Before we get into this series of Event Card Spoilers I want to say this. Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948 is not a glorification of Nazism. Nor is it an attempt to change the narrative, although this game is an alternate reality look at the occupation of Germany by the Allies immediately following the fall of Berlin and the resistance from various groups to that occupation. This game will not be for everyone and may offend some with its portrayal of the events and participants in this struggle. I would say give it a chance to develop over the next year or so as the game has just been placed on pre-order with Legion Wargames. I have long been enthralled with the COIN Series from GMT Games for its attempt to tell the less than squeaky clean side of some of the most infamous struggles in history. This game is not an official part of that series but is COIN Series inspired.

I have seen lots of information put out by the design team of Clint Warren-Davey and Ben Fiene and it appears that these two have done their homework and extrapolated some theories that may or may not have been totally 100% accurate but are based in some semblance of plans or partial historical information. I think that it is good to explore history in these type of games.

With all of that being said, we were contacted by our good friend Randy Lein from Legion Wargames a few months ago about this project and asked if we would be interested in doing some coverage through an interview and possibly some other mediums, such as our Event Card Spoilers format that we have used in other games, and we were immediately intrigued by the concept and the fact that the game uses some of the elements of one of our favorite series. I have been in communication with one of the designers Clint Warren-Davey since that time and he has shared lots of information with me, including the rules and some of their background work on this one, and I wanted to make sure we gave it some light to give you a chance to understand what the game is so that you can make an informed decision about whether you plan to order this one or not. Clint has been great to work with and has agreed to write a series of short articles on the Event Cards and their basis in history as well as how they are used in the game.

If you are interested in ordering Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948, you can pre-order a copy for $72.00 from the Legion Wargames website at the following link: https://www.legionwargames.com/legion_WER.html

#9 Morgenthau Plan

The Morgenthau Plan was first suggested by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. in 1944, as a plan for demilitarizing and deindustrializing Germany after it surrendered. The plan was published, and Nazi propaganda seized on it as an example of American brutality and determination to destroy Germany. Goebbels referred to “The Jew Morgenthau” and wrote a headline entitled “Roosevelt and Churchill Agree to Jewish Murder Plan!” Indeed, it was predicted that if the plan was followed completely, around 25 million Germans would starve to death as the average person would be receiving less than 1,000 calories per day. Roosevelt himself thought that the German people should be “fed three times a day with soup from Army soup kitchens” so they would viscerally know that they had lost the war and were an occupied country. The Morgenthau Plan had some influence on the occupation regime, which did dismantle many armaments factories, but it was not formally adopted. Instead, the American occupation of Germany culminated in the Marshall Plan – a far more lenient policy which effectively focused on rebuilding the country with large amounts of aid money to prevent the population falling back into political extremism. Note that the Marshall Plan appears in the game as an Allied Key Event, which the Allied player could well use to cancel this card.

In the game’s timeline, implementation of the plan is taken as a real possibility, as the occupation forces try to starve Germany as punishment for the insurgency and to weaken resistance. This can go in two ways as shown by the options on the card. If the deliberate starvation has the intended effect (unshaded text on the card), four spaces under Allied control will be shifted directly to neutral, perhaps wiping out active or passive resistance and therefore depriving the Werwolves of much needed civilian support. On the other hand, such harsh treatment could backfire and cause more people to sympathize with the guerrillas – this is the shaded text on the bottom. Either way, the Allied player will not be winning any friends with this card and it provides no way to actually add Allied loyalty to the map. If this is the next Event Card to be drawn (which will be visible to all players) the Allied player should either cancel it with espionage or ensure that it can be used to target pockets of Nazi sympathies rather than areas with Allied loyalty.