Werwolf! : the history of the National Socialist guerrilla movement, 1944-1946 /

Biddiscombe's doctoral dissertation is a well-researched and meticulously documented study of guerrilla and partisan activities by various German groups in the last weeks of WW II. Such groups ranged from isolated remnants of army units to bands of fanatical teenagers recruited from the Hitler Youth and motivated by "adolescent romanticism." They existed most numerously in central and eastern Germany, especially in the eastern borderlands of the Third Reich, and formed what the Nazi regime hoped would be the foundation of last-ditch, unrelenting popular resistance to the Allied invasion. Biddiscombe shows, however, that the movement lacked organization, leadership, supplies, and, above all, sympathy and support from the general population. Although the author estimates that "Werwolf" groups may have killed 3,000-5,500 Allied soldiers and "defeatist" German civilians, the main effect was to stimulate Allied reprisals and harsher occupation policies. The book is an important contribution to understanding an aspect of WW II that has mostly been neglected. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. D. Fraley; Birmingham-Southern College