The Wehrwolf

A Short Story

By: Alma Katsu

Narrated by: Jim Boeven

Alma Katsu, the visionary author of The Fervor, The Hunger, and The Deep, brings readers a terrifying short story about monsters among men—and the thin lines that divide them.

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?

©2022 Alma Katsu. (P)2022 Brilliance Publishing, In., all rights reserved.

A cautionary tale for our times

A great story and a great listen. A reminder that if we fail to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. It serves as a reflection on our times, failure to head the voices of compassion and care, anyone can be a monster.

Enjoyable short story.

I really enjoyed the narrator. I think he did a great job. I also enjoyed the story. It has a fast enough pace and kept me interested throughout.

Profound story

Original spin on werewolves and a chilling condemnation of America sinking into fascism. Fantastic story all around

Excellent story and narration

I'm not into historical fiction, and anything around the World Wars bores me to absolute tears. It's the most overdone and nauseatingly dull time period in historical fiction. I have two books preordered that will be out tomorrow, so I wanted something short. Alma Katsu gets recommended to me often. I figured I would pass the time with this.

With expectations about as low as they could get, I am beyond thrilled at how good this novella was! The war was barely window dressing to the story, and didn't punch the reader in the face with its "message." (Yes, nazis bad, ho hum ho hum...) The author's note at the end about 6 January was more relevant to the plot. THANK YOU, ALMA KATSU!

This is a classic story of good versus evil, who decides which is which, and what lines need to be crossed (or avoided) for a person to believe they are still right.

Chilling Tale of Monsters

This was a chilling story set in WW II Germany about how ordinary men can become monsters literally and figuratively. A good man who is a farmer and loves his family is drawn into something that spirals out of control. You can feel the tension in the air throughout the story. Very well done and the author’s note is a reminder that humans can become the worst monsters of all. I listened to this on audio and the narrator read this in an attempted German accent that needs work.