Otto Skorzeny: The Most Dangerous Man in Europe

Otto Skorzeny, henchman, assassin, commando, spy, double agent, mercenary. What was the truth about him? You asked for it a million times and you got it. Roll title! The Most Dangerous Man in Vienna Otto Skorzeny was born into a middle-class family in Vienna, Austria, on June 12, 1908. As a student he distinguished himself in scientific subjects, and after graduating he enrolled at the University of Vienna as an engineer. student. His great passion was fencing. He joined the University's fencing team and during a match received the prominent cheek scar, known in German as a "Schmiss", which was then a coveted sign of bravery among young Germans and Austrians.

In 1931, as Nazism gained popularity in Europe, Skorzeny joined the Austrian Nazi Party, filling the ranks of the local version of the SA's paramilitary brownshirts. Intelligent, ambitious and physically imposing at 6ft 4in, he must have been a valued member. Meanwhile, he obtained his degree and began working as a civil engineer. The Most Dangerous Man in Berlin Austria became part of Germany with the Anschluss of 1938. Then, when World War II broke out in 1939, Skorzeny applied to join the Wehrmacht. But his military career got off to a bumpy start when his application to join the Luftwaffe was denied. He was told that he was too tall and too old at the age of 31.

Instead, he joined the SS and became an officer cadet in the Liebstandarte, Hitler's bodyguard regiment. In 1940, Skorzeny was a second lieutenant in the Waffen-SS. His engineering skills came in handy when he designed special ramps for loading tanks onto ships. But he also demonstrated his bravery under fire during combats in Holland, France and the Balkans. Here he was decorated after capturing a large Yugoslav force and was promoted to first lieutenant. Skorzeny was then transferred to the Eastern Front after the launch of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, with the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich". He was part of the failed siege of Moscow and in December 1942, already a captain, he received a head wound caused by a piece of shrapnel.

Skorzeny was awarded the Iron Cross for his bravery and was then sent to Vienna to recover. While there, he became fascinated by the idea of ​​commando operations and read every book he could find about them. He then transformed those ideas into plans for unconventional warfare, which he presented to higher headquarters. And they began to realize. His concepts soon reached the desk of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the new head of the Reich security services and successor to Reinhard Heydrich. Skorzeny's ideas were passed on to General Schellenberg, head of the SS foreign intelligence service. Skorzeny and Schellenberg met and the general was so impressed that he appointed him commander of the newly created Waffen Sonderverband z.b.V.

Friedenthal, an SS unit dedicated to special operations. His career as a command leader had only just begun. The Most Dangerous Man in a Glider Skorzeny and his unit undertook their first mission in the summer of 1943: Operation François. The plan was to organize the nomadic Qashqai people of Iran into an armed guerrilla force that could serve the German war effort. Skorzeny's paratroopers were also assigned to disrupt supply lines between the Allies and the Soviets and turn the local population against the Allied presence. Skorzeny parachuted into northern Iran loaded with gold and explosives. His intention was to bribe the elders of the tribe and gain their support for the mobilization of the entire town.

The operation turned out to be a failure: a fellow agent, Paul Ernst Fackenheim, commented that as soon as they ran out of gold, the Persians sold it to the British. Skorzeny's next mission would be his

most

famous and spectacular success: Operation Oak, the rescue of Benito Mussolini, imprisoned after the monarchist coup of July 1943. First, Skorzeny had to find Mussolini. The former dictator was continually moved from one hiding place to another, but the Germans discovered him in a villa on the island of La Maddalena, near Sardinia. Skorzeny then flew over the site in a Heinkel He-111 bomber to take aerial photographs of the site, but the plane was shot down by Allied fighters and crashed into the sea.

Skorzeny and his men were rescued by an Italian warship. Mussolini was moved again and the persecution continued. Eventually, Skorzeny tracked him down to the Hotel Campo Imperatore, a remote, fortified resort on the Gran Sasso mountain in central Italy. The hotel was only accessible by funicular. He, Luftwaffe General Kurt Student, and Major Otto-Harald Mors, commander of a parachute battalion, devised a workable plan. Skorzeny assembled a team of 107 commandos who would land in gliders. On September 12, 1943, the gliders approached the hotel. Skorzeny realized too late that what he thought was a patch of grass was a rocky slope. His glider al

most

crashed, but he managed to escape unscathed.

Twelve minutes later, Skorzeny had found Mussolini and not a single person had died. The Führer, delighted with Skorzeny, awarded him the Knight's Cross. As a result, he became Hitler's favorite commando and the Allies dubbed him “the most

dangerous

man in Europe”… although propaganda chief Dr. Goebbels may have been the first to give him that title. However, propaganda coverage of the event obscured the fact that most of the planning and execution was to be attributed to Skorzeny's associates, General Student and Major Mors. Skorzeny stole the thunder by ensuring that he would be the one to escort Mussolini to the getaway plane in full view of the cameras.

However, Skorzeny must be credited for the stroke of genius that ensured the raid was bloodless. He had secured the cooperation of General Soleti of the Carabinieri, the military police. In fact, Soleti was the first to approach the hotel and ordered the heavily armed military police to leave. It should be noted that images and photographs of the event show many of the Italian guards posing with big smiles next to Mussolini and Skorzeny, hinting at their true loyalties. According to the testimonies of one of the guards, Mussolini seemed to be the least happy to have been rescued... Skorzeny's next mission was Operation Long Jump, in November 1943.

His ambitious objective was to kill or kidnap the leaders of the "Big Three" of the Allies. - Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, at their strategic conference in Tehran, Iran. A first group of six German agents landed in Qom, before heading to Tehran on camelback. Skorzeny was supposed to join the group with a second team of assassins. Unfortunately for them, a few months earlier, SS officer von Ortel, the planner of the operation, had just befriended a Wehrmacht lieutenant in a Copenhagen bar. Drunk to the bone, Ortel had spilled the beans on the long jump. That lieutenant, well, he was a Soviet intelligence officer in disguise.

Roosevelt and Churchill were alerted to the plot and were kept safe in the Soviet embassy. The NKVD then seized the six German commandos and forced them to radio Skorzeny's team that the operation had failed. To give a complete picture, some sources claim that this plot never existed. It was simply a cunning ruse by Stalin and/or the NKVD to force Western leaders to remain inside the Soviet embassy, ​​where their conversations could be easily intercepted. The next high-level coup commissioned from Skorzeny was the capture of Tito, Operation Knight Leap. Here too, Skorzeny and his commandos attacked with gliders, while conventional forces engaged Tito's supporters around their mountain helicopters.

Did I say helicopters? Sorry, I meant headquarters. In any case, the partisans' resistance was fierce, stopping the pincer movement and allowing Tito to escape. Skorzeny finally had time to shine after July 20, 1944, following the bombing attempt against Hitler. In his memoirs, he claimed that he played an integral role in restoring order in Berlin, where conspirators had initiated the "Valkyrie" plot to overthrow the regime. Skorzeny infiltrated the conspirators' base of operations and had the "Valkyrie" order rescinded. This was an order intended to quell a possible coup, but the conspirators had cleverly exploited it to deceive German troops into arresting loyal Nazi officials.

Skorzeny's actions helped dispel confusion, reestablish communications with the Führer Headquarters, and prevent a possible civil war between German troops. Skorzeny took over the administration of the Wehrmacht until normality returned. Once again, Hitler was delighted. In October 1944 he sent him to Budapest to direct Operation Panzerfaust, also known as Operation Mickey Mouse. The Führer was dissatisfied with the Hungarian leader, Admiral Horthy, an uneasy ally against the Soviet Union, who was actually pro-American and had always refused to deport the Jewish population. The Germans learned that he was negotiating with the Allies and Skorzeny was sent to impose punishment.

Skorzeny and his commandos broke into the presidential palace, seized the admiral's son, wrapped him in a rug, and kidnapped him. Horthy was forced to negotiate and eventually resign. His leadership was replaced by a puppet government under the staunchly anti-Semitic Arrow Cross party. Over the next 56 days, an estimated 320,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. Another 100,000 died of hunger or disease. In December 1944, Skorzeny launched his most infamous mission: Operation Greif or "Griffin." The objective was to capture key bridges over the Meuse River during the Battle of the Bulge, the last German offensive in the West.

Skorzeny's plan was ingenious: he selected commandos who spoke fluent English, dressed them in American uniforms, and sent them behind enemy lines in Belgium to sow panic and confusion. Skorzeny's men cut communication cables, gave false orders and diverted traffic signals. The Americans became paranoid: some soldiers shot each other, while others interrogated their comrades about American popular culture to identify whether they were German agents. If you were an American, but didn't care about baseball or movie stars, you could be arrested! At one point, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery refused to show his identification and had the tires shot out of his car.

They then dragged him to a barn and restrained him until his identity could be confirmed. Skorzeny spread the false rumor among his men that the real objective was the assassination of General Eisenhower, with headquarters in Paris. German agents captured by the Americans confessed to this plot. As a result, Eisenhower was practically arrested for his own protection. Griffin ultimately failed and many Germans were easily identified and shot as spies. As the Reich fell apart, Skorzeny's last involvement was in Operation Wolfman. It was a resistance movement, composed mostly of members of the Hitler Youth, trained in guerrilla tactics to oppose an Allied occupation.

In reality, it was a desperate propaganda ploy by Goebbels to raise morale. But Skorzeny hijacked the plan and used this small force to help escaping senior Nazi officials. The Soviet NKVD, probably overestimating the size and importance of Werewolf, killed approximately 5,000 children, ages 15 to 17, for suspected guerrilla activity. A few days after Hitler's suicide, Skorzeny surrendered to the Americans. He was a highly decorated and highly respected military professional, but his directive that his men wear American uniforms got him into trouble. This was considered a war crime and he was tried in 1947. Fortunately for him, he escaped execution when British SOE agents confirmed that they wore German uniforms during the war.

But he had to answer to other charges. However, before he could be prosecuted, Skorzeny escaped from the POW camp with the help of two former SS men, dressed as American military police. He later claimed that this was a plan by the OSS, the CIA's predecessor: his freedom in exchange for his services. Was this true? The most

dangerous

man in Madrid Skorzeny hid first in Bavaria, then in Salzburg and finally in Spain, where he cooperated with the military and intelligence services of Francisco Franco. He was “denazified” in absentia by a German court in 1952, but was still a “person of interest” to the famous Austrian Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

In any case, he could lead an open life. He had a young wife, Ilse von Finckenstein. He had several legitimate activities: an engineering company, an import-export business... and a mercenary security company. But he apparently had time for other tasks. He founded a neo-Nazi group called CEDADE, the Spanish Circle of Friends of Europe, andrumored to have smuggled former Nazis to South America. Particularly in Argentina, where he briefly served as military advisor to Juan Perón. In particular, he was Evita's bodyguard. There are even rumors of a romance between the two. I wonder who could have spread them...

In the late 50's he became obsessed with gaining entry to the UK. This may be why in 1959 Otto Skorzeny bought a farm in County Kildare, Ireland. He was granted temporary visas to remain in Ireland, but state records mention his outrage at the British authorities' continued refusal to allow him entry to the United Kingdom. Newspaper articles from the 1960s give another version: his farm in Ireland was a place where fleeing Nazis could hide, but no evidence was found to support this claim. Maybe he just liked Guinness? The most dangerous man in Tel Aviv And now something really disconcerting.

As a former SS fugitive who had indirectly contributed to the deportation of Hungarian Jews, Skorzeny was well aware that his name was at the top of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal's list. And so, he was the first to be surprised when agents from Mossad, Israeli intelligence, came to recruit him… Early 1962. Skorzeny was having a few drinks in a bar in Madrid with his wife Ilse. The two befriended another younger couple of German tourists, who had just been mugged and were looking for help. The two couples continued drinking and apparently flirting until the Skorzenys invited them to their villa.

Just when things seemed to, well... start... well, they did start, but in a different way. Skorzeny pointed a gun at the couple: “I know who they are and I know why they are here. You are the Mossad and you have come here to kill me! The man responded: “If we had come to kill you, you would have been dead weeks ago.” The two agents were there to offer Skorzeny a deal: they needed his services and would pay handsomely. Skorzeny was not interested in money. What he wanted was to be removed from Wiesenthal's list. Mossad agents agreed.

Skorzeny was flown to Tel Aviv, where he met with Mossad agent Joe Ranaan. He was also Viennese, but as a Jew he had lost his entire family in the camps. Ranaan took the former SS to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, and noted that he seemed respectful. Skorzeny's mission was to thwart Egypt's military rocket program, led by Heinz Krug, a German scientist formerly associated with Werner Von Braun. The Austrian command was shown a letter from Wiesenthal, agreeing to the removal of his name from the list of Nazi criminals. In reality, Wiesenthal had refused. The letter was a Mossad forgery.

Skorzeny kept his promise and delivered, big time. He flew to Egypt and identified all the German scientists working on the program. He then exposed several companies across Europe that were secretly selling rocket components to the Egyptians. He even carried out an intimidation campaign against scientists and mailed explosive packages prepared by the Mossad, killing five Egyptian technicians. One day in 1962, while in Madrid, Skorzeny received a phone call. It was Heinz Krug, the program's lead scientist. Krug was scared to death and sought Skorzeny's help and protection. Skorzeny stayed with him in Munich. As he drove him out of the city in a white Mercedes, he reassured him: he had already hired some bodyguards and they were heading to meet him.

As they got out of the car and headed into the woods, Skorzeny shot Krug. Three Mossad agents then took charge of the body by dissolving it in acid. Skorzeny's job was done. He hadn't made a cent from it. He didn't know it but he was still on Wiesenthal's list. But at least the Mossad would save him. The Most Dangerous Man in a FOIA Search Engine Another famous intelligence service associated with Otto Skorzeny was the CIA. We wanted to verify this claim directly at the source and so we did a little digging on the CIA's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) search engine.

A brief memo states that in 1961 Skorzeny had a plan to kidnap Fidel Castro. This plan had the approval of CIA Director Allen Dulles, but had been vetoed by JFK. There is one catch: the memo cites an interview published by Skorzeny to a Peruvian newspaper in 1966. Knowing the man's knack for self-publicity, can we really believe this? So, we delved deeper. On January 26, 1951, John J. McCloy, American High Commissioner to Occupied Germany, sent a report to the Secretary of State from Germany. McCloy reports that Chancellor Adenauer was concerned about rumors that Skorzeny was training the Spanish army with covert support from the United States.

McCloy was not aware of this plan and admitted it was concerning. The CIA knew very well that Skorzeny was in Spain. They learned of this from a letter dated September 21, 1949, sent by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Skorzeny had been seen “working in Spain with a group of Nazis with Franco's blessing.” In April 1951, the CIA was monitoring Skorzeny's activities in Madrid. In particular, they wrote about internal disputes between former Nazi officers, with concerns that they would become public. The memo says: “We see the potential for an unfavorable publicity breakup as a result of Skorzeny's maneuvers. We consider it important that we fully clarify our interests and any connection with the United States.

Can you explain Skorzeny's claims related to or supported by American Colonel Thompson or Stimpson? See categorical denial” The agent asks the question: is it possible that the CIC, the Counterintelligence Corps, is after Skorzeny? The CIC was a Cold War-era secret service within the ranks of the US military. Moving into the 1960s, the CIA closely followed Skorzeny's relationship with "UPHILL", which appears to be a code name for an organization. One report claims that Uphill's boss had warned that US support for Skorzeny would be a source of embarrassment for the White House. This is similar to Adenauer's warning.

The picture emerging so far is that some American agency, possibly the CIC, had some kind of contact with him, and German authorities had warned the United States to be careful about it. But what about Skorzeny's relationship with other powers? There is another document that complicates things even more. The agent signs himself as "Heckenschuetze", "sniper". We'll post the link in the description so you can read it in full, but here's the gist. At the end of 1943, sensing that the War would be lost, Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary, created a secret organization called 'HACKE'. It was so exclusive that it only had 35 members.

And so secretive that not even Himmler noticed. Hacke's goal was to ensure the survival of Nazi officials in the event of defeat. To do this, Hacke accumulated $500 million from concentration camp victims and created hideouts in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Japan and Argentina. But the twist is that Soviet intelligence had infiltrated this network, apparently blackmailing Bormann, so that they would not reveal Hacke's existence to Himmler. Hacke remained active after the war, but here comes another twist: “One of the dark and dangerous KGB figures in Hacke is the famous SS Colonel Skorzeny, who currently lives in Madrid and also works for ISIS (ISIS). intelligence) Spanish.

Skorzeny was being actively developed by Abakumow as early as 1942... Skorzeny was eventually recruited as Abakumow's collaborator in mid-1944, Abakumow being a Soviet intelligence general. His plan was to exploit former Nazi officials and agents based in America. To be fair, the author of the document states that it is not clear whether Abakumow succeeded in his plans and looks for other clues that confirm Skorzeny's loyalty to the KGB. One of these clues is that Skorzeny was very close to another former Nazi agent, Karl Rudl. The Vatican (!!!!!) had entrusted them with a secret mission to smuggle a Hungarian cardinal out of prison.

Rudl was actually an agent of Abakumow, who intended to hijack the prison escape to shoot the Cardinal. Rudl smelled a rat: he would probably be shot too, while Abakumow would leave Skorzeny alive. And so, he aborted the operation. In summary, from the 40s to the 60s Otto Skorzeny was A commando of the Nazi security services A possible double agent for the Soviets A member of the neo-Nazi 'HACKE' network An agent of Franco's intelligence A Mossad hitman A possible US CIC Informant A Vatican Agent As you can see, our initial question: "Did Skorzeny work for the CIA?" seems irrelevant now.

The answer is probably not. In any case, his calendar was too full to include them. The most dangerous man no longer exists. In his last years, Otto Skorzeny fell ill with lung cancer. On July 5, 1975 he died in Madrid at the age of 67. He had two funerals, one in Madrid, and another in his family plot in Vienna. In both he received full Nazi honors: the veterans gave him the Nazi salute and sang some of Hitler's favorite songs. Among those present, a man stood by. He did not join in the nostalgic Nazi paraphernalia, but instead offered a silent salute to a fellow secret agent and fighter.

Someone he had grown up hating, but whom he had learned to respect. That man was Mossad agent Joe Ranaan. And it is with this strange image of an Israeli spy at a Nazi funeral that we end our story today. An image that sums up the career of a man who had clearly been a follower of Nazi ideology, but who was ultimately loyal only to himself. I'd like to propose a little game for the comments section: Take a look at the CIA FOIA search page, the link is below, and search, perhaps for a famous personality or event, or even his own name. why not?

And tell us what you discovered! As always, thanks for watching.