According to a Wikipedia article, Werwolf is German for "werewolf", sometimes spelled "Wehrwolf", playing on the homophonous verb "(sich) wehren" for "to defend (oneself)"). In that latter sense of protecting oneself, it was taken as the name of a Nazi post-war resistance plan started by Himmler in 1944 that apparently never amounted to much.
According to a website dedicated to the military doings of the world wars, Aus der Bauernchronik Der Wehrwolf is an abridgment of the original, accompanied by wood engraved lithographs by the artist Hans Pape. It was printed by Koch & Knuttel in Gouda, Netherlands, which ceased to exist in the 1970s. The publication page says it was written for Pape's use (abridged) by Josef Bergenthal.
The book was published by the Sonderreferat Truppenbetreuung beim Reichskommissar für die besetzten Niederländischen Gebiete (the human-resources division of the German occupation in the Netherlands).
The Truppenbetreuung was dedicated to cheering up troops stationed abroad in the face of the obvious fact that the war was being lost. The book was offered to Wehrmacht troops on behalf of Fritz Schmidt (a Wikipedia link).
Schmidt was the German in charge of the occupation under Bormann, who was under Himmler.
The book was a present to the troops to commemorate Hitler's birthday (20 April). The year must have been 1943, since in June of that year Schmidt was either murdered or committed suicide.
He had gotten crossways with his superiors when they suppressed Dutch protests against new Nazi forced labor rules (the ones that sent my father to Germany as a slave laborer), and Schmidt may have committed suicide rather than face his superiors over his lack of enthusiasm for the severe crackdown on the Dutch.
At this time the Germans had given up trying to convince the Dutch to become the western province of Germany by gentle persuasion.
The book's title therefore has a common inspiration with Himmler's for organizing post-war resistance movement. Wehrwolf is about heroic resistance to a pillaging army by common people, like farmers.
If you can read German, the entire book is in modern typeface on this website of the Gutenberg Projekt.
I will NOT provide a translation of my abridged version, my German is not up to it. But on the last page I try to tell what my limited German led me to believe the story was about, and I also ask some Schmidt questions to which there are no answers.
To start, here is a general description from Wikipedia: Hermann Löns was born in West Prussia in 1866. He was a medical student and journalist but in the 1910's began a writing career with his most famous book Der Wehrwolf in 1920.
It is "an alternately heart-warming and heart-rending chronicle of a North German farming community suffering tragedies and ultimate triumph during the harrowing period of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). Löns died as a soldier in France during the First World War, three weeks after he enlisted, in 1914.
In . . .“some of his writings he showed nationalistic ideas, he was later considered by the Nazis as one of 'their' writers - as parts of his works fit well within the 'Blood and soil' ethos of National Socialism, with National Socialist ideologues such as Walther Darre and Alfred Rosenberg lauding the peasantry and small rural communities as the true lifeblood of the German nation. Pape's illustrations have some swastikas hidden in them to promote the reader's sensing this ideological message.
"At the behest of Adolf Hitler, Löns' body was exhumed and reburied in the Lüneburg Heath, near the town of Walsrode.” (His home).
During the Thirty Years' War troops were expected to "live off the land" and this led to a lot of abuses, including violence against peasants who were not forthcoming enough with their "gifts" of food and comely wives and daughters. Löns' book shows a village first suffering at the hands of invading troops and then turning the tables and killing their tormentors.
It fits very nicely with Himmler's vision for the Wehrwolf resistance, doesn't it? It would be useful to inspire guerrilla war after the big war had been lost. Except in a population that was war-weary and glad the war was finally over.
The next 4 pages will show the original book, which I inherited from my father.
After that comes a last page with my version of what I believe the story-line is.
Then on that same last page come two questions about Herr Schmidt, questions for which there are no answers.
Go to 1st book image page
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