Order of Battle Read online

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  12-17 Apr 1945

  PART II

  28 Apr 1945

  PART III

  29 Apr 1945

  PART IV

  30 Apr 1945

  EPILOGUE

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Order

  of

  Battle

  Order

  of

  Battle

  Hitler’s Werewolves

  Ib Melchior

  Premier Digital Publishing - Los Angeles

  Also by Ib Melchior

  EVA

  Sleeper Agent

  Code Name: Grand Guignol

  The Marcus Device

  The Watchdog of Abaddon

  Order of Battle:

  Hitler’s Werewolves

  Copyright © 1972, 1991, 2000 by Ib Melchior

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN: 0-595-00759-7

  eISBN-13: 978-1-938582-19-6

  Published by Premier Digital Publishing

  www.PremierDigitalPublishing.com

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  With love to my wife, whose constant encouragement and understanding when she found me staring into space made it possible for me to finish this book.

  “ORDER OF BATTLE” intelligence consists of carefully sifted and evaluated information received from a great variety of sources on the organization, strength and disposition of enemy forces. This information, if complete and accurate, not only facilitates the planning of military operations but helps commanders in the field to judge the enemy’s local capabilities and to make their decisions accordingly.

  ORDER OF BATTLE

  OF THE

  GERMAN ARMY

  1943

  MILITARY INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

  Washington, D.C.

  Restricted

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  12-17 Apr 1945

  PART II

  28 Apr 1945

  PART III

  29 Apr 1945

  PART IV

  30 Apr 1945

  EPILOGUE

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Prologue

  As I write this prologue, bands of terrorists, unleashed by the desperate and defiant Saddam Hussein in the weeks before his defeat, spread foreboding and fear throughout the world:

  • In Manila, the Philippines, Iraqi terrorists attack a U.S. establishment, the Thomas Jefferson Library, resulting in the death of one terrorist and the wounding of another. The first secretary of the Iraqi Embassy is expelled for his complicity.

  • In Cairo, Egypt, the speaker of the parliament is gunned down by an Iraqi terrorist, who kills not only the diplomat, but also his driver and bodyguard in a hail of machine-gun fire.

  • In the Turkish cities of Iznir and Istanbul, Ankara and Adana, U.S. installations and the French consulate are bombed and a U.S. civilian is struck down on the street.

  • On the Pakistan-India border a bomb placed in a passenger car kills five people and injures twenty-seven.

  • In Athens, Greece, government troops are employed to reinforce the police in an attempt to stem a wave of bombings and rocket attacks on British and American facilities by terrorists supporting Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

  The list of such senseless atrocities is growing daily.

  Nearly half a century before, another ruthless dictator let loose his gangs of savage terrorists—Hitler’s Werewolves. As a crumbling Nazi Germany faced her Götterdämmerung, in November 1944, on orders from the Führer, Adolf Hitler, Reichsleiter Martin Bormann decreed the immediate formation of a guerilla/terrorist organization to be known as “Werewolf.” Its members were to be recruited from fanatic Hitler Youths and BDMs (Bund Deutscher Mädchen, the equivalent female group), from the SS and the Wehrmacht, the German Army, and even from the ranks of civilians.

  Bormann placed an officer from his own staff, Gruppenführer, (SS Major General) Hans Prützmann, in overall charge of Unternehmen Werwolf—Operation Werewolf. Prützmann was to orchestrate and supervise the recruiting, training, and logistics of the organization, but there is relatively little evidence or knowledge of his contribution. Caught by the British at war’s end, he committed suicide by swallowing a hidden cyanide capsule before he could be interrogated, taking his knowledge with him, in contrast to other high ranking Nazis such as Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Youth Leader; Hans Fritzsche, Head of Radio Broadcasting in Goebbel’s Propaganda Ministry; and Albert Speer, Hitler’s Armament Minister, whose testimonies regarding Unternehmen Werwolf can be found in the records of the Nürnberg War Crimes Trials: “International Military Tribune—Trial of the Major War Criminals,” Volumes XIV, XVI and XVII. In my own correspondence with Albert Speer, which took place after his release from Spandau Prison in Berlin, he wrote to me regarding the Werewolves in a letter dated 3 April 1972:

  The biggest and strongest German transmitter, as a matter of fact, broadcast daily Werewolf messages. In addition Dr. Ley [Dr. Robert Ley, Leader of the German Labor Front, IJM] and several other hot-headed gentlemen concentrated on building up a sabotage operation behind the American and English lines which in general was named the Werewolves. Already conferences to that effect with the Army and other agencies had taken place, regarding making supplies of weapons, ammunitions, etc. available.

  The name was aptly chosen. According to encyclopedic sources the term werewolf comes from the old English words wer, meaning man, and wulf—man-wolf: a person, according to medieval lore, who was transformed into, or was capable at will of assuming the form of, a ferocious man-eating wolf at night, returning to human form by day. Thus the Nazi Werewolves would appear to be normal citizens by day, but at night would venture out to “deal death and destruction” to their enemies.

  From the beginning Hitler’s Werewolf organization, had its own radio program aimed at both Allied personnel and Germans who might be tempted to surrender to, or even cooperate with, the enemy, a program that began with a bloodcurdling wolf howl, followed by a sepulchral voice intoning: Beware Americans! Nightly the program would boast of new acts of terror inflicted on the enemy by the Werewolf.

  A feature article in the Army paper, Stars and Stripes, dated April 21, 1945, quotes a Werewolf broadcast of April 1st, which in their own words describes the aims and purpose of the organization’s members:

  A free German movement called the “Werewolf has been formed in the enemy-occupied areas. Every Bolshevik, every Briton and every American standing on German soil is free booty for our movement. Wherever an opportunity presents itself to extinguish his life we shall take it with joy without regard for our own life. The German, whatever his class or profession, who places himself at the disposal of the enemy and collaborates with him will come to feel our avenging hand.

  The Werewolf is an organization born in the spirit of Naziism. It does not know the restrictions in battle which are imposed upon regular troops. Every means is legitimate in order to inflict injury upon the enemy. Be as brave as lions and as poisonous as snakes. Work in the dark. Make night your ally. Fall upon the enemy whenever a favorable opportunity offers itself. Do not hesitate at the thought of taking his life since he wants to destroy the life of our people. It is up to you to exact vengeance upon every foreign soldier now standing on German soil. There is only one watchword now:
Conquer or die!

  Leaflets and proclamations such as the one below, adorned with strangely twisted swastikas, began to appear throughout Germany:

  “The Werewolf To all Townships: 25.4.45

  Upper Bavaria

  WARNING

  to all Traitors and Collaborators with the Enemy

  The Upper Bavaria Werewolf warn all those who would lend support to the enemy, threaten or harass Germans and their allies, or withhold their allegiance to the Füihrer. We warn you! Traitors and criminals against the people will pay with their lives, they and all the members of their families.

  Townships that offend against the lives of our own, or show the white flag of surrender sooner or later will suffer an annihilating disaster.

  Our vengeance is deadly!

  “The Werewolf

  Upper Bavaria

  It was not long before the Werewolves made their deadly presence known. The Stars and Stripes reported many murders and attacks on Army troops and installations in the rear, and other killings that spread fear among the German population. Decapitation wires were found strung across country roads—thin, taut wires stretched across the roadway at neck height to catch unwary drivers riding in open jeeps or on motorcycles; incautious GIs were waylaid and killed; mines would be placed on thoroughfares frequented by military traffic. And there were other murders, some gruesome in the extreme:

  In the town of Giessen just thirty miles north of Frankfurt, Werewolves led by a Belgian SS officer penetrated the American lines and executed a doctor who had been accused of collaborating with the Amis—the German derogatory slang word for Americans. Further south, near Ulm in Bavaria, a GI was found shot to death, a Werewolf leaflet pinned to his chest, his penis cut off and stuffed in his mouth.

  In Bavaria, a 4th Armored Division gasoline dump went up in flames, one of several. Also in Bavaria, in April, eight GIs were killed and three wounded when members of a bomb disposal squad lifted a box of TNT from a pile of four crates of enemy explosives which previously had been inspected and found free of booby-traps. Witnesses recalled that three innocent-looking young boys had been lurking in the vicinity that afternoon. One of these youngsters was subsequently caught and confessed to being a Werewolf, trained for just such action.

  Near Lübeck to the north, on 3/4 May, British troops shot and killed a Werewolf in civilian clothes who had been sniping at them; but in another Werewolf ambush/sniping confrontation, Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery’s favorite liaison officer, a young officer of the 11th Hussars named John Poston was killed by a group of teenage Werewolves when they ambushed his jeep on a country road.

  There were numerous such acts of terrorism by the Werewolves, but perhaps the most notorious, code-named Operation Carnival, took place in March of 1945 in the German town of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia, hard on the Dutch-Belgian border. A group of Werewolves was parachuted into the vicinity of the town from a Flying Fortress captured by the Nazis. There were seven of them, including a sixteen-year-old Hitler Youth and a girl—a former member of the BDM, as well as SS personnel. Their prey was a classic Werewolf target, a “traitor” who had to be eliminated, the mayor of Aachen, Franz Oppen-hoff, an official who had been installed in office by the Americans.

  On March 25 they invaded his home and gunned him down. The Werewolf radio bragged about the action for weeks and used it as a warning to all those who would collaborate with the enemy.

  At SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) most of the staff officers were concerned about the Werewolves— an “unknown factor” in the scheme of things. Even as the Russians encircled Berlin, and the end of the war was mere days away, Gen. Omar Bradley was still worried that the Werewolves would rendezvous in the National Redoubt in the Bavarian Alps, the Alpenfestung—the Alpine Fortress, as it was called by the Nazis—there to dig in for a last ditch, long lasting fight. Allied strategies and battle plans were influenced by apprehension about the Werewolves.

  Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in his Crusade in Europe writes:

  Equally important was the desirability of penetrating and destroying the so-called “National Redoubt.” For many weeks we had been receiving reports that the Nazis’ intention, in extremity, was to withdraw the cream of the SS, Gestapo, and other organizations fanatically devoted to Hitler, into the mountains of southern Bavaria, western Austria, and northern Italy. There they expected to block the tortuous mountain passes and to hold out indefinitely against the Allies.

  Eisenhower goes on to describe one of the fanatical organizations he feared would be part of that Alpine resistance:

  The purpose of the Werewolf organization, which was to be composed of loyal followers of Hitler, was murder and terrorism. Boys and girls as well as adults were to be absorbed into the secret organization with the hope of so terrifying the countryside and making so difficult the problem of occupation that the conquering forces would presumably be glad to get out.

  Many historians of international renown have in their writings corroborated the above information about the Werewolf organization. Prominent among them are such chroniclers of history as H. R. Trevor-Roper and Glenn B. Infield; Gerhard Boldt and Simon Wiesenthal; Cornelius Ryan and Charles Whiting, who in his book Hitler’s Werewolves details Operation Carnival, the murder of the mayor of Aachen.

  Order of Battle is closely based on fact, told in the form of a novel for dramatic reasons, particularly the desire to be able to present both the American and the German sides. It was my own case, while working as counter-intelligence agent with CIC Detachment 212 of XII Corps, as a member of MII Team 425-G. A note on one detail: Because of the nature of a CIC agent’s work, which depended upon being able to obtain the instant assistance and cooperation of any troops available at any given moment, the rank of a CIC agent was confidential; he wore no rank insignia of any kind except the Officer U.S. emblem on his collar, be he an enlisted man or officer. Should anyone up to and including a full colonel ask for the agent’s rank, the standard reply was: “My rank is confidential, but at this moment I am not outranked.” Only general officers were entitled to a full answer.

  Order of Battle is the complete and accurate account of the ferreting out and destruction of the vaunted Werewolf headquarters, Sonderkampfgruppe Paul. The action begins on 28 April 1945, eleven days before the war would be over. It is the eleventh hour. The Werewolves are deployed and ready to go into action in earnest. Like the venemous snake Reichsführer SS Hein-rich Himmler had extorted them to become, they are ready to strike.

  It is at this time the story of Order of Battle begins.

  Ib Melchior

  February 1991

  Part I

  12-17 Apr 1945

  12 Apr 1945

  Neustadt

  0917 hrs

  His knuckles stung.

  He glared at the German lying sprawled against the wall. He’d struck him as hard as he could across the face—a backhand blow brought up from the hip.

  The German stared back at him. He looked shocked; his eyes were wide open in a mixture of surprise, doubt—and fear.

  Erik Larsen recognized that look of fear. Good! He stepped up to the man, looming over him. He was suddenly awkwardly aware of his right hand. He had the strange notion that he could still feel the bristly stubble on the German’s face imprinted on the skin. He resisted an urge to rub it. He might have to hit the man again. . . .

  The German seemed to shrink into the dirty wall of the Bavarian Bauernstube. He stared at Erik incredulously. For a long moment the two men faced each other.

  Erik felt a constriction in his throat. With a conscious effort he forced himself to look grim. Ruthless. He could not afford to let the German suspect his doubts. He felt a compelling need to reassure himself, to confirm that he’d been right. And for a split second he felt resentful, frustrated. That was the problem with these screening cases. You had to rely on your instincts too damned much. There wasn’t time for a real interrogation. The cases had a tendency to
run together in their tedious sameness, to bog down in a morass of routine questions and evasive answers, permeated with the stink of fear.

  This bastard on the floor. Erik knew there was something wrong about him. He was certain of it. But how in hell do you prove it in a few minutes? And that was all the time he could spend on any screening job. Already German war refugess were spilling through the lines from the east by the hundreds in a frantic effort to get away from the advancing Red Army. Who were they? What were they? A lot of them had good reasons for not wanting to face the Russians. It was up to CIC to screen those people before allowing them to continue into Germany, behind the American lines. . . .

  Anton Gerhardt was one of them. He came rolling into the little Bavarian village of Neustadt in a small Citroën loaded to the roof with household goods, boxes and suitcases. Calmly he let himself be stopped and ordered from his vehicle to join the line of refugees waiting to be screened. While his car was driven off the road and the MPs began to search through his mountainous belongings, Gerhardt was taken to Erik for screening.

  After the first few routine questions Erik knew.

  Gerhardt was in his early fifties. His only papers consisted of an expired Kennkarte—a German identification card—which listed him as a minor post office employee from Budweis in the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia. That was standard. Had his papers been more complete he’d have been one in a thousand, and cause for real suspicion. There was something else about the man. He seemed too cocksure, almost condescending, rather than displaying the usual servile apprehension.

  Erik felt the hunch strongly, that hunch which every interrogator developed after questioning hundreds of suspects. The kind of hunch which was difficult to explain—but which was seldom wrong.