@FOARP:

Yes, i should have included Breslau as well, but then Breslau is another one of those unique snowflakes:

Hanke was a special kind of fanatic (he was the political heir to Adolf Hitler after Himmler was stricken from the testament), who also commanded the Volkssturm there (though there were also sizable contigents of the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS and the Werksscharen) and was quite fond of the Eiserne Hand, e.g. shooting everybody not willing to fight for 'cowardice in front of the enemy', etc.

It was IIRC also one of the very few places where all men and boys who were even remotely combat-ready got systematically pulled out of the Flüchtlingstreks.



For the most part though Volkssturm, if they were not organized as Volksgrenadier-Divisions or attached to Wehrmacht units, organized piece-meal defences where a few HJ were shot before the whole company disintigrate into the countryside if they were not chased away by their superiors or scared away by the people supposed to bring them to their units.

One story my uncle was quite fond of telling was how he was called up for the Volkssturm, as a 15 year old Hitlerjunge.

A local farmer had been tasked with bringing all the boys, who for the most part left against the objections of their families, to a Sammelpunkt in the next city.

When they came to a forest, the farmer told them that he would now be totally occupied with driving the wagon until they came out of the forest and would not be able to pay attention to them.

One or two got the hint then, jumped of the wagon and disappeared into the forest. More followed.

Finally only my uncle and his two friends, all enflamed with love for the Führer, were still holding fast.

Then the farmer turned, glared and them and said:

"If you are not off the wagon and gone in the forest in 5 seconds, i will beat you off the wagon with my whip and all the way back to your parents."

The military exploits of my uncle ended that day and a spend the last 2 month of the war begrunding others their shot at military glory.

Same goes more or less for my grandfather on my fathers side (the Volkssturm assembled, marched out, and when they reached their Bereitungstellungsraum their Major, who also happened to be the towns mayor, declared "Obviously nobody is here, so we might as well go home!") and on my mothers side (wounded in 1944 and released on crutches from the Wehrmacht he was asked to train and lead the local Volkssturm but plead illness and unfitness).

Same goes for all my relatives who were either too old or too young to have been tasked with military service earlier.

Even the hardcore Hitlerjungen who were burning for a fight where either forced to stay at home by the family or chased away by their commanding officer ("Go home, the war is over!"). And they were not really equipped, neither mentally nor physically, for guerilla warfare (which would most likely have ended with them getting a tanning from their own side, for blowing up perfectly good whatever).