Steven Plaut - Wednesday, June 27, 2007
After their military defeat by regular forces, the occupied population produced terrorists who engaged in bombings, sniping, poisonings, and other attacks on occupation forces and on the civilian population. They operated as irregulars in small terror units, armed with automatic weapons and bazookas.Women and minors as young as eight participated in the terror attacks. They attempted to build weapons of mass destruction, using chemical poisons. They assassinated officials of the occupation regime. They had a special obsession with torturing and murdering "collaborators." They murdered hundreds of civilians, while thousands of the terrorists themselves were killed by the occupation armed forces. The occupiers responded to terror with brutality and force, sometimes using collective punishment.
The above does notrefer to or describe the anti-American and anti-British terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor does it describe Palestinian terrorism against Israel launched from the West Bank and Gaza.
What it does refer to is the campaign of terrorism directed against Allied forces in Europe in the aftermath of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The terrorists were members of a number of underground "resistance" organizations attempting to punish the Allied "occupiers" and drive them out. The most important of the terror groups was known as Werwolf (German for werewolf).
Until recently, relatively little was known about groups like Werwolf. But several books, particular those authored by Perry Biddiscombe, a professor of history at the University of British Columbia, have shed light on the activities of the groups and on the anti-terror strategies that ultimately defeated them.
Most of what follows is based on the research of Biddiscombe. There are valuable lessons to be learned from the campaign against the Werwolf, both for the U.S.-led coalition fighting in Iraq and for Israel in its battles against Arab terrorism.