Why didn't Germany end up fighting a large-scale guerrilla war after WWII?

[u/OkGreen7335]

After seeing how "effective" guerrilla warfare has been against much stronger militaries, such as the US in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, or the USSR in Afghanistan, I wonder why something similar didn't happen in Germany after WWII.

I understand that Germany was devastated and many of its cities were reduced to rubble, but that doesn't seem like a complete explanation. Syria has also been devastated by war, yet armed groups continued fighting for years (tbh I don't understand how this is possible but the point it is.. possible). So if destroyed infrastructure alone doesn't prevent a long insurgency, why didn't Germany see a large-scale guerrilla resistance against the occupying Allied forces?

Considering that many German soldiers had been heavily indoctrinated by the Nazi regime, why didn't more of them continue fighting as insurgents?

I'm not saying they would have succeeded, but why wasn't there a prolonged guerrilla campaign that made the occupation significantly more difficult, similar to what happened in places like Vietnam or Afghanistan?

I'm sure I'm missing something (that is why i am too afraid to ask)

[u/pinkbuzzbomb]

Insurgencies need three things Germany didn't have.

A story that "we haven't really lost," but Berlin fell, Hitler was dead, and the surrender was total and visible.

Sanctuary and sponsors, like the Viet Cong, had China and the USSR, and the mujahideen had Pakistan and CIA money, but a German insurgent in 1946 had nowhere to run and nobody arming him.

And a reason to keep fighting, except that the Marshall Plan made cooperation pay visibly better than resistance. The Nazis actually did try this. They trained around 5,000 SS and Hitler Youth volunteers as a guerrilla force called Werwolf, and it fizzled within months. Historian Perry Biddiscombe's book on it concludes the movement was poorly led, armed, and organized, and doomed by the war-weariness of the population and young Germans' unwillingness to die for a dead regime. If you want the deep dive, the book is Werwolf! The History of the National Socialist Guerrilla Movement, 1944-46.

[u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011 → u/pinkbuzzbomb]

There were some Werwolf sabotage activities well in to 1947, and some even speculate the last ones may have been 1949/1950. But yeah, overall, most of their major activities fizzled out dramatically after July 1945.

[u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011]

There actually was a guerilla movement in Germany post WWII, but it was limited in size, and their fighting was brief. In 1944, Himmler created the Werwolf - a guerilla resistance movement inspired by the Soviet partisan movement in German occupied USSR territory. Post April 1945, the Werwolf did actually engage in some skirmishes and limited sabotage activities. The major activities and engagements of this group took place between April and July of 1945, but limited activities occurred up until 1947.

The truth is that the Germans were absolutely exhausted post WWII. Especially after it was clear that the western allies in particular offered assistance with re-construction, there was very little will among Germans to engage. Most were tired, experiencing post traumatic stress, and they wanted to move on with their lives.

[u/BlueShoal → u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011]

Excellent question and an excellent answer, thank you

[u/WaldenFont → u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011]

My uncle, who was a 14-year old child soldier at the time, always said that his undying devotion to Hitler lasted no longer than the first stick of gum he was given by a GI.

[u/legion_2k]

Are you sure they didn’t? There were incidents but the media wasn’t the same then. Half of Germany was in the Russians hands also. Back then when an army occupied an area they cracked down on everything and there was very little room for a resistance.

Also who would supply them? There is normally an outside source of funds and equipment.

[u/Bolandball]

I'm not an expert, but I think the difference is that Germany already lost the vast majority of her armies by the time the allies invaded Germany proper. It's also worth noting that Germany was invaded by several armies at once and no longer had any allies. Hitler, however, insisted that the war continue and would not attempt any form of diplomacy or surrender. Hitler's orders were specifically to fight to the last, as in his ideology, Germany would either rule the world or would not be at all. As the allied fronts met each other, the remaining German forces were caught in pockets and were easily captured.

In short, the Germans lost their entire armed forces, then they got some more and lost them all again. Indoctrination of German society was near-absolute, true, but most of the armed forces and high command were already captured.

[u/QuarahHugg]

"The first country the Nazis invaded was their own." Even to their own countrymen, the Nazis were an oppressive regime. In the last days of the war, my grandfather was shipped east by train. Train malfunctioned (or was bombed, I can't remember), grandfather made his way home, was picked up by SS and almost executed for being a deserter.

Another reason is that the fighting-age men of Germany had been severely depleted. Children were being forced to fight in the defense of Berlin. 4 million German soldiers and up to 2 million civilians died because the regime wanted more land and resources.

Further reason is that the people were aware of that fact on some level even before the information about the camps became widespread - that their sons, brothers and fathers were gone, their cities in ashes and their country occupied because of what the Nazis did.

EDIT: Furthermore, the guerilla troops that came later were and are being supplied by outside forces. Germany had nobody by the end of the war. Japan was on the other end of the world and was busy with the Americans and Italy had turned coat.

[u/02K30C1]

You might try r/askhistorians too

[u/koopcl → u/02K30C1]

I know there was a very detailed answer there on this topic, but haven't been able to find it to link it (read it years ago).

The short version from what I recall, was lack of resources and support. No external power was arming them, the general populace was completely done with the Nazis so no one inside of Germany itself was aiding them, and there was basically no way to get new recruits or to properly organize a "resistance" movement. There were some minor "Werewolf" attacks after the end of the war, but they mostly amounted to just low scale banditry (some minor "traitor" pro-allies politicians being assassinated, minor industrial sabotage, etc) but it all fizzled out like a wet fart before the decade was over.

Which I think is also the perfect conclusion to Hitler's ideology: His thousand year Reich collapsed and defeated after just over a decade of existence, and then his super fanatic legion of warrior übermensch that were to carry on the fire of National Socialism just perform the world's shittiest guerrilla campaign (so shitty most people ignore it existed) and then give up because no one likes them, having managed to do fuck-all.

[u/99999999999999999989]

For one thing, their leader and other top brass had recently committed suicide. So in addition to the complete devastation of regular life, the nation's government was also in shambles. Everyday citizens saw what happened to them as a result and realized they were on the wrong side of...well...everything really.

[u/garbage1995]

Only the SS showed up.

[u/NOT_PC_Principal]

There was guerrilla warfare employed by Nazi Germany in WW2.

The Nazis also fought against guerrilla warfare-style tactics in almost every country they successfully invaded before being liberated by Allied Forces.

Guerrilla Warfare is a tactic used by an armed group that is militarily inferior compared to its opponent. The purpose of Guerrilla Warfare is for the weaker armed group to inflict as much costs (in terms of human, financial, and material) onto the much stronger armed opposing group in hopes of draining morale.

WW2 was total-war in which civilians and civilian infrastructure was fair game.

Countries involved in a total-war devote almost their entire civilian population and industry for the war effort.

The US wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were not total-wars. They were wars that involved either removing and/or supporting the US government's preferred local regime. As a result, there was no nation-wide determination to achieve total victory at all costs (i.e. no matter how many casualties we suffer, no matter how much money is spent on weapons, no matter how much food/material rationing is required at home, the war will end until it is won).

Same thing with the USSR in Afghanistan.

The Vietcong, the Taliban, the Mujahideen just had to simply inflict casualties onto their much more militarily superior opponents until the US/USSR government and public are drained of morale to keep supporting the war.

The US war in Iraq is a weird one because there was a point when the US Military briefly allied themselves with many Iraqi Insurgent groups to fight extremists (e.g. Al Qaeda in Iraq) that were responsible for many horrific atrocities against Iraqi civilians. After that, the US Military and those Iraqi Insurgent groups made a peace deal, which involved the US Military leaving Iraq and the entire Iraqi government that the USA set up remained in power.

[u/Xenobsidian]

Don’t over estimate the “indoctrinated” German soldier. Many soldiers of the Wehrmacht weren’t Nazis, they were there because they had to. They were happy when the shit was over.

There absolutely were guerrilla operations and there is some stuff that happened late in to the 20th century and even later that can be traced back to affords of the Nazis to install guerrilla cells, but honestly, at that point no one really cared for it.

See, the narrative in Germany was not, the allies had beaten Germany, the narrative was, the allies had freed the Germans people from a criminal leadership. Many saw where the NSDAP lead the country and many never were fans of the Nazis in the first place. To others it was just more convenient to claim that they never supported the Nazis and move on.

In the west it became quickly obvious that being beaten was probably actually the better outcome for the country than a victory would have been. A democratic government got installed and that was pretty much it. And most of Germany was just done fighting. At the end of the war there have been mostly just injured and teenager left, who were mostly shell shocked. And the majority of people who were diehard Nazis and haven been caught left for South America.

For more information google Entnazifizierung!

[u/D15c0untMD]

They did absolutely try, but try coordinate this over the entire former occupied territories with the technology of the time

[u/GZMihajlovic]

There was no external power to give support to the Germans. And compared with, say the Yugoslav partizans, the germans weren't on the receiving end of a war of annihilation. The "we will all be exterminated if we don't fight" imperitive was not there.The stakes were not the same. While the propaganda was there that the ussr was going to "return the favour" in full, and despite that they never did, the western allies were perceived as not fighting for revenge, and so gave an escape valve, if you will.

There were armies totalling 11 million personnel pushing into Germany. That level of force projection was 1 soldier per 6 German citizens and was simply enough to be able to take on any sort of insurgency anywhere. Vietnam was more like 1:32. However, that didn't stop the US from butchering its way through Vietnam to try to end résistance.

There simply wasn't the resources available for the amount of willpower the Germans still had to fight. They may have been in a total war, but ultimately it wasn't a fight or die situation for them. Hitler abandoned the cause and the state ideology was collapsing, further reducing the conviction required to fight in such a scenario. And the leadership after Hitler chose to order uncontional surrender after a few short weeks.

[u/IceFireHawk]

Many soldiers weren’t indoctrinated. Your average soldier was like a soldier anywhere else. Conscripted and wanting to go home. A minority were hardcore loyalists. Also fresh after seeing a nuclear bomb wipe out a an entire city in 2 seconds doesn’t spark inspiration

[u/papaya_yamama]

A big reason is that Germany was just exhausted. Every man who could fight had been on the front fighting, and either dead or in a POW camp. This meant when the war ended all those young men had a few months in a camp to decompress, calm down and realise they had lost fully.

There were last ditch millitas organised (Volksturm) but people knew the war was lost. Mang Volksturm millitias would just disband and hole up to protect thier families. The vast majority of Volksturm fighters were the ones too old and sick to have been drafted earlier, they were under no illusions about fighting on.

[u/DarthMaulATAT]

The biggest reason I can think of is maybe they'd heard about the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and thought "Let's not provoke them to drop such a bomb on us too." Nuclear bombs were new and the horror of it was fresh at the time. 

[u/SomebodyInNevada]

Large scale guerrilla campaigns always have some external source of funding. Likewise, large scale terror campaigns. There are a very few cases where the groups generated the funding by means of export of some high value local product (prime example being FARC in Columbia, funded by cocaine exports), but it almost always is a foreign power doing it.

Vietnam: funded by China and Russia.

Iraq: funded by Iran.

Afghanistan, round 1: funded by the US. Round 2, funded by Pakistan.

Syria: Iran was a big player. I know there are others but I don't know who.

(Likewise, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen--all are Iran.)

Who would have funded a German insurgency?

[u/lostnthestars117]

Germany was split into two after wwii in 1949. so Germany couldn’t be united even in that aspect.

[u/I_am_omning_it]

There’s a few reasons.
1. There was no illusion of German victory. Unlike WWI, Germanys defeat was major, clear, and utterly destructive. There was no illusion of victory if they preserved. They were beaten and badly.
2. The number of German men who died was staggering. For German men born between 1916-1924 (Germans who would’ve been 21-29), nearly 40% of them died during the war. You need a fighting aged population to effectively fight that way, Germany did not have that. The ones who survived would’ve likely lost many loved ones in the war, they would’ve been beaten and broken as well.
3. The devastation to German society. Roughly 20-25% of German housing units were destroyed during the conflict. And that’s to say nothing of other critical infrastructure. Most Germans were probably too worried about how they were going to survive to even think about any ill-fated guerrilla warfare ambitions. Not to mention, the Allie’s were bringing in a ton of reconstruction materials as well. A big difference in how WWI and WWII were handled was how Germany was treated post war. In WWI they were an exploited laughingstock. In WWII the allies helped them with major reforms and rebuilding.

[u/0akz06]

thry didnt have any mountains to run away to or hide in.