Thread by @Tyras_Mikhail

History/Opinion🧵: Werewolves vs Partisans

I believe it's a true testament to how pervasive the historical revisionism of Wehrmacht generals is when one looks at how the "Werewolves" have an almost mythical status, versus how Resistance fighters are generally portrayed. (1/15)

The first time I heard about the Werewolves they were described as SS diehards who refused to surrender once Germany fell. Stories of how a few killed entire Allied patrols with nothing but daggers. A romanticization of Ubersoldaten that Goebbels would have been proud of. (2/15)

Meanwhile, think of the typical WWII Partisan. What do you see? Chances are, it's a peasant (or teen girl, thanks, Hollywood) with an old rifle, scared, barely knows how to shoot, any success they had was owed to "the will of the people", sheer numbers, subterfuge or luck (3/15)

The truth is, while yes, there were a lot of poorly trained Resistance fighers, especially early on, all Resistance movements were very well coordinated.
French Resistance fighters, for instance, were covertly trained by SOE and OSS, the best Allied commandos. (4/15)

Very interestingly, the Chasseurs Alpins, French elite mountaineers, who managed to escape capture, trained partisans near the Alps, who became elite mountain fighters themselves, able to hold their own against even far better supplied German Gebirgsjäger. (5/15)

The Yugo Partisans, arguably the most successful WWII Resistance, were trained by Yugoslav army remnants and runaway Republican Spain veterans. Soviet partisans were trained by elite NKVD squads who stayed behind as both trainers and commanders of the fledgling resistance. (6/15)

Meanwhile, let's take a look at Werewolf training: The idea of having their own partisans was floated around SS High Command in 1943. As the noose was closing, and they saw first hand how effective clandestine militia units could be, it was a sound preparation. (7/15)

However, with typical Nazi arrogance, they did not believe that a prolonged Allied occupation of Germany was possible. Thus, the Werewolves were not conceived as operating as traditional partisans. They were meant to slow down the enemy advance and eliminate collaborators (8/15)

The problem is, training began in late 1944, when the knife was already to the heart. Volunteers were few and far between, and when most heard they were to fight the Red Army hordes while behind enemy lines went "Yeah, no thanks" and ran away or refused to train (9/15)

This led to training being extremely disorganized. While some Werewolves received decent training, most received as little as a week of actual training, due to lack of time and resources.

In other words, the average Werewolf made the Volkssturm look like an elite squad. (10/15)

And the way Werewolves were initially used were not like typical partisans. They weren't meant to spy, sabotage and only directly attack occupation forces when supported by proper armies. Oh no, the Ubermensch were above such cowardly tactics... (11/15)

Their MO was to hide, wait for the enemy to overwhelm friendly forces, then attack the rear, in order to cause panic, while the Wehrmacht on the other side counterattacked. This did not work for obvious reasons, and led to most Werewolves dying in the Battle of Berlin (12/15)

So, post-war, you had a few scattered Werewolf remnants, whom mostly buried their guns and returned to civilian life. What few diehards remained were unsupported by any nation for obvious reasons, were demoralized, and had no clear goals. (13/15)

A handful of successful, yet overall unimportant confirmed Werewolf assassinations and sabotage ops aside, the glorious Nazi diehards who terrified Allied occupation forces is nothing but another piece of propaganda from the tongue of a dying monster. (14/15)

In conclusion, it is perhaps fitting that the end of the Nazis was not their envisioned roaring Werewolf that fought to the glorious end, but yet more poorly trained civilians sent to the slaughter. Yet like with anything else, there are apologists of evil who say otherwise (END)

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