The military wolf
The Wehrwolf is a novel by Hermann Löns from 1910; He tells how a group of badly haunted farmers defended themselves bloody and mercilessly against marauding enemies during the Thirty Years' War .
action
The war ravages the country and the defenseless peasants in particular suffer from it. Harm Wulf loses his family in the first few years. In this way he becomes a struggling Wulf, a Wehr-Wulf who mercilessly kills vagrants , marauders and all war people who dare to break . There the heather farmers have set up a fortified retreat in an old hill fort. The early medieval ring wall of Burg bei Altencelle served as a historical model for Löns .
Harm Wulf finds like-minded comrades for his defense actions who follow suit. Three times eleven men finally found the Bund der Wehrwolfe, and more and more follow the example until finally eleven times eleven men have officially recruited.
Harm is an old man when peace comes. He has lost the laughter inherited from his ancestors, and his descendants inherit that seriousness.
Remarks
The word Wehrwolf often gave rise to confusion with the mythological mythical creature werewolf . Hermann Löns himself wrote: “Then a callous writes itself in his critic's soul to find out what the name Wehrwolf means. That this means nothing more than that Harm Wulf defends himself; nobody can think of it. Fool all kinds of things together. "
The novel became a bestseller during the National Socialist era . Towards the end of the Second World War , the book was recommended to young flak helpers and Hitler Youths to read, in order to animate them for the underground fight against the Allies in We (h) rwolf manner .
A part of the book, namely the battle in Bruch against the Swedes in the Wallburg , was often included in reading books for German lessons , even after the Second World War.
Web links
- The Wehrwolf in Project Gutenberg ( currently not usually available for users from Germany )
- The Wehrwolf ( Memento from February 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), entire text in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Reader chapter "The Swedes" ( Memento from April 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Review by Marianne Weil
- Review by RM Beyer
Individual evidence
- ↑ Knottnerus-Meyer, Hermann: The unknown Löns. Conversations and memories , Jena (Diederichs) 1928, p. 118.
- ↑ Printer's note of an edition: Recommended by the Rosenberg office for training within the NSDAP