area, relatively few reprisals took place in the UK zone of operations. In April 1945 General Eisenhower ordered that all partisans were to be shot. As a consequence, some war crimes (summary executions without trial and the like) followed. Contrary to Section IV of the Hague Convention of 1907, "The Laws and Customs of War on Land", the SHAEF "counter insurgency manual" included provisions for forced labour and hostage taking.

At Seedorf British forces randomly selected and burned 2 cottages on April 21.

At the town of Sogel the Canadian First Army evacuated the civilians from the city center whereupon it was systematically demolished.

In 1945, it is believed that Canadian forces set civilian houses and a church on fire in reprisal for the death of the unit's commanding officer in battle. Maj.-Gen. Christopher Vokes, commanding the 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division ordered the town to be destroyed. "We used the rubble to make traversable roads for our tanks," Vokes wrote later.

Unless the citizens of the city of Stuppach within 3 hours produced the German officer that the U.S. forces believed was hiding there they were informed that: all male inhabitants would be shot, women and children expelled to the surrounding wilderness and the city razed.

U.S. combat troops destroyed the town of Bruchsal in retaliation for SS activities.

French forces expelled more than 25,000 civilians from their homes. Some of them were then forced to clear minefields in Alsace.

The city of Lichtental was pillaged by the French.

Jarmin was demolished by Soviet troops.

At the town of Schivelbein all men were shot and all women and girls raped by Soviet troops.

The German resistance movement was successfully suppressed in 1945. However, collective punishment for acts of resistance, such as fines and curfews, was still being imposed as late as 1948.

Biddiscombe estimates the total death toll as a direct result of Werewolf actions and the resulting reprisals as 3,000–5,000.

Similar organizations

From 1946 onward Allied intelligence officials noted resistance activities by an organisation which had appropriated the name of the anti-Nazi resistance group, the Edelweiss Piraten (Edelweiss Pirates). The group was reported to be composed mainly of former members and officers of Hitler Youth units, ex-soldiers and drifters, and was described by an intelligence report as "a sentimental, adventurous, and romantically anti-social [movement]". It was regarded as a more serious menace to order than the Werwolf by US officials.

A raid in March 1946 captured 80 former German officers who were members, and who possessed a list of 400 persons to be liquidated, including Wilhelm Hoegner, the prime minister of Bavaria. Further members of the group were seized with caches of ammunition and even anti-tank rockets. In late 1946 reports of activities gradually died away.

Second Iraq War

The history of Werwolf was compared to the Iraqi insurgency by the Bush Administration and other Iraq War supporters. In speeches given on August 25, 2003 to the Veterans of Foreign Wars by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld parallels were drawn between the problems faced by the coalition's occupation forces in Iraq to those encountered by occupation forces in post-World War II Germany, asserting that the Iraqi insurgency would ultimately prove to be as futile in realizing its objectives as had the Werwolves.

Former National Security Council staffer Daniel Benjamin published a riposte in Slate magazine on August 29, 2003, entitled "Condi’s Phony History: Sorry, Dr. Rice, postwar Germany was nothing like Iraq" in which he took Rice and Rumsfeld to task for mentioning the Werwolf, writing that the reality of postwar Germany bore no resemblance to the occupation of Iraq, and made reference to Antony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin 1945 and the US Army's official history, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944-1946, where the Werwolf were only mentioned twice in passing. This did not prevent his political opponents from disagreeing with him, using Biddiscombe's book as a source.[

Given the events that came to pass after the Bush Administration's comparison, the most striking difference is the fact that in Iraq, many more (over twenty times as many) coalition soldiers were killed in combat after victory had been declared by President Bush on 1 May 2003 than had been killed during the initial invasion. In Germany, not a single Allied soldier was ever proven to have been killed as a result of hostile action after the German surrender on 8 May 1945. Another is that Biddiscombe maintains that what little resistance to the occupation there was in Germany had evaporated within two to four years after the end of the war, while widespread violent opposition to the occupation of Iraq and its new government continued for more than eight years after the invasion.

Wilhelm Fahrmbacher (19 September 1888 – 27 April 1970) was a highly decorated General der Artillerie in the Wehrmacht during World War II who commanded several corps. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. Wilhelm Fahrmbacher was captured by American troops in 1945, he was handed over to French forces and held until 1950.

Oskar Munzel (13 March 1899 – 1 January 1992) was a highly decorated Generalmajor in the Wehrmacht during World War II and a General der Kampftruppen in the Bundeswehr who commanded several divisions. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. Oskar Munzel was captured by Allied troops in 1945 and was released in 1947. For 4 years he served as a military advisor in Egypt, and then he joined the Bundeswehr in 1956 and retired in 1962.

Leopold Gleim was a Colonel and SS Standartenführer in Warsaw during the Second World War. He was for a time head of the Gestapo Department for Jewish Affairs in Poland.

Joachim Daemling, Düsseldorf Chief of the Gestapo, became a Consultant for the Egyptian penitentiary system and was an active member of Radio Cairo.

CEDADE (from the initials of Círculo Español de Amigos de Europa or 'Spanish Circle of Friends of Europe') was a Spanish neo-Nazi group that concerned itself with co-ordinating international activity and publishing.

The group began life in 1966 ostensibly as a society for the appreciation of Richard Wagner but before long it had taken on a neo-Nazi dimension, influenced by the likes of Otto Skorzeny who was a founder member. Counting Léon Degrelle amongst its leading members, the Circle became a study group and publishing house for materials relating to Nazism and Holocaust Revisionism, with a remit towards closer co-operation across Europe. Initially led by Ángel Ricote, the group looked towards Italian fascism for inspiration, but under Pedro Aparicio it moved towards a Nazi position.

Establishing a branch in Madrid in 1973, the group had 2,500 Spanish members by 1985, with smaller groups also active elsewhere. Amongst those associated with the group was Klaus Georg Barbie, the son of Klaus Barbie, who was revealed by El País to have worked closely with CEDADE whilst living in Barcelona between 1965 and 1978.MInternationally CEDADE also maintained close links to the likes of Mark Fredriksen, Bela Ewald Althans, Povl Riis-Knudsen, Salvador Borrego, Wilfred von Oven and Richard Edmonds. Secretary Jordi Mota also established links between CEDADE and Klaus Barbie, with whom Mota was on friendly terms.

Taking a European outlook, it set up groups in France, as well as in Latin America and registered as a political party in 1979 under the name of Partido Europeo Nacional Revolucionario (European National Revolutionary Party), although this initiative was not pursued. As a publishing house, however, CEDADE continued to grow and was soon publishing for a number of movements in Austria and Germany. Using the name Ediciones Wotan for this initiative, it published works by the likes of Degrelle and Francis Parker Yockey and collaborated closely with the Liberty Lobby in the United States.

Financial difficulties forced a major scaling down in activities around 1989-90 however, although the group did host an international centenary celebration of Hitler's birthday in 1989. The problems inherent in the movement did not go away however and they were officially dissolved in October 1993. Members drifted away into various movements, with only Project IES representing a serious attempt at refoundation. This group has since changed its name to National Democracy.

The Paladin Group was a far-right organization founded in 1970 in Spain by former SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny. It conceived itself as the military arm of the anti-Communist struggle during the Cold War. Ostensibly a legitimate security consultancy, the group's real purpose was to recruit and operate mercenaries for right-wing regimes worldwide.

The Nouvel Observateur magazine, of 23 September 1974, qualifies the group as a "strange temporary work agency of mercenaries" (étrange agence d’interim-barbouzes); in The Great Heroin Coup (1976), Henrik Krüger calls it a "fascist group" or "neo-fascist group", while Stuart Christie speaks of a "security consultancy group" in Granny Made me an Anarchist. Lobster Magazine describes it as a "small international squad of commandos".

The Paladin Group was created in 1970 in Albufera, near Alicante, in the South of Spain by former SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny and former US Colonel James Sanders. A former special operations officer, Skorzeny had become a member of the ODESSA network after the war, helping to smuggle Nazi war criminals out of Allied Europe to Spain, South America and other friendly destinations to avoid prosecution for war crimes. Skorzeny himself resided after the war in Spain, protected by Franco.

Skorzeny envisioned the Paladin Group as "an international directorship of strategic assault personnel [that would] straddle the watershed between paramilitary operations carried out by troops in uniforms and the political warfare which is conducted by civilian agents".

In addition to recruiting many former SS members, the Group also recruited from the ranks of various right-wing and nationalist organizations, including the French Nationalist OAS, the SAC, and the ‘Légion étrangère’. The hands-on manager of the Group was Dr. Gerhard Hartmut von Schubert, formerly of Josef Göbbels' Propaganda Ministry, who had trained security personnel in Argentina and Egypt after the war. Under his guidance, Paladin provided support to the PFLP - EO led by Wadie Haddad. The Group's other clients included the South African Bureau of State Security and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. They also worked for the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 and the Spanish Dirección General de Seguridad, who recruited some Paladin operatives to wage clandestine war against Basque separatists. The Group is also reputed to have provided personnel for José López Rega's notorious Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance death squad.

The Paladin Group was also allegedly allied with a number of other right-wing governments, including Salazar’s Portugal, and some of the Italian neo-fascists involved in the strategy of tension attacks of the 1970s and 80s. The Paladin Group also held offices in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Soviet news agency TASS alleged that Paladin was involved in training US Green Berets for Vietnam missions during the 1960s, but this is considered unlikely, since Skorzeny's methods were considered somewhat antiquated, and he resented the USA for its role in destroying Nazi Germany.

Von Schubert became the head of the Paladin Group after Otto Skorzeny’s death in 1975.

Otto Skorzeny died the same year as Franco, whose death on November 20, 1975 opened up the way for a transition to democracy. Neo-fascist groups formerly hosted by Franco ceased to be welcome in the new regime and fled to South America, in particular Augusto Pinochet’s Chile and Argentina, where the return of Perón after a 20 year exile in Spain had seen the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre.

An uncurarable lung disease brought Otto Skorzeny to Heidelberg.

There, Hans-Ulrich Rudel and Waldemar Schütz were his last comrades, visiting him before his return to Spain eight days before his death. He told them on this occasion about his visit in the Führerhauptquartier in the autumn of 1944, when the Führer was ill and received him at his bed. The Führer told him that day that Germany had not built the atom bomb, because he did not want to take the responsibility for mankind being destroyed by such a "Teufelswerk":

Do you know Mr Skorzeny, that the energy which will be freed through the splitting of the atom's nucleus and the additional radioactivity from such a bomb might destroy our planet? .... The effects would be dreadful. Even if one could control the radioactivity and could use atom splitting as a weapon the results would be dreadful. When Dr. Todt visited me I read that the energy set free by such a bomb could destroy the whole of Arizona or make as big a crater as the meteor had caused in Siberia. That means that all life within such an area would be destroyed, not only humans but all life. Animals and plants would not be able to live within a radius of 40 km for hundreds of years due to radiation. That would mean an Apocalypse. No land, no group of civilized people could bear the responsibility for such a slaughter. In battle after battle human beings would destroy themselves if such a bomb were used. Only in remote places like Amazonia and the jungles of Sumatra would people have a chance of surviving such a bomb.