Page 129 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Summer 2016

Modern Irregular Warfare in

Defense Policy and as a Military Phenomenon

English Edition: von der Heydte, Friedrich August Freiherr. Modern Irregular Warfare in Defense Policy
and as a Military Phenomenon. New York, NY: New Benjamin Franklin House; 1986.
ISBN: 0-933488-49-1. 299 pages.

German Edition: von der Heydte, Friedrich August Freiherr. Der moderne Kleinkrieg als wehrpolitisches und
militärisches Phänomen. Würzburg, West Germany: Holzner-Verlag; 1986.
ISBN-10: 3925725032/ISBN-13: 978-3925725036. 312 pages.
Review by COL (Ret) Warner “Rocky” D. Farr, MD, MPH

riedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte was a Second Volkmann, and so on. General von der Heydte approaches
FWorld War Luftwaffe paratroop officer who jumped into terrorism and covert warfare under the cloud of the atomic
Crete, a recipient of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, a weapons of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization–Warsaw
professor of West German Constitu- Pact standoff, the increased risk of total war, and the global-
tional Law after the war, and also a ization of the bipolar foreign policy between the Soviets and
Bundeswehr reserve Brigadier General— the United States. He views leftist movements as long-lasting
clearly someone who had a long and violent confrontations against the regime, which are initially
varied career! He was also a cousin of of low intensity but then gradually increase over time as UW/
Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauf- GW movements, which attempt to isolate the enemy (i.e., the
fenberg, of the anti-Hitler 20 July plot government) during the struggle, to then morally wear it down
of 1944. and win. This book was written during the heyday of all the
communist “wars of national liberation” that were being vic-
General von der Heydte’s book, which torious throughout the Third World.
is available in either German or Eng-
lish (I have both), was first published Some of the West Germans viewed all domestic terrorism and
in 1972, with a second edition in 1986 when it was updated leftist activity as covert warfare resorted to by the Soviet–East
in light of the leftist German political party, the Greens, who German bloc as an alternative to more traditional warfare,
were battling against the peaceful use of nuclear energy in which increased the risk of thermonuclear war. The West Ger-
West Germany. mans were undergoing their post-war “economic miracle,”
and viewed a globalized foreign policy as increasingly impor-
This is one of the few books I have tant for people who wanted to expand their “informal em-
read that views urban guerrilla war as a pire” and make successful economic policy. The book flyleaf
veiled ideology within the economic and states: “The study describes the modern guerrilla warfare as a
power-political intentions of a super strategic model—as a model of a total, sensing the whole of
power that uses terrorism as a weapon the state and the people, guided by any means, long-lasting, vi-
disguised as environmental concern. olent confrontation, which is initially of low military intensity,
General von der Heydte approaches however, the tendency to gradual increase followed. In such a
both terrorism and covert warfare in the dispute, the side that succeeds, over time psychologically and
context of weapons of mass destruction physically isolate the enemy during battle and morally to wear
and within the increasing risk of global down, so that it arrives sooner or later to all conditions re-
war. He describes modern guerrilla war- quired of it prevails . . .”
fare through a strategic model—a model
of the totality of the state and its people, with unconventional/ So, why should you bother hunting up a 60-year-old German
guerrilla warfare (UW/GW) as but one tool. book? Well, because in the back of the book is the best bibliog-
raphy (for the 1960s) of urban UW/GW that I have ever seen,
Although the literature on UW/GW is seemingly vast, the and because it discusses social political factions as guerrilla
literature on urban UW/GW, specifically, is not. We (the movements and attempts to place UW/GW in a total war con-
Americans) had an urban UW unit in post-war West Berlin struct. Used copies are available on Amazon.com for less than
(Detachment “A,” or the 39th Special Forces Detachment), $20.00 and on Amazon.de for less than €5.00. More infor-
but most of our doctrine and our shared tribal history is still mation on the author can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org
“rural.” When we think of UW/GW, we think Tito’s Yugosla- /wiki/Friedrich_August_Freiherr_von_der_Heydte.
via, France’s Marquis, the Philippines with Colonels Fertig and

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