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vile_things t1_j1i3ws1 wrote

Reply to comment by TertiumNonHater in Where history has been fought by RedTomatoSauce

After the occupation their mayor was assassinated by a werewolf commando. Their aim was to make Germans afraid to collaborate with the Allies but this stands out as one of the few actual, successful missions they undertook.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Oppenhoff

One of my favourite factoids about Aachen is how the Nazis tried to remove the enormous bronze gates of the Aachen cathedral (cast around the year 800), among other relics, to get them out of allied hands. But the gates were too well built in and they had to give up.

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TertiumNonHater t1_j1i6cpi wrote

That is really interesting. Speaking of the werewolf teams, which I believe were the idea of Otto Skorzeny (I could be wrong), there were a few instances where allies found cables strung across the road intended as a trap for jeep crews. This lead to them placing posts at the front of the jeep such as this one.

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Sfumatographer t1_j1ijxx9 wrote

Fighters trying to oust the Dutch from Indonesia (1940s) used the same trick. Lots of beheadings happened because usually the front windows were kept collapsed. Fun fact: thé Indonesians won freedom after 300 years of colonial rule and Sukarno became its president.

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NotTRYINGtobeLame t1_j1iknrb wrote

>werewolf commando

Heh. I was doing some quick reading about them, and they were trained at Schloss Hülchrath. If you go to their current website (the castle, not the werewolves lol) - and use Google translate - you get this greeting:

>Schloss Hülchrath is the perfect place for your celebration. As soon as you enter this extraordinary event location, you will not be able to escape the fascination of the history of bygone times. The desire to discover more is awakened and rewarded.

I know it's a tiny skid mark on the history of that castle, but I still chuckled at the unfortunate context of that when I looked it up.

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