Review: The Wehrwolf (short story) by Alma Katsu

MY ⭐️ RATING: 4.25/5

Format: Kindle Whispersync

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Germany, 1945. In the waning days of World War II, the Nazis have been all but defeated. Uwe Fuchs, never a fighter, feels fortunate to have avoided the front lines as he cared for his widowed mother.

But Uwe’s fortune changes when Hans Sauer, the village bully, recruits him to join a guerilla resistance unit preparing for the arrival of Allied soldiers. At first, Uwe is wary. The war is lost, and rumor has it that Hans is a deserter. But Hans entices him with talk of power, brutality, and their village’s ancestral lore: werewolves.

With some reluctance, Uwe joins up with the pack and soon witnesses their startling transformation. But when the men’s violent rampage against enemy soldiers takes a devastatingly personal turn, Uwe must grapple not only with his role in their evil acts but with his own humanity. Can he reclaim what this group of predatory men has stolen from him?

Or has he been a monster all along?

MY REVIEW

I really enjoyed this story, as it blends historical fiction and horror together. The story of the Wehrwolf militia who banded together after the Nazi army had fallen to the Allies, while also using the Germanic folklore in which the name was based on, as the real thing, as if the militia were actual werewolves themselves.

“the main lesson history has to teach us is that it’s easy to slip the skin of humanity and become a monster.”

One of the things I love about historical fiction is that it makes me look up what it’s based on. The Werewolf of Germany is not something I knew about so that was pretty cool getting to learn a little bit about WWII history and then getting a fictional story based on it. I also never realized a lot of the fairytales we know, seem to have possibly come from Germany folklore. Which also made this even more interesting.

This story was the perfect length, it had enough action and intrigue, and had an ending that I felt fit so right. I also thought that Jim Boeven did a good job of narrating this story! If you’re looking for a werewolf story and a little bit of history, I would definitely recommend this short story!