Arthur Ehrhardt

Arthur Ehrhardt (born March 20, 1896 in Hammern / Thuringia, † May 11, 1971 in Coburg ) was a German officer, military writer, translator and political publicist.

His study Der Kleinkrieg, first published in 1935 . According to Walter Laqueur , historical experiences and future possibilities are apparently the only serious German study on the phenomenon of guerrilla warfare in the interwar period. Ehrhardt joined in 1944 by the Wehrmacht for Waffen-SS over and worked with Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS officers a handbook on guerilla warfare in Germany.

Training and First World War

Ehrhardt graduated from middle school in 1910 and from that year attended the teachers' seminar in Coburg. In August 1914 he volunteered to go to war and joined the 19th Infantry Regiment “King Viktor Emanuel III. von Italy ”of the Bavarian Army . In 1916 he became a lieutenant in the reserve; at the end of the war he was a company commander. He was wounded six times during the First World War and left the army at his own request in 1919.

From 1919 to 1932 he was an elementary school teacher in Coburg and worked as a pre-military instructor in his free time. He retired from school service in 1932 due to hearing damage as a late consequence of an injury from the First World War and worked in the Eastern Border Guard and in SA Standard 81 . It is unclear whether he was a member of the SA or the NSDAP .

As a military writer: "small war"

From 1934 Ehrhardt began a career as a military writer. His books were published in Potsdam by Voggenreiter-Verlag , which at the time worked closely with the Reichswehr / Wehrmacht and brought out the so-called gray library. Ehrhardt translated several classics of modern military theory from English by such famous authors as Sir Basil Liddell Hart , JFC Fuller and George C. Marshall . His most important work, however, was a study of his own: The guerrilla war. Historical experiences and future possibilities , which appeared for the first time in 1935 and in subsequent editions in 1942 and 1944, each with new forewords. According to Ehrhardt, he owed a lot of information to the Austrian general and military writer Hugo Kerchnawe , who had worked as an occupation officer in Serbia during the First World War . Walter Laqueur saw Ehrhardt's study as almost the only serious German study on the subject of small warfare:

"But Arthur Ehrhardt was almost the only German author in the interwar period to concern himself with the prospects of guerrilla warfare in modern conditions."

"Arthur Ehrhardt, however, was almost the only German author who between the wars dealt with the prospects of guerrilla warfare under current conditions."

- Laqueur : Guerilla , p. 199.

Ehrhardt analyzed Austrian deployments in the Balkans from 1878–1882, around 1900 and 1915–1918, the Spanish guerrillas from 1808 to 1812, the Franktireur movement in France 1870/71, the events in Belgium in 1914, the county battles ( Komitadschis ) of the Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks and Albanians against the Ottoman Army in the second half of the 19th century, the Russian hunting commandos of the First World War and the “Red Partisans” of the Russian Civil War . Ehrhardt generally saw the Little War in two variants: once as a special form of war with special units during the Great War and once as a pure partisan or guerrilla war.

One of the most important lessons seemed to Ehrhardt to be the establishment of "opposing gangs", which after the Second World War were mostly referred to as counter gangs or pseudoforces . The term Gegenbande was used in Austria and in the Balkans long before the First World War, for example in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1878 to 1882. So-called hunting commandos or strafunis (Serbo-Croatian: patrol units) operated in the manner of partisans or robber gangs . Already here purely military measures such as coups d'état, ambushes and raids according to Ehrhardt were combined with “severe punitive measures against the population”. These patrol corps were rebuilt in the Austro-Hungarian Army as border hunter companies in 1908 and expanded to battalion strength in 1915, which allegedly led the border war against Montenegro in 1914/15 on their own. In 1917, opposing gangs or criminal offenses were formed from Muslims, Turks and Albanians in occupied Serbia . It is noticeable that Ehrhardt did not go into partisan wars or colonial wars outside of Europe. Ehrhardt's most important finding for the theory of partisan war or small war was that without the support of the civilian population or the support of a troop there was no prospect of sustained guerrilla warfare.

Transferred to the Waffen-SS as head of the gang fighting units of the SS

In May 1944 Ehrhardt, as a captain of the Wehrmacht, moved from the Abwehr office to the head of the SS gang fighting units and was given the equivalent rank of Hauptsturmführer. Apparently he had been with the Abwehr office since the beginning of the war in 1939. The reasons for his transfer to the Waffen SS are unclear. According to Rose and Ehrhardt's own statements, at the end of 1944 / beginning of 1945, together with specialists from the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, he was involved in drafting a regulation for guerrilla warfare in the Reich. This regulation no longer appeared due to the war situation. Apparently a partisan war against the Red Army was planned . It can be assumed that Ehrhardt was involved in this project because of his analyzes of “small war”. At the end of the war Ehrhardt was evidently Sturmbannführer of the Waffen SS.

Post war. Foundation of the Nation Europa publishing house . Werewolf - beckons for hunting units

It is unclear what activity Ehrhardt carried out between 1945 and 1950. Apparently he was not in Allied captivity for a long period of time. Presumably he had contact with the leader of the British fascists Sir Oswald Mosley , who in 1947 coined the term Nation Europa, through English connections, especially Fuller . In 1950 he founded the right-wing extremist magazine Nation Europa , which he directed until his death in 1971 and for which he wrote racist and anti-Semitic articles. In 1970, a special issue of the magazine published the brochure Werwolf - Winke für Jagdheiten with an introduction by Ehrhardt himself. According to this, the print was a facsimile, but there is no indication of the date of origin. The brochure has been reprinted repeatedly by various small publishers and is freely available in stores. It is noticeable that both the text and the illustrations completely dispense with concrete political or military terms or statements. From the text itself, however, it is also clear that this is not an elaboration for an original partisan war, but rather guerrilla tactics to support a regular army in a symmetrical war. As Rose wrote in 1980, the pamphlet resembles a Boy Scout manual in parts.

See also

• Asymmetrical warfare
• Werewolf (Nazi organization)
• Partisan's theory

literature

• Arthur Ehrhardt (ed.): Basil Henry Liddell Hart : Infantry of Tomorrow. Potsdam 1934.
• Ders .: George C. Marshall : Infantry in combat. Potsdam 1935.
• Ders .: JFC Fuller : Generals of Tomorrow. Potsdam 1935.
• Ders .: Liddell Hart: When England takes the field. Potsdam 1936.
• Ders .: NN: The British Army. Potsdam 1935.
• Ders .: LEO Charlton: Captain Cope interferes. Potsdam 1937.
• Ders .: The guerrilla war. Historical experiences and future opportunities. Potsdam 1935, 2nd edition 1942, 3rd edition 1944. American edition as: Guerrilla Warfare. Lessons of the Past and Possibilities of the Future. Fort Leavenworth, KA 1936 ( Command and General Staff School ).
• Ders .: Barbara saves the city. Potsdam 1943.
• OV: Arthur Ehrhardt. Reprint of the magazine NATION EUROPA. Coburg 1971.
• Erich Kern: Publisher Arthur Ehrhardt on his 70th birthday. The caller of Coburg. in: Deutsche Wochen-Zeitung of March 18, 1966.
• Heinrich Härtle: Arthur Ehrhardt on his 75th birthday. In: German news from April 2, 1971.
• Hartwig Singer ( Henning Eichberg ): Arthur Ehrhardt is dead. In: Deutscher Studentenanzeiger. Issued July 1971.
• Facsimile edition of: Werwolf. Waving for hunting units. Unsuccessful "children's sniper war" or thinking model of things to come. In: NATION EUROPA, XX. Volume 3, March 1970, pp. 3–80.
• Arno Rose: Werewolf 1944-1945. A documentation. Stuttgart 1980.
• Walter Laqueur : Guerilla: A Historical and Critical Study. London 1977.
• Volker Koop: Himmler's last line-up: the Nazi organization “Werewolf”. Cologne u. a. 2008.

Web links

• German-European Study Society DESG, committed to the European idea of ​​the Waffen-SS AE as founder of the Zs. "Nation Europe" (name misspelled)