Ilse Hirsch was a fanatical supporter of Hitler. In the last days of the war, an SS commando brought them to their victim Franz Oppenhoff, the mayor appointed by the USA in the liberated Aachen.
With the Werwolf organization, the leadership of the Third Reich wanted to wage a kind of partisan war. It was founded in September 1944 by Heinrich Himmler, he was already aware at the time that the Allies would soon occupy German territory. Squads trained and supplied by secret depots were supposed to spread fear and terror behind enemy lines.
The soldiers were trained at least pro forma by Otto Skorzeny, the most famous commando soldier in the Reich. From a military point of view, the whole enterprise was of no importance, there were hardly any volunteer soldiers. And even more so, hardly anyone was willing to carry out the orders later in the area occupied by the Allies. But the Nazi leadership found volunteers: fanatical young people.
The organization was built up pompously and hierarchically, there was even a “Reichs-Werewolf”. After the war, Allied experts were amazed at how little the Germans had learned from the partisan war. Another point was that the preparation of the Reich for the so-called final battle served many to avoid a real last-minute front-line deployment. So it happened that men who were particularly tired of war got involved in these fanatical projects. The werewolves could neither prevent the defeat of Nazi Germany nor the establishment of a new administration. They carried out acts of terrorism only in isolated cases.
Battle for Aachen
One of the most famous was the assassination attempt on Aachen mayor Franz Oppenhoff. Due to its special position in the Middle Ages, the city had a high symbolic value. In October 1944, it was the first German city to be attacked by US troops and bitterly defended. The tough struggle came as a shock to the Americans; the time of rapid advance after breaking out of the Normandy bridgehead was over.
The city was conquered on October 21, when the US armed forces won Franz Oppenhoff as mayor – in the Third Reich the lawyer had defended opponents of the regime. When Hitler received this news, he is said to have had a fit of rage and personally ordered the murder of Oppenhoff. Himmler then planned a deployment in the style of the later James Bond films. The cost of the operation was disproportionate to murdering a public official whom the Allies could easily replace.
Operation Carnival was headed by Adolf Prützmann – a war criminal and general of the Waffen SS. The actual troop was led by SS-Untersturmführer Herbert Wenzel, his deputy was SS-Unterscharführer Joseph Leitgeb. Leitgeb was a battle-hardened front-line soldier who was believed to be unconditionally brave.
BDM girls and Hitler Youth
In order to bring the two to Aachen, they were assigned two men as guides who knew the area, Georg Heidorn and Karl-Heinz Hennemann. A young woman and a Hitler Youth formed the end. Before the war, the 22-year-old Ilse Hirsch lived in Aachen. She was supposed to be in command in Aachen, and it was also hoped that the Allied military police would not control a young woman so strictly. Ilse Hirsch was a member of the Association of German Girls and was often shown because of her Aryan appearance. The only 16-year-old Hitler Youth, Erich Morgenschweiss, was selected as an inconspicuous scout.
Because of the complicated plan, it took until the end of March 1945 to complete all preparations. The command was to be brought close to the city with a US bomber of the type B-17 Flying Fortress captured by the Nazis and there jump with the parachute over Belgian territory. On March 20, the B-17 took off at 9 p.m. from Hildesheim airfield, and it took off at midnight. But the small group was discovered by the border guard Joseph Saive and his girlfriend. The SS men shot the Dutchman, but the girl escaped. The Allies were thus informed of the arrival of the small unit, but they did not know anything about the objectives of the operation.
Jump from US bomber
During the night landing, Ilse Hirsch was separated from the rest of the group. For her it was no reason to give up, she set off on her own. Already on the morning of March 21st, she stepped alone into the rubble desert that had once been Aachen. Hirsch scouted the city and the target without arousing suspicion. With a basket she disguised herself as a helpless woman looking for something to eat, at that time a common sight that was not noticed. On March 22nd, the rest of the detachment reached the city limits, but stayed in the forest in front of the city. On March 23, Hirsch happened to meet two of the men in front of the Aachen employment office.
On the evening of the 25th, part of the group set out to kill Franz Oppenhoff. Der and his wife Irmgard had put the children to bed before they went to meet friends in a neighboring house. The murderers knew nothing of the date. At 9 p.m. they broke into the house through a cellar window, but did not find the Oppenhoffs. So they improvised: They told the housekeeper that they were shot down German planes and that they urgently needed papers from the mayor. The unsuspecting woman brought Oppenhoff over.
Murder on the cellar door
The group’s leader, Herbert Wenzel, was supposed to commit the murder. But at the crucial moment he lost his nerve and stood there trembling. Leitgeb took the Walther pistol from him and shouted “Heil Hitler!” and shot Oppenhoff in the head. The whole group was then able to escape undetected. Radio Werwolf went on air on April 1st. The attack was celebrated here and all Nazis in the occupied zones were asked to follow the example. In fact, there was no further assassination attempt on a mayor.
From the camp in the forest, Leitgeb wanted to lead Ilse Hirsch, the young Morgenschweiss and Heidorn to the German lines. He had lost contact with other members in Aachen.
On the morning of the 27th, Leitgeb set off a mine in a meadow near Rollesbroich, and he died immediately. In the afternoon, Ilse Hirsch stumbled over a wire with a booby trap on the outskirts of Schleiden. Her right leg was badly injured. Morning sweat and Heidorn suffered injuries but were able to continue the march, but Ilse Hirsch left them behind. The next morning she was found by a peasant woman.
The next morning the young morning sweat couldn’t go any further and stayed behind. It was by pure chance that Heidorn met the rest of the group. Heidorn and Hennemann were still crossing the Rhine, but were arrested by a US patrol. Its importance was not recognized. They were imprisoned as normal prisoners of war. SS-Untersturmführer Wenzel had separated from the others beforehand and was never seen again. In the 1990s, the historian Hannes Heer assumed that he had tracked down Wenzel, according to which he is said to have lived in what is now Namibia under the name of Fritz Brandt and died in 1981.
Minimal prison sentences
SS General Prützmann killed himself with a poison capsule. In autumn 1949 Heidorn, Hennemann and Hirsch were brought to justice in Aachen. The young morning sweat was not charged and appeared as a witness.
Ilse Hirsch was acquitted because she was not present at the actual murder. Hennemann got 18 months, Heidorn only one year. The penalties were ridiculously low. For the judiciary at the time, it was crucial that the two had no authority whatsoever – all commanding officers had died. And none of the defendants had fired the fatal shot.
Ilse Hirsch continued to live in the Aachen area and had two children. She did not reappear politically and died in 2000.