The Last Nazis: SS Werewolf Guerrilla Resistance in Europe 1944-1947

Founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1944 when it became clear Germany would be invaded, the Werewolf guerrilla movement was given the task of slowing down the Allied advance to allow time for the success of negotiations or “wonder weapons”. Staying behind in territory occupied by the Allies, its mission was to carry out acts of sabotage, arson and assassination, both of enemy troops and of “defeatist” Germans. Perry Biddiscombe has researched the movement exhaustively, and details Werewolf operations against the British, Russians and fellow Germans, on the Eastern and Western Fronts and in the post–war chaos of Berlin. Giving the lie to the established story of a cowed German population meekly submitting to defeat, this is a fascinating insight into what has been described as “the death scream of the Nazi regime”.

Perry Biddiscombe is Associate Professor of History at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. He is the world expert on the Nazi Werewolf bands. His next book, The SS Hunter Battalions, will be published by Tempus.