Otto Skorzeny

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Otto Skorzeny
June 12, 1908–July 6, 1975

Place of birth Vienna, Austria
Place of death Madrid, Spain
Allegiance Flag of Nazi Germany Nazi Germany
Years of service 1931–1945
Rank Obersturmbannführer
Battles/wars World War II
*Eastern Front
*Unternehmen Eiche
*Operation Panzerfaust
*Battle of the Bulge (Operation Greif)
Awards Iron Cross
Knight's Cross
Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross

Otto Skorzeny (June 12, 1908 – July 6, 1975) was a Obersturmbannführer in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he commanded a rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Skorzeny was also the leader of Operation Greif, through which German soldiers were to infiltrate through enemy lines, using their opponents' uniforms and customs. At the end of the war, Skorzeny was part of the Werwolf guerrilla movement.

Although charged with breaching the 1907 Hague Convention in relation with Operation Greif, the Dachau Military Tribunal acquitted Skorzeny after the war. Skorzeny fled from his holding prison in 1948, first to France, and then to Franco's Spain. A German court denazified him in 1952.

Contents

[edit] Before the war

Skorzeny in his childhood
Skorzeny in his childhood

Otto Skorzeny was born in Vienna into a middle-class Austrian family which had a long history of military service. In addition to his native German, he spoke excellent French and English.[1] In his teens, Otto once complained to his father of the austere lifestyle that his family was suffering from by mentioning how he had never tasted real butter in his life due to the depression that plagued Austria from the end of the first World War. To this complaint his father prophetically replied, "There is no harm in doing without things. It might even be good for you not to get used to a soft life." Thus his underprivileged upbringing helped to make him what he became--a feared commando[1]. He was a noted fencer as a student in Vienna in the 1920s. He engaged in thirteen personal duels. The tenth resulted in a wound that left a dramatic scar known in academic fencing as a schmiss (German for "smite") on his cheek.

He joined the Austrian Nazi Party in 1931 and soon he joined the Nazi SA. A charismatic figure, Skorzeny played a minor role in the Anschluss on March 12, 1938, when he saved the Austrian President Wilhelm Miklas from being shot by Nazi roughnecks.

[edit] The Eastern Front

After the 1939 invasion of Poland, Skorzeny, then working as a civil engineer, volunteered for service in the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) but was turned down because he was over the age of 30. Failing that, he turned to the Waffen-SS. On February 21, 1940, Skorzeny went off to war with the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and fought with distinction in the campaigns against the Soviet Union in 1941 and 1942 before being wounded and returning to Germany in December 1942, a winner of the Iron Cross for bravery under fire.

[edit] Operations

[edit] The liberation of Mussolini

After Skorzeny had recovered from his wounds, Ernst Kaltenbrunner recommended him as a possible leader of "commando" forces which German dictator Adolf Hitler wanted to create. After taking command of Sonder Lehrgang Oranienburg he was authorised to form SS-Jäger-Bataillon 502 in June 1943. In July 1943, he was personally selected by Hitler from among six German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) special agents to lead the operation to rescue Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who had been overthrown and imprisoned by the Italian government. [2]

Almost two months of cat-and-mouse followed as the Italians moved Mussolini from place to place in order to frustrate any would-be rescuers. Information on Mussolini's location and its topographical features were finally found by Herbert Kappler and air reconnaissance by Skorzeny himself. On September 12, Skorzeny took part in "Operation Oak" (Unternehmen Eiche), a daring glider-based assault on the Campo Imperatore Hotel at Gran Sasso. Mussolini was rescued without firing a single bullet. Skorzeny escorted Mussolini to Rome and later to Berlin. The exploit earned Skorzeny fame, promotion to Major and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

Mussolini created a new Fascist regime in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana).

[edit] Operation Long Jump

Operation "Long Jump", the failed plot to assassinate the "Big Three" (Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt) [3] was masterminded on Hitler's orders and headed by Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Otto Skorzeny, as the saboteur, who always seemed to have luck on his side, was chosen by Kaltenbrunner to spearhead the mission. However, the plot was foiled.

The first tip-off about the planned attempt came from Soviet intelligence agent Nikolai Kuznetsov, under the alias of Wehrmacht Oberleutnant Paul Siebert, from Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Kuznetsov, a legendary Soviet spy, got an SS man named Ulrich von Ortel to tell him about the operation.

In the autumn of 1943, fate thrust 19-year-old Gevork Vartanian into the centre of the operation. Vartanian was an intelligence agent and the son of a Soviet intelligence agent who worked in Iran under the cover of a wealthy merchant. He received his first assignment and the cover name Amir from the resident back in 1940. He was to form a group of like-minded people. All seven were of about the same age – Armenians, a Lezghin and an Assyrian – and they communicated in Russian and Persian. Under these conditions, Vartanian managed to thwart the Nazi plot. Vartanian was awarded with the Hero of the Soviet Union medal.

[edit] Operation Rösselsprung

On May 25, 1944, he was assigned to Operation Rösselsprung, a commando operation aimed at capturing Yugoslav Partisan leader Tito at his headquarters near Drvar. Hitler knew that Tito was getting allied support and was aware that either British or American troops might land in Dalmatia with support of the communist NOVJ, the Partisan People's Liberation Army Of Yugoslavia. Hence, killing or capturing Tito would not only have hindered this scenario, but also given a badly needed morale boost to the Axis forces in the Balkans. Skorzeny was involved in the planning of Rösselsprung and was supposed to command it but argued against it after visiting Zagreb and becoming aware that the operation was compromised due to the incompetence of German partners in NDH or the Independent State of Croatia. The Operation was attempted, and was a complete disaster. The first wave of paratroopers, following heavy bombardment by the Luftwaffe, jumped between Tito's hideout in a cave and the town of Drvar. They landed on open ground and many were gunned down by members of the partisan HQ Escort Battalion, a company numbering less than 100 soldiers. The second wave of paratroopers missed their target and landed several miles out of town. Tito was long gone when the paratroopers reached the cave. At the cave's exit was a path leading to a railroad where Tito boarded a train that took him to safety in the town of Jajce. In the meantime, the Partisan 1st Brigade, from the 6th Partisan Division Lika, arrived after a 12-mile (19 km) forced march and attacked the Waffen-SS paras, inflicting heavy casualties.

[edit] The July 20 1944 plot against Hitler

On July 20, 1944, Skorzeny was in Berlin when an attempt on Hitler's life was made, with German officials trying to seize control of Germany's main decision centers before Hitler recovered from his injuries. Skorzeny helped put down the rebellion in Berlin, spending 36 hours in charge of the German army's central command center before being relieved.

[edit] Hungary and Operation Panzerfaust

In October 1944, Hitler sent Skorzeny to Hungary when he received word that Hungary's Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, was secretly negotiating with the Red Army. The surrender of Hungary would have cut off a million German troops fighting in the Balkan peninsula. Skorzeny, in another daring "snatch" codenamed Operation Panzerfaust (also known as Operation Eisenfaust in Germany), kidnapped Horthy's son Miklós Horthy, Jr. and forced his father to abdicate as head of state. A pro-German, pro-Nazi government under dictator Ferenc Szálasi was then installed in Hungary. In April 1945, even after the German and Hungarian forces were driven out of Budapest and Hungary, Szálasi and his Arrow Cross Party-based forces continued to fight in Austria and Slovakia.

[edit] Operation Greif and Eisenhower

On October 21, Hitler, inspired by an American subterfuge which had put three captured German tanks flying German colours[citation needed] to devastating use at Aachen, summoned Skorzeny to Berlin and assigned him to lead a panzer brigade. As planned by Skorzeny in Operation Greif, about two dozen German soldiers, most of them in captured American army Jeeps and disguised as American soldiers, penetrated American lines in the early hours of the Battle of the Bulge and sowed disorder and confusion behind the Allied lines. A handful of his men were captured by the Americans and spread a rumour that Skorzeny was leading a raid on Paris to kill or capture General Eisenhower. The effect of this disinformation had Eisenhower confined to his headquarters for weeks and Skorzeny was labelled "the most dangerous man in Europe".

Skorzeny spent January and February 1945 commanding regular troops in the defence of the German provinces of Prussia and Pomerania as an acting major general. Fighting at Schwedt on the Oder River, he also received orders to sabotage a bridge on the Rhine at Remagen, but his frogmen failed. For his actions there, primarily in the defence of Frankfurt, Hitler awarded him one of Germany's highest military honours, the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross.

[edit] Werewolves and surrender

With German defeat inevitable, Skorzeny trained recruits for a stay-behind Nazi organisation, the Werewolves, to engage in guerrilla warfare against the Allies. However, Skorzeny quickly realized that the Werewolves were too few in number to become an effective fighting force. Instead, they were used for the Nazi "ratlines", a secret "Underground railroad" which helped Nazis escape after Germany's surrender.

Besides this organisation of the "ratlines," which would form the basis of the supposed ODESSA network after the war, Skorzeny had been employed since August 1944 by high-ranking Nazis and German industrialists to hide money and to loot property, documents, etc., some of which were buried in the mountains of Bavaria, and others shipped overseas.

Skorzeny surrendered to the Allies in May 1945, feeling that he could be of use to the Americans in the forthcoming Cold War. On May 16, 1945, he emerged from the Austrian woods near Salzburg and surrendered to a lieutenant of the US 30th Infantry Regiment. He was held as a prisoner of war for more than two years before being tried as a war criminal at the Dachau Trials for violating the laws of war in the Battle of the Bulge. However, Skorzeny was acquitted because although he had ordered his men to use American uniforms as a ruse, it could not be proven that he had given orders to fight in them.[4] One notable defence witness was F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, GC, MC & Bar, Croix de Guerre; a former allied SOE agent who agreed that allied clandestine organisations had used similar ruses when operating behing enemy lines. Nevertheless Skorzeny was detained awaiting denazification[5] until he escaped from a prison camp on July 27, 1948.

According to the book Commando Extraordinary it was also through a petition signed by British Commandos that led to the acquittal of Otto Skorzeny. The petition basically said that if Otto Skorzeny was charged with certain crimes then so too must the British Commandos because they were doing exactly the same thing during the war.

[edit] After World War II

Skorzeny after World War Two
Skorzeny after World War Two

He settled in Spain under a passport issued by Francisco Franco and resumed his prewar occupation as an engineer. Like thousands of other convicted or accused war criminals, in 1952, Skorzeny was declared entnazifiziert (denazified) in absentia by a West German government arbitration board, which let him travel from Spain into other Western countries. Before the declaration, he could have been interned in Germany or Austria until he had convinced the authorities that he had seen the error of his beliefs. He spent part of his time in Ireland between 1959-1969 where he bought Martinstown House, a 200-acre (0.81 km2) farm in County Kildare.

Skorzeny was alleged to have been involved in a network that aided former Nazi members after the war, Die Spinne[6][7] or ODESSA.[8]

He also founded the Paladin Group in 1970, a neo-fascist organisation which gathered former French members of the OAS, of the SAC, etc., to be the spearhead of the anti-Communist struggle.[citation needed] Later, he worked as a consultant to Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser and Argentine President Juan Peron.[citation needed] In 1963, he was allegedly recruited by the Mossad to gather information about German scientists in the Egyptian missile program[2].

[edit] Death

In 1970, a tumor was discovered on Skorzeny's spine. Two cancerous tumors were removed in Hamburg, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Vowing to walk again, Skorzeny spent long hours with a physical therapist, and within six months was back on his feet. The years following therapy were hard for Skorzeny, as the cancer reminded him that his final days were fast approaching. Otto Skorzeny finally succumbed to the cancer on 7 July 1975 in Madrid[9], a few months before Franco himself. He was cremated, his ashes were later brought to Vienna and interred in the Skorzeny family grave at Döblinger Friedhof.

[edit] Cultural references

[edit] References

  1. ^ Art Kramer
  2. ^ Otto Skorzeny's Memoirs: "Skorzeny's Special Missions: The Memoirs of the Most Dangerous Man in Europe" ISBN 978-1853676840
  3. ^ How ⌠The Lion And The Bear■ Were Saved - Russia Beyond the Headlines
  4. ^ Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals. United Nations War Crimes Commission. Vol. IX, 1949, pages 90-94. "The ten accused involved in this trial were all officers in the 150th Panzer Brigade commanded by the accused Skorzeny. They were charged with participating in the improper use of American uniforms by entering into combat disguised therewith and treacherously firing upon and killing members of the armed forces of the United States." "All accused were acquitted of all charges"
  5. ^ Token from Der Fuhrer Time Magazine, Monday, Aug. 09, 1948
  6. ^ "Otto Skorzeny, Nazi Commando, Dead", The New York Times (July 8, 1975). 
  7. ^ "Nazis: The Deadly Spider", Newsweek (July 21, 1975). 
  8. ^ Roger Eatwell (1996). Fascism: A History, 274. 
  9. ^ "Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie", Band 9 Schmidt - Theyer, K.G. Sauer, München 1998, ISBN 3-598-23169-5

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

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