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Of German Fräuleins, Nazi Werewolves, and Iraqi Insurgents: The American Fascination with Hitler's Last Foray

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2008

Christina von Hodenberg
Christina von Hodenberg
Affiliation:
Queen Mary, University of London
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Extract

Many aspects of the German-American encounter during the Second World War remain deeply engraved in the American mind. One of them is the story of the German “werewolves,” Hitler's last underground fighters, who challenged the occupying armies in the war's closing months. The werewolf threat made a lasting impression on American troops and media at the time, and on American collective memory up to today. This article traces how the Nazi insurgents became part of an older mythical narrative that continues to infuse not only American popular culture, but even contemporary elite and political discourse. One of the more recent examples is Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld's effort to compare the Nazi werewolves with the Iraqi insurgents whose attacks have plagued the occupied country since the American invasion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Central European History , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 71 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2008

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References

1 While the history of the Nazi werewolves is well researched, the connection with mythical narratives and popular culture has been overlooked so far. See Biddiscombe, Perry, Werwolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944–1946 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and The Last Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe 1944–1947 (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2000). Intended for non-scholarly audiences are Charles Whiting, SS Werewolf: The Story of the Nazi Resistance Movement 1944–1945 (London: Arrow, 1982) and Rose, Arno, Werwolf 1944–1945 (Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag, 1980)Google Scholar.

2 A few examples: George W. Bush's address to the nation on Sept. 7, 2003; L. Paul Bremer III, coalition administrator in Iraq, to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Sept. 21, 2003; Rumsfeld, Donald H., “Help Iraq Help Itself,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 29, 2003.Google Scholar

3 Remarks to the citizens of Vilnius Rotuse, Latvia, on November 23, 2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021123-5.html.

4 August 7, 2003, address at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Dallas, Texas. Rice repeated her argument at the 104th National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio, Texas, on August 25, 2003. There she remarked in addition that the werewolves “attacked both coalition forces and those locals cooperating with them.” See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/08/20030807-1.html and http://www.state.gov/p/sa/rls/rm/23534.htm.

5 On August 25, 2003, in San Antonio, Texas, addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars: http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2003/sp20030825-secdef0403.html.

6 New York Times, August 26, 2003, A 10; Los Angeles Times, August 27, 2003, A 12; Tom Blackburn for Cox News Service, August 31, 2003; Jahn, Daniel, “Present-day Iraq is no postwar Germany, historians say,” Agence France Presse, November 5, 2003. San Diego Union-Tribune, January 12, 2004, B 7Google Scholar; Washington Times, September 4, 2003, A1. That Rumsfeld (or his speechwriters) had consulted Biddiscombe's study can be deduced from a quotation by war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (in Biddiscombe, Werwolf!, 283) that made it into Rumsfeld's text. Biddiscombe's work also informed the response of James J. Carafano on the Web site of the Heritage foundation, which defended the administration's point (Sept. 23, 2003: http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed092303d.cfm).

7 Rice evoked the Americans' “generational commitment to creating a democratic Germany—which became a linchpin of a democratic Europe,” hoping to find support for a parallel “generational commitment to helping the people of the Middle East transform their region” into an area of stability, freedom, and prosperity. Speech of August 7, 2003 (see n. 4).

8 “This Week” on ABC, November 2, 2003: http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20031102-secdef0836.html. Interview with David Jackson (ABC) on Oct. 10, 2003: http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20031010-secdef0755.html. Remarks at the U.S./Korean Business Council Luncheon, Sept. 23, 2003: http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030923-secdef0702.html. Armitage in Bratislava on Sept. 14, 2004, comparing Iraq with Germany in 1946/47: “the werewolves, the criminal groups who were running around and being very violent in Germany. And so two years after the success of a victory in Germany, if you look at the press, you'll see there was plenty of skepticism,” http://www.state.gov/s/d/former/armitage/36189.htm.

9 My notion of “collective memory” follows Aby Warburg's concept. While the cultural products and practices surrounding us might have become disconnected from their original historical context and thus might no longer be fully understood by contemporaries, they nevertheless act as repositories of symbols, carrying meanings that inform group identities over long periods of time. See Patzel-Mattern, Katja, Geschichte im Zeichen der Erinnerung: Subjektivität und kulturwissenschaftliche Theoriebildung (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2002), 30Google Scholar; Assmann, Jan, “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity,” New German Critique 65 (1995): 125–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 129.

10 See Henke, Klaus-Dietmar, Die amerikanische Besetzung Deutschlands (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1995), 943–954Google Scholar; Whiting, SS Werewolf.

11 Goebbel's diaries for April 1 and 2, 1945: Fröhlich, Elke, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II: Diktate 1941–1945 (Munich: Saur, 1995), 15: 656, 666Google Scholar. Biddiscombe, Last Nazis, 28 f.

12 Henke, Besetzung, 948–53; Rose, Werwolf, 46–7.

13 Estimates range between zero and forty-two “post-combat casualties”: see posting of army historian Bianca J. Adams on H-German discussion list, Nov. 4, 2003 (citing the final report of the Adjutant General 1947, naming forty-two battle casualties from June to Dec. 1945 in Germany), http://www.h-net.org/~german/.

14 Entries of April 2 and 8, 1945: Fröhlich, ed., Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, part II, 15: 664, 680.

15 Central Intelligence Agency, Electronic Reading Room, document released on July 19, 2000. My interpretation is based on the German original of this report by an unnamed agent, since the English translation is considerably distorted. http://foia.cia.gov/, case number F-1994–01650 (accessed June 2004).

16 See Henke, Besetzung, 937–41; Persico, Joseph E., Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents during World War II (New York: Viking Press, 1979), 10–11, 288–90Google Scholar; Eisenhower, Dwight D., Crusade in Europe (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948), 397, 415Google Scholar; Weigley, Russell F., Eisenhower's Lieutenants: The Campaign of France and Germany, 1944–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), 700–3, 716Google Scholar. Brigadier General Reuben E. Jenkins, “The Battle of the German National Redoubt,” Military Review, English ed., vol. 26, no. 9, Dec. 1946/01.

17 New York Times, Apr. 6, 1945, 1, 10; see also New York Times, Oct. 13, 1944, 1.

18 Los Angeles Times, Apr. 2, 1945, 4; Apr. 23, 1945, 2; Apr. 10, 1945, 2. New York Times, Sept. 17, 1944; Apr. 6, 1945, 10. Chicago Daily News Foreign Service, “Himmler warns of ‘Werewolves’ War on Victors,” in Los Angeles Times, Apr. 7, 1945, 4.

19 This decision was based on multiple factors. Biddiscombe, Werwolf!, 266–8; Minott, Rodney G., The Fortress that Never Was: The Myth of Hitler's Bavarian Stronghold (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964).Google Scholar

20 Biddiscombe, Werwolf!, 252–9. For occupied Austria, see Carafano, James J., Waltzing into the Cold War: The Struggle for Occupied Austria (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2002), 63.Google Scholar

21 In the Allied camp, officers were warned not to trust these “tearwolves,” these “penitent pacifists in civilian suits who claim the martyr's crown and the right to lead German reconstruction.” British memo, Political Warfare Executive, May 18, 1945, quoted in Biddiscombe, Werwolf!, 264.

22 Henke, Besetzung, 952, quoting a Bulletin of June 11, 1945.

23 Kleinschmidt, Johannes, Do not fraternize: Die schwierigen Anfänge deutsch-amerikanischer Freundschaft 1944–1949 (Trier: WVT, 1997), 41, 58–67Google Scholar. Goedde, Petra, G.I.s and Germans: Culture, Gender, and Foreign Relations, 1945–1949 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 46–51Google Scholar.

24 Kleinschmidt, Do not fraternize, 68–9.

25 “Your Job in Germany” (1945), an orientation film produced for the war department.

26 Kleinschmidt, Do not fraternize, 87–8.

27 Quoted in Biddiscombe, Werwolf!, 283.

28 Blunt, Roscoe C. Jr., Foot Soldier: A Combat Infantryman's War in Europe (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 1994), 228–9, 271Google Scholar. Bogart, Leo, How I Earned the Ruptured Duck: From Brooklyn to Berchtesgaden in World War II (College Station: Texas University Press, 2004), 92.Google Scholar

29 Manuel, Frank E., Scenes from the End: The Last Days of World War II in Europe (London: Profile Books, 2000), 53–4.Google Scholar

30 Ibid.; Standifer, Leon C., Binding up the Wounds: An American Soldier in Occupied Germany 1945– 1946 (Baton Rouge: Lousiana State University Press, 1997), 14Google Scholar. See also White, Osmar, Conquerors' Road: An Eyewitness Report of Germany 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 144–5Google Scholar.

31 Carafano, Waltzing, 66.

32 See Goedde, G.I.s, 44–5, 56, 75.

33 Qtd. in Kleinschmidt, Do not fraternize, 81.

34 Ibid., 117–22. In a survey from November 1945, American soldiers admitted that during the past week, “few had associated at all with older Germans and fewer still with men their own age, while 56 percent had spent some time ‘talking’ with German girls, 25 percent for ten hours or more.” Ziemke, Earl F., The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944–1946 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1990), 327Google Scholar.

35 Manuel, Scenes, 55.

36 Qtd. in Los Angeles Times, Sept. 23, 1945.

37 New York Times, Apr. 10, 1945, 18; Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1945, 5; Apr. 10, 1945, 2.

38 See Ziemke, U.S. Army, 139, 144; Frederiksen, Oliver J., The American Military Occupation of Germany, 1945–1953 (Historical Division Headquarters, U.S. Army Europe, Darmstadt: The Stars and Stripes, 1953), 57, 61.Google Scholar Also Friedrich, Carl J.(a special adviser to the Military Government), “The Three Phases of Field Operations in Germany,” in Friedrich, Carl J., American Experiences in Military Government in World War II (New York: Rinehart, 1948), 238–252, 244.Google Scholarde Mendelssohn, Peter, “What Price Co-operation: Resistance and Collaboration in Occupied Germany,” in This is Germany, ed. Settel, Arthur (New York: Sloane, 1950), 293–308Google Scholar, here 298–9. The chief historian of the German High Commissioner, Harold Zink, does not even mention the werewolves in his book The United States in Germany, 1944–1955 (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1957).

39 Counter Intelligence Corps: History and Mission in World War II (1946), D4-E Counter Intelligence Corps School, Fort Holabird, Baltimore, 47 (doc. RWP-04–281401, accessed at https://calldbp.leavenworth.army.mil, June 2004).

40 Colonel Albert E. Harris, “Partisan Operations,” in Military Review 30, English ed., no. 5 (August 1950): 12 (doc. RWP-02–251052, accessed at https://calldbp.leavenworth.army.mil, June 2004).

41 Lieutenant Colonel James J. Carafano, “Swords into Plowshares: Postconflict Arms Management,” Military Review 77, English ed., no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1997): 5 (accessed at https://calldbp.leavenworth.army.mil, June 2004).

42 Fort Leavenworth (Kansas) Combined Arms Center Database: Marvin L. Meek, ULTRA and the Myth of the German National Redoubt (Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, KS, School of Advanced Military Studies: Masters of Military Arts and Science thesis, 1999), ch. 3; and Kenneth O. McCreedy, Winning the Peace: Postconflict Operations (Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, KS, School of Advanced Military Studies: Masters of Military Arts and Science thesis, 1995), 19. Both accessed at https://calldbp.leavenworth.army.mil, June 2004, docs. RWP-01-188418 and RWP-01-99629.

43 See Michael Shafer, D., Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; McClintock, Michael, Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and Counterterrorism (New York: Pantheon, 1992)Google Scholar; Johnson, Wray R., Vietnam and American Doctrine for Small Wars (Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

44 The Department of Defense no longer enforces general non-fraternization rules, but leaves such decisions to regional command centers and local unit commanders. In Iraq, most soldiers had little contact with local civilians, and most units did not explicitly prohibit intimate relationships or marriages with Iraqis. On how the military dealt with the rare cases of marriage, see Los Angeles Times, Oct. 31, 2003, A1; New York Times, Oct. 30, 2006, A 10; Slate, Oct. 31, 2006, http://www.slate.com/id/2152564/.

45 At the core of the debate was the so-called Technischer Dienst of the Bund Deutscher Jugend. See Buschke, Heiko, Deutsche Presse, Rechtsextremismus und nationalsozialistische Vergangenheit in der Ära Adenauer (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 2003), 210–41Google Scholar; and New York Times, Oct. 12, 1952, 14.

46 New York Times, Jan. 21, 1958, 3.

47 Becker, Howard, German Youth: Bond or Free (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1946), 217, 219Google Scholar. Becker revised his gloomy prognosis in 1949.

48 See Goedde, G.I.s, ch. 4.

49 See Fuessl, Karl-Heinz and Wegner, Gregory P., “Education under Radical Change: Education Policy and the Youth Program of the United States in Postwar Germany,” History of Education Quarterly 36 (Spring 1996): 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 5–9. Also Morgan, Edward P., “Echoes of the Hitler Jugend in Germany,” New York Times, Nov. 27, 1949Google Scholar, SM 13; and Biddiscombe, Perry, “The Enemy of Our Enemy: A View of the Edelweiss Piraten from the British and American Archives,” Journal of Contemporary History 30 (1995): 37–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 See du Coudray, Chantal Bourgault, “Upright Citizens on All Fours,” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 24, no. 1 (2002): 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peuckert, Will-Erich, “Wolf,” in Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, ed. Bächtold-Stäubli, Hanns (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1938–41), IX, 715–94Google Scholar; Jacques-Lefèvre, Nicole, “Such an Impure, Cruel, and Savage Beast,” in Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits: Traditional Belief and Folklore in Early Modern Europe, ed. Edwards, Kathryn A. (Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2002), 181–197.Google Scholar

51 There had been some werewolf films before, albeit less successful. Jones, Steve, “Werewolf Movies,” The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, ed. Clute, John and Grand, John (New York: St. Martins, 1997), 1005–6Google Scholar.

52 Naturally, he then turns into a werewolf himself. The original plot (written by the Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, Curt Siodmak) was subsequently adapted to show an Englishman returning to Wales after a decades-long absence. Siodmak later maintained that the tale was a metaphor for his own flight from the Nazi horrors. Riley, Philip, ed., Magic Image Filmbooks Presents The Wolf Man: The Original 1941 Shooting Script (Absecon, NJ: Magic Image Filmbooks, 1993), 14.Google ScholarMartin, Douglas, “Curt Siodmak dies at 98,” New York Times, Nov. 19, 2000, 1.56.Google Scholar

53 Jones, “Werewolf Movies,” 1005.

54 Henke, Besetzung, 160, quoting an Intelligence Report of the General Staff from Sept. 9, 1944. Manuel, Scenes.

55 Directed by Kenneth Crane and written by Ib Melchior (Dolworth Productions, 1957).

56 Directed by Samuel Fuller (Globe Enterprises Production, 1958).

57 Both Petra Goedde and Annette Brauerhoch have argued a similar point, albeit in a different context: Goedde, G.I.s, 202; Annette Brauerhoch, “Fräuleins” und GIs: Geschichte und Filmgeschichte (Frankfurt a.M.: Stroemfeld/Nexus, 2006), 417 ff. See also Hoehn, Maria, G.I.s and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s Germany (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

58 Valtin, Jan, Wintertime (New York: Rinehart, 1950)Google Scholar. Another such novel is Ib Melchior, Order of Battle (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). In it, a young American intelligence officer hunts down male and female Nazi werewolves, braving a number of vicious attacks.

59 Rough estimates relying on Jones, Stephen, The Illustrated Werewolf Movie Guide (London: Titan Books, 1996), 42–132Google Scholar; Glut, Donald F., Classic Movie Monsters (London: Scarecrow Press, 1978), 1–67Google Scholar; www.werewolfpage.com/multimedia.html (accessed June 19, 2004).

60 Directed by Anthony Waller (Hollywood Pictures, 1997).

61 Directed by Krishna Shah (Cannon Films, 1984). The cheaply made film was shot in Quebec instead of France. Some parallels can be found in the teenage comedy The Monster Squad (director Fred Dekker, Tri-Star Pictures, 1987). There, a group of five schoolboys succeeds in saving the world from the forces of evil by fighting a group of werewolf monsters. The plot involves a magical book written in German, a scary German who turns out to be an ally, and one of the boys' sisters dating one of the monsters but finally helping the group secure victory.

62 In 1994, the game was banned in Germany because of its use of Nazi symbols. Castle Wolfenstein by Muse Software, 1981; Wolfenstein 3D, published by Apogee Software and developed by id Software, 1992; Return to Castle Wolfenstein, published by Activision, 2001. See http://www.mac-archive.com/wolfenstein/history.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Wolfenstein (accessed May 2006). I would like to thank “Whiskers” for his advice on the message board of www.geek.com.

63 Published in 1995 by the American writer Jane Jensen for Sierra Corporation. I thank Mark Sawchuk for pointing me to this game.

64 John Gardner, The Werewolf Trace (New York: Doubleday, 1977). Gardner wrote more than forty often best-selling thrillers, including sixteen spy novels featuring James Bond.

65 The novel appeared on the New York Times best-seller list and was published in at least four different paperback editions (Berkley, 1985; Jove, 1988; NEL, 1992; Tor, 2000). Spin-offs include a film of the same name (directed by Michael Mann, Paramount Pictures, 1983), a graphic novel (illustrated by Matthew D. Smith, IDW Publishing, 2006), and a board game (Mayfair Games).

66 McCammon, Robert R., The Wolf's Hour (New York: Simon and Schuster Pocket Books, 1989)Google Scholar.

67 Biddiscombe, Last Nazis, 14, 18; Watt, Roderick H., “Wehrwolf or Werwolf? Literature, Legend, or Lexical Error into Nazi Propaganda?,” The Modern Language Review 87 (1992): 879–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 Lucas, James, Last Days of the Third Reich: The Collapse of Nazi Germany, May 1945 (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1986), 11–12Google Scholar; Biddiscombe, Last Nazis.

69 Melchior, Ib, Case by Case: A U.S. Army Counterintelligence Agent in World War II (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1993), 152–3Google Scholar.