Biography of Otto Skorzeny,Otto Skorzeny: The Most Dangerous Man in Europe,otto skorzeny

                                                          

                         Biography of Otto Skorzeny

Otto Skorzeny, henchman, assassin, commando,spy, double-agent, mercenary. What was the truth about him? You asked for him like a million times, yougot him. Roll title! The Most Dangerous Man in Vienna Otto Skorzeny was born into a middle-classfamily in Vienna, Austria, on June 12, 1908. As a student he distinguished himself in scientifictopics, and after graduating he enlisted at the University of Vienna as an engineeringstudent. 

His great passion was fencing. He joined the University fencing team andduring a match he received the prominent scar on his cheek, known in German as a ‘Schmiss’which was then a coveted mark of bravery among German and Austrian youth. In 1931, as Nazism was gaining popularityin Europe, Skorzeny joined the Austrian Nazi Party, filling the ranks of the local versionof the paramilitary SA Brownshirts. Clever, ambitious and physically imposingat 6 ft 4 [1.93 Metres] he must have been a valued member. In the meanwhile he had earned his degreeand had started working as a civil engineer. 

The Most Dangerous Man in BerlinAustria had become part of Germany with the 1938 Anschluss. So, when World War II broke out in 1939, Skorzenyapplied to join the Wehrmacht. But his military career got off to a bumpystart when his application to join the Luftwaffe was denied. He was told he was too tall and too old atthe age of 31. Instead, he joined the SS and became an officer-cadetin the Liebstandarte, Hitler’s bodyguard regiment. In 1940, Skorzeny was a second lieutenantin the Waffen-SS. His engineering skills proved useful whenhe designed special ramps to load tanks onto ships. But he also proved his courage under fireduring combat in Holland, France, and the Balkans. Here he was decorated after capturing a largeYugoslav force, and was promoted to first lieutenant. Skorzeny was then transferred to the EasternFront after the launch of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, with the 2nd SS Panzer Division“Das Reich”.

 He was part of the unsuccessful siege of Moscowand in December 1942, now a captain, received a head wound from a piece of shrapnel. Skorzeny was awarded the Iron Cross for bravery,and then sent home to Vienna to recuperate. While there, he became fascinated by the ideaof commando operations and read all the books he could find about them. He then transformed those ideas into plansfor unconventional warfare, which he submitted to higher headquarters. And they started to take notice. His concepts soon reached the desk of ErnstKaltenbrunner, the new head of the Reich security services and successor to Reinhard Heydrich. Skorzeny’s ideas were passed on to GeneralSchellenberg, head of the SS foreign intelligence service. Skorzeny and Schellenberg met and the Generalwas so impressed that he appointed him as commander of the newly created Waffen Sonderverbandz.b.V. Friedenthal, an SS unit dedicated to specialoperations. His career as a commando leader had just begun.

 The Most Dangerous Man on a GliderSkorzeny and his unit launched into their first mission in the summer of 1943: OperationFrançois. The plan was to organize the nomadic Qashqaipeople, in Iran, into an armed guerrilla force which could serve the German war effort. Skorzeny’s paratroopers were also assignedto disrupt the supply lines between the Allies and the Soviets and to turn the local populationagainst the Allied presence. Skorzeny parachuted into Northern Iran packedwith gold and explosives. His intention was to bribe the tribesmen eldersand win their support for the mobilization of the entire people.

 The operation proved to be a failure: a fellowagent, Paul Ernst Fackenheim, made a remark that as soon as they were out of gold, thePersians sold them to the British. Skorzeny’s next mission would prove hismost famous and spectacular success: Operation Oak, the rescue of Benito Mussolini, imprisonedafter the Monarchist coup in July 1943. First Skorzeny had to find Mussolini. The ex-dictator was continually moved fromone hiding place to another, but the Germans discovered him at a villa on the isle of LaMaddalena, near Sardinia. Skorzeny then flew over in a Heinkel He-111bomber to take aerial photos of the location, but the plane was shot down by Allied fightersand crashed into the sea. Skorzeny and his men were rescued by an Italianwarship. Mussolini was moved again and the chase continued. Finally, Skorzeny tracked him down to theCampo Imperatore Hotel, a remote and fortified resort on the Gran Sasso mountain in centralItaly. 

The hotel was accessible only by funicular. He, Luftwaffe General Kurt Student and MajorOtto-Harald Mors, a paratrooper battalion commander, came up with a workable plan. Skorzeny assembled a team of 107 commandoswho would be landed in gliders. On the 12th of September 1943 the glidersapproached the hotel. Skorzeny realised too late that what he thoughtto be a patch of grass was a rocky incline. His glider almost crashed, but he made itout in one piece. Twelve minutes later, Skorzeny had found Mussoliniand not one person had been killed. The Fuhrer, delighted with Skorzeny, awardedhim the Knights Cross. 

As a result, he became Hitler’s favouritecommando and was dubbed “the most dangerous man in Europe” by the Allies … althoughpropaganda chief Dr Goebbels may have been the first to give him that title. Propaganda coverage of the event however hidthe fact that most of the planning and execution had to be credited to Skorzeny’s associates,General Student and Major Mors. Skorzeny stole their thunder by making surehe would be the one escorting Mussolini to the get-away plane in full view of the cameras. Skorzeny though should be recognised withthe stroke of genius that ensured the raid was bloodless. He had secured the cooperation of GeneralSoleti of the Carabinieri, the military police. Soleti was actually the first one to approachthe Hotel and ordered the heavily armed military policemen to stand down. It should be noted that footage and photosof the event show many of the Italian guards posing with big smiles by Mussolini and Skorzeny,hinting at their true loyalties. Based on testimonies from one of the guards,Mussolini seemed to be the least happy to have been rescued …The next mission for Skorzeny was Operation Long Jump, November 1943. Its ambitious goal was to kill or kidnap theAllies’ “Big Three” leaders - Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt—at their strategicconference in Tehran, Iran. 

A first group of six German operatives landedin Qom, before proceeding to Teheran on camel back. Skorzeny was supposed to join the group witha second team of assassins. Unfortunately for them, a few months earlier,the Operation’s planner SS officer von Ortel had just made friends with a Wehrmacht Lieutenantin a bar in Copenhagen. Blind drunk, Ortel had spilled the beans onLong Jump. That lieutenant, well he was a Soviet intelligenceofficer in disguise. Roosevelt and Churchill were alerted to theplot and were kept safe at the Soviet Embassy. The NKVD then seized the six German commandosand forced them to radio to Skorzeny's team that the operation had failed. To give the full picture, some sources claimthat this plot never existed. It was just a clever ruse of Stalin and/orthe NKVD to force the Western leaders to stay inside the Soviet Embassy, where their conversationscould be easily bugged. 

The next high level hit commissioned to Skorzenywas the capture of Tito, Operation Knight’s Leap. Also in this case Skorzeny and his commandosattacked by gliders, while conventional forces engaged Tito’s partisans around his mountainhelicopters. Did I say helicopters? Sorry, I meant headquarters. In any case, the partisans’ resistance wasfierce, stalling the pincer movement and allowing Tito to escape. Skorzeny would finally have time to shineafter the 20th of July 1944, following the attempted bombing on Hitler. In his memoir, he claimed he played an integralpart in restoring order to Berlin, where the conspirators had initiated plan ‘Valkyrie’to topple the regime. Skorzeny infiltrated the conspirators’ baseof operations and had the “Valkyrie” order rescinded. This was an order intended to quell a possiblecoup, but had been cleverly exploited by the conspirators to trick German troops into arrestingloyal Nazi officials. Skorzeny’s actions contributed to dissipateconfusion, restore communications to Fuhrer Headquarters and preventing a possible civilwar between German troops. Skorzeny took charge of Wehrmacht administrationuntil normalcy returned. Again, Hitler was delighted.

 In October 1944 he dispatched him to Budapestto lead Operation Panzerfaust, aka Operation Mickey Mouse. The Fuehrer was not pleased with Hungarianleader Admiral Horthy, an uneasy ally against the Soviet Union, who was actually pro-Americanand had always refused to deport the Jewish population. The Germans got wind that he was negotiatingwith the allies and Skorzeny was sent to exact punishment. Skorzeny and his commandos stormed the presidentialpalace, seized the Admiral’s son, rolled him into a carpet and kidnapped him. Horthy was forced to negotiate, and eventuallyto stand down. His leadership was replaced by a puppet governmentunder the Arrow Cross party, staunchly anti-Semitic. During the following 56 days, an estimated320,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. Another 100,000 starved or died of disease. In December of 1944 Skorzeny launched hismost infamous mission: Operation Greif, or ‘Griffin’. The goal was to capture key bridges over theMeuse river during the Battle of the Bulge, the last German offensive in the West. Skorzeny’s plan was ingenious: he selectedcommandos who were fluent in English, dressed them in American uniforms and sent them behindenemy lines in Belgium to spread panic and confusion. Skorzeny’s men cut communication wires,issued fake orders, and turned around road signs. 

The Americans grew paranoid: some GIs firedon each other, while others grilled their mates about American popular culture to identifyif they were German agents. If you were American, but did not care aboutbaseball nor movie stars, you could get arrested! At one point, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomeryrefused to show his ID and had his car tires shot out. He was then dragged into a barn and restraineduntil his identity could be confirmed. Skorzeny spread the false rumour among hismen that the real aim was the assassination of General Eisenhower, headquartered in Paris. German agents captured by the Americans, confessedto this plot. As a result, Eisenhower was put under virtualarrest for his own protection. Griffin eventually failed and many Germanswere easily identified and shot as spies. As the Reich crumbled, Skorzeny’s finalinvolvement was with Operation Werewolf. This was a resistance movement, mostly composedof Hitler Youth members, trained in guerrilla tactics to oppose an Allied occupation. It actually was a desperate propaganda ruseby Goebbels to raise morale. But Skorzeny hijacked the plan and used thissmall force to aid the escaping Nazi high officials. The Soviet NKVD, probably overestimating thesize and importance of Werewolf, killed roughly 5,000 boys, aged 15 to 17, for suspected guerrillaactivity. 

A few days after Hitler’s suicide, Skorzenyhanded himself over to the Americans. He was a highly decorated, well-respectedmilitary professional but his directive for his men to wear American uniforms got himin trouble. This was considered a war crime and was puton trial in 1947. Luckily for him, he escaped execution whenBritish SOE operatives confirmed they wore German uniforms during the war. But he had to answer from other charges. Before he could be prosecuted, though, Skorzenyescaped from the POW camp with the help of two ex-SS men, dressed as American militarypolice. He later claimed this was a plan of the OSS,the CIA’s predecessor: his freedom, in return for his services. Was this true? The Most Dangerous Man in MadridSkorzeny first hid in Bavaria, then Salzburg and finally Spain, where he cooperated withFrancisco Franco’s military and intelligence services. He was “de-Nazified” in absentia by aGerman court in 1952 but was still a “person of interest” for the famed Austrian Nazihunter, 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 engineeringfirm, an import-export business … and a mercenary security company. But he apparently had time for other endeavours. 

He founded a Neo-Nazi group called CEDADE,the Spanish Circle of Friends of Europe and is rumoured to have smuggled ex-Nazis to SouthAmerica. Particularly in Argentina, where he servedbriefly as military advisor to Juan Perón. Most notably he was bodyguard to Evita. There are even rumours of an affair betweenthe two. I wonder who may have spread them …In the late 50s he became fixated with gaining entry to the UK. This may be the reason why in 1959 Otto Skorzenybought a farm in County Kildare, Ireland. He was granted temporary visas to stay inIreland, but state records mention his indignation at the continual refusal of the British authoritiesto allow him entry in the UK. Newspaper reports in the 1960s give anotherversion: his farm in Ireland was a place where fleeing Nazis could hide, but no evidencewas found to substantiate this claim. Maybe he just liked the Guinness? The Most Dangerous Man in Tel AvivAnd now for something truly puzzling. As an escaped former SS, who had indirectlycontributed to the deportation of the Hungarian Jews, Skorzeny knew very well that his namewas top in the list of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. And so, he was the first one to be surprisedwhen agents of the Mossad, Israeli intelligence, came to recruit him …Early 1962.

 Skorzeny was having some drinks at a bar inMadrid with his wife Ilse. The two befriended another younger coupleof German tourists, who had just been robbed and were looking for some help. The two couples went on drinking and, apparently,flirting, until the Skorzenys invited them to their villa. Just when things seemed to, well … kickoff … well they did kick off, but in another way. Skorzeny pulled a gun on the couple:“I know who you are, and I know why you are here. You are Mossad, and you’ve come here tokill me!” The man replied“If we had come to kill you, you would have been dead weeks ago.” The two operatives were there to offer Skorzenya deal: they needed his services and would pay handsomely. Skorzeny’s was not interested in money. What he wanted, was to be removed from Wiesenthal’slist. The Mossad agents agreed. Skorzeny was flown to Tel Aviv, where he metMossad agent Joe Ranaan. 

He was also Viennese, but as a Jew, he hadlost all his family in the camps. Ranaan took the ex-SS to the Yad Vashem, theHolocaust Museum, and observed that he appeared respectful. Skorzeny’s mission was to thwart Egypt’smilitary rocket programme, led by Heinz Krug, a German scientist formerly associated withWerner Von Braun. The Austrian commando was shown a letter fromWiesenthal, accepting the removal of his name from the list of Nazi criminals. In truth, Wiesenthal had refused. The letter was a Mossad forgery. Skorzeny kept his promise and he delivered,big time. He flew to Egypt and identified all Germanscientists working for the programme. He then unmasked several companies aroundEurope that were secretly selling rocket components to the Egyptians. He even carried out a campaign of intimidationagainst the scientists and mailed explosive packages prepared by the Mossad, killing fiveEgyptian technicians. One day in 1962, while in Madrid, Skorzenyreceived a phone call. It was Heinz Krug, the lead scientist of theprogramme. Krug was dead scared and was seeking Skorzeny’shelp and protection. Skorzeny arranged to meet him in Munich. As he drove him out of town in a white Mercedeshe reassured him: he had already hired some bodyguards and they were driving to meet them. As they stepped out of the car and into thewoods, Skorzeny shot Krug. 

Three Mossad agents then took care of thebody by dissolving it in acid. Skorzeny’s job was done. He had not made a penny out of it. He didn’t know it but was still on Wiesenthallist. But at least he would be spared by the Mossad. The Most Dangerous Man in a FOIA Search EngineAnother intelligence service famously associated with Otto Skorzeny was the CIA. We wanted to verify this claim directly atthe source and so we did some rummaging in the CIA’s own Freedom Of Information Act(FOIA) search engine. A brief memo states that in 1961 Skorzenyhad a plan to kidnap Fidel Castro. This plan had the approval of CIA DirectorAllen Dulles, but had been vetoed by JFK. There is a catch: the memo quotes an interviewreleased by Skorzeny to a Peruvian newspaper in 1966. Knowing the man’s knack for self-publicity,can we truly believe this? So, we dug deeper. On the 26th of January 1951 a report was sentto the Secretary of State from Germany by John J. McCloy, American High Commissionerfor Occupied Germany. McCloy reports that Chancellor Adenauer wasworried about rumours of Skorzeny training the Spanish military with US covert support. McCloy was not aware of this scheme and admittedit was worrying. The CIA knew very well that Skorzeny was inSpain. 

They learned this from a letter dated 21stof September 1949, sent by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Skorzeny had been sighted“working in Spain with a group of Nazis with the blessings of Franco”. In April 1951, the CIA was keeping tabs onSkorzeny’s activities in Madrid. In particular, they wrote about internal feudingamongst former Nazi officers, with concerns for it to go public. The memo reads:“View possibility unfavourable publicity break as result Skorzeny’s manoeuvring. Consider important we clarify our interestsand any US connections fully. Can you explain claims Skorzeny connectedwith or supported by US Colonel Thompson or Stimpson. View categorical denial”The agent asks the question: is possibly the CIC, Counter-Intelligence Corps behind Skorzeny? The CIC was a Cold War era secret servicewithin the US Army ranks. Moving to the 1960s, the CIA kept a closeeye on Skorzeny’s relationship to ‘UPHILL’ which appears to be a code name for an organisation. 

One report states that the Chief of Uphillhad warned that US support for Skorzeny would be a source of embarrassment for the WhiteHouse. This is similar to Adenauer’s warning. The picture that emerges so far is that someUS agency, possibly the CIC, had some form of contact with him, and German authoritieshad warned the US to be careful about it. But what of Skorzeny’s relationship withother powers? There is another document that complicatesmatters 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 is the gist of it. At the end of 1943, sensing that the War wouldbe lost, Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary, created a secret organization called‘HACKE’ It was so exclusive to count only 35 members. And so secretive that even Himmler was unawareof it. The purpose of Hacke was to guarantee thesurvival of Nazi officials in case of defeat. To do so, Hacke racked up half a billion dollarsfrom concentration camp victims and created hideouts in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Japanand Argentina.

 But the twist is that the Soviet intelligencehad infiltrated this network, apparently by blackmailing Bormann, lest they revealed theexistence of Hacke to Himmler. Hacke remained active after the war, but herecomes anothet twist: “One of the dark and dangerous KGB figuresin Hacke is the famous SS Colonel Skorzenywho presently lives in Madrid and also works for the Spanish IS (intelligence service). Skorzeny was under active development by Abakumowas early as 1942 … Skorzeny was finally recruited as a collaboratorof Abakumow in the middle of 1944” Abakumow being a Soviet intelligence General. His plan was to exploit ex-Nazi officialsand agents settled in the Americas. The author of the document to be fair statesthat it is unclear whether Abakumow succeeded in his plans, and looks for other clues toconfirm Skorzeny’s allegiance to the KGB. One of these clues is that Skorzeny was veryclose to another ex-Nazi operative, Karl Rudl. The two had been tasked with a secret missionby the Vatican (!!!!!) to smuggle a Hungarian Cardinal out of prison. Rudl was actually an agent of Abakumow, whohad intentions to hijack the prison escape to have the Cardinal shot. Rudl smelled a rat – he was probably goingto get shot, too, while Abakumow would leave Skorzeny alive. And so, he aborted the operation. 

To recap, from the 1940s to the 1960s OttoSkorzeny was A commando for the Nazi security servicesA possible double-agent for the Soviets A member of the neo-Nazi ring ‘HACKE’An agent of Franco’s intelligence A hitman for the MossadA possible informant to the US CIC An operative for the VaticanAs you can see, our initial question ‘did Skorzeny work for the CIA?’ seems irrelevant now. The answer is probably, no. If anything, his calendar was too full tofit them in. The Most Dangerous Man is no moreIn his later years, Otto Skorzeny fell ill from lung cancer. On July 5, 1975 he died in Madrid at the ageof 67. He had two funerals, one in Madrid, and theother at his family plot in Vienna. At both, he received full Nazi honours, withveterans giving him the Nazi salute and singing some of Hitler’s favourite songs. 

Among those present, one man stood apart. He did not join in with the Nazi nostalgicparaphernalia, but offered a silent salute to a fellow secret agent and fighter. Someone he had grown up hating, but had learnedto respect. That man was Mossad agent Joe Ranaan. And it’s with this strange image of an Israelispy at a Nazi funeral that we end our story today. An image which sums up the career of a manwho had been clearly a follower of Nazi ideology – but was ultimately loyal only to himself. I’d like to propose a little game for thecomments section: have a look at the CIA FOIA Search page, the link is below, and have asearch around, maybe for a famous personality or event, or even for your own name, why not? And let us know what you found out! As usual, thank you for watching.