The Leonidas Squadron , formally known as "5th Staffel of Kampfgeschwader 200 " , was a unit which was originally formed to fly the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg , a manned version of the V-1 flying bomb , in attacks in which the pilot was likely to be killed, or at best to parachute down at the attack site. The Reichenberg was never used in combat because Werner Baumbach , the commander of KG 200, and his superiors considered it an unnecessary waste of life and resources. The Mistel composite aircraft was preferred.
151-519: The establishment of a suicide squadron ( staffel ) was originally proposed by Otto Skorzeny and Hajo Herrmann . The proposal was supported by test pilot Hanna Reitsch . The idea proposed was that Germany would use volunteers as suicide pilots in order to overcome the Allies' numerical advantages with their fanatic spirit. The idea had roots in German mythology that was glorified by Nazi propaganda. Hitler
302-597: A Heinkel He 111 to Vienna, where Mussolini stayed overnight at the Hotel Imperial . The next day he was flown to Munich and on 14 September he met Hitler at the Wolf's Lair Führer Headquarters near Rastenburg. The landing at Campo Imperatore was in fact led by First Lieutenant Georg Freiherr von Berlepsch, commanded by Major Otto-Harald Mors and under orders from General Kurt Student, all Fallschirmjäger (German air force paratroop) officers; but Skorzeny stewarded
453-556: A 165-acre (67 ha) farm near The Curragh in County Kildare , Ireland. Although Skorzeny could not be refused entry without due cause, he was refused a residency visa by the Irish government and had to limit his stays to six weeks at a time, and he was monitored by G2 . He rarely visited after 1963 and sold Martinstown House in 1971. At 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) and weighing 110 kilograms (240 lb), along with his scar, he
604-719: A Prussian secret police force, the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo , and appointed Rudolf Diels as its head. Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to use the Gestapo effectively to counteract the power of the SA, Göring handed over its control to Himmler on 20 April 1934. Also on that date, in a departure from long-standing German practice that law enforcement was a state and local matter, Hitler appointed Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. Himmler named his deputy and protégé Reinhard Heydrich chief of
755-539: A cancerous tumor was discovered on Skorzeny's spine. Two tumors were later removed while he was staying at a hospital in Hamburg , leaving him temporarily paralyzed. Skorzeny died of lung cancer on 5 July 1975 in Madrid. He was 67 years old. Skorzeny never denounced Nazism . He was given a Catholic funeral in Madrid on 7 August 1975. His body was then cremated and his ashes were later taken to Vienna to be interred in
906-472: A coded Italian radio message, Skorzeny used the reconnaissance provided by SS-Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler's network of agents and informants (helped with counterfeit British bank notes with a face value of £100,000, forged under Operation Bernhard ). It was determined that Mussolini was being imprisoned at Campo Imperatore Hotel, a ski resort at Campo Imperatore in Italy's Gran Sasso massif, high in
1057-752: A farm in Bavaria which had been rented by Countess Ilse Lüthje, the niece of Hjalmar Schacht (Hitler's former finance minister), for around 18 months, during which time he was in contact with Reinhard Gehlen , and together with Hartmann Lauterbacher (former deputy head of the Hitler Youth ) recruited for the Gehlen Organization . Skorzeny was photographed at a café on the Champs Elysées in Paris on 13 February 1950. The photo appeared in
1208-543: A higher casualty rate than the army. Generaloberst Fedor von Bock was quite critical; following an April 1940 visit of the SS-Totenkopf division, he found their battle training was "insufficient". Hitler thought the criticism was typical of the army's "outmoded conception of chivalry." In its defence, the SS insisted that its armed formations had been hampered by having to fight piecemeal and were improperly equipped by
1359-654: A meeting, called the Wannsee Conference , to discuss the implementation of the plan. During battles in the Soviet Union in 1941 and 1942, the Waffen-SS suffered enormous casualties. The LSSAH and Das Reich lost over half their troops to illness and combat casualties. In need of recruits, Himmler began to accept soldiers that did not fit the original SS racial profile. In early 1942, SS-Leibstandarte , SS-Totenkopf , and SS-Das Reich were withdrawn to
1510-624: A new bodyguard unit, the Schutzkommando (Protection Command). It was tasked with providing personal protection for Hitler at party functions and events. That same year, the Schutzkommando was expanded to a national organisation and renamed successively the Sturmstaffel (Storm Squadron), and finally the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad; SS). Officially, the SS marked its foundation on 9 November 1925 (the second anniversary of
1661-620: A pagan ceremony invented by Himmler. These pseudo-religious rites and ceremonies often took place near SS-dedicated monuments or in special SS-designated places. In 1933, Himmler bought Wewelsburg , a castle in Westphalia . He initially intended it to be used as an SS training centre, but its role came to include hosting SS dinners and neo-pagan rituals. In 1936, Himmler wrote in the pamphlet "The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organisation": We shall take care that never again in Germany,
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#17327646778901812-523: A plan to kidnap Winston Churchill . Skorzeny was portrayed in the television drama series Mussolini: The Untold Story and Mussolini and I , and the drama film Walking with the Enemy (2014). The Spanish drama-series Jaguar is inspired by Skorzeny. Schutzstaffel The Schutzstaffel ( German: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafl̩] ; lit. ' Protection Squadron ' ; SS ; also stylised with Armanen runes as ᛋᛋ )
1963-612: A position to overrun it. Otto Skorzeny Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German SS - Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) in the Waffen-SS during World War II . During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including the removal from power of Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy and the Gran Sasso raid which rescued Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny led Operation Greif in which German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines wearing their enemies' uniforms. As
2114-688: A result, he was charged in 1947 at the Dachau Military Tribunal with breaching the 1907 Hague Convention , but was acquitted. Skorzeny escaped from an internment camp in 1948, hiding out on a Bavarian farm as well as in Salzburg and Paris before eventually settling in Spain . In 1953, he served as a military advisor to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser . He was allegedly an advisor to Argentinian president Juan Perón . Skorzeny acted as an agent of Mossad , allegedly assisting with
2265-513: A return flight. Thus the pilots were only trained using the aircraft as gliders. This project ultimately came to nothing, and Werner Baumbach , by then the commander of KG-200, persuaded his friend Albert Speer that it would be more productive to use the men against Russian power stations rather than against the Allied invasion fleet; Speer passed this on to Hitler. During the Battle for Berlin ,
2416-458: A single shot being fired; this was also due to the fact that General Fernando Soleti of the Polizia dell' Africa Italiana , who flew in with Skorzeny, told them to stand down. Skorzeny attacked the radio operator and his equipment and stormed into the hotel, being followed by his SS troopers and the paratroopers. Ten minutes after the beginning of the raid, Mussolini left the hotel, accompanied by
2567-701: A small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organisations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, mass surveillance , and state terrorism within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and Waffen-SS (Armed SS). The Allgemeine SS
2718-730: A wound that left a dramatic dueling scar —known in academic fencing as a Schmiss (German for "smite" or "hit")—on his cheek. In May 1932, Skorzeny joined the Austrian Nazi organization and soon became a member of the Austrian branch of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) in February 1934. A charismatic figure, Skorzeny played a minor role in the Anschluss on 12 March 1938 when, according to his own account, he saved
2869-586: The Heer (German Army). However, it never obtained total "independence of command", nor was it ever a "serious rival" to the German Army. Members were never able to join the ranks of the German High Command and it was dependent on the army for heavy weaponry and equipment. Although SS ranks generally had equivalents in the other services, the SS rank system did not copy the terms and ranks used by
3020-594: The SS-Verfügungs-Division . A second SS division, the SS-Totenkopf , was formed from SS-TV concentration camp guards, and a third, the SS-Polizei , was created from police volunteers. The SS gained control over its own recruitment, logistics, and supply systems for its armed formations at this time. The SS, Gestapo, and SD were in charge of the provisional military administration in Poland until
3171-458: The 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" when it was reorganised as a Panzergrenadier division in 1942. In April 1941, the German Army invaded Yugoslavia and Greece . The LSSAH and Das Reich were attached to separate army Panzer corps . Fritz Klingenberg , a company commander in the Das Reich division, led his men across Yugoslavia to the capital, Belgrade , where a small group in
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#17327646778903322-608: The Bandenkampfverbände had four principal operational components: propaganda, centralised control and coordination of security operations, training of troops, and battle operations. Once the Wehrmacht had secured territorial objectives, the Bandenkampfverbände first secured communications facilities, roads, railways, and waterways. Thereafter, they secured rural communities and economic installations such as factories and administrative buildings. An additional priority
3473-656: The Bosnian town of Drvar , in the center of a large area held by the Partisans. Hitler knew Tito was receiving Allied support and was aware that either British or American troops might land in Dalmatia along the Adriatic coastline with support from the Partisans. Killing or capturing Tito would not only hinder this, it would give a badly needed boost to the morale of Axis forces engaged in occupied Yugoslavia . Skorzeny
3624-548: The Einsatzgruppen reached a total strength of 3,000 men. Einsatzgruppen A, B, and C were attached to Army Groups North , Centre , and South ; Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army . The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941. Historian Richard Rhodes describes them as being "outside the bounds of morality"; they were "judge, jury and executioner all in one", with
3775-531: The Einsatzgruppen took place on 6 September 1939 during the attack on Kraków . Satisfied with their performance in Poland, Hitler allowed further expansion of the armed SS formations but insisted new units remain under the operational control of the army. While the SS-Leibstandarte remained an independent regiment functioning as Hitler's personal bodyguards, the other regiments— SS-Deutschland , SS-Germania, and SS-Der Führer —were combined to form
3926-826: The Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). Skorzeny took part in the invasion of the Soviet Union with the SS Division Das Reich and subsequently fought in several battles on the Eastern Front . In October 1941, he was in charge of a "technical section" of German forces during the Battle of Moscow . His mission was to seize important buildings of the Communist Party , including the NKVD headquarters at Lubyanka , and
4077-582: The Luftwaffe flew "self-sacrifice missions" ( Selbstopfereinsätze ) against Soviet-held bridges over the Oder River . These 'total missions' were flown by pilots of the Leonidas Squadron under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Heiner Lange from 17 April until 20 April 1945, using any aircraft that were available. The Luftwaffe claimed that the squadron destroyed seventeen bridges. However,
4228-700: The Matara story, the major Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronot said that it had confirmed the story from their own senior Mossad source. Former Mossad head Isser Harel confirmed the story that former Nazis were recruited to provide intelligence on Arab countries. Ian Black and Benny Morris wrote in 1991 that Skorzeny may not have known for whom he was working, but in 2010, Tom Segev published in his biography of Simon Wiesenthal that Skorzeny had offered to help only if Wiesenthal removed him from his list of wanted war criminals. Wiesenthal refused, but Skorzeny finally agreed to help anyway. Segev gave as his main source
4379-629: The Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler had created a small volunteer guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz (Hall Security) to provide security at their meetings in Munich . The same year, Hitler ordered the formation of a small bodyguard unit dedicated to his personal service. He wished it to be separate from the "suspect mass" of the party, including the paramilitary Sturmabteilung ("Storm Battalion"; SA), which he did not trust. The new formation
4530-502: The SS-Leibstandarte had taken Wormhout , 10 miles (16 km) from Dunkirk. There, soldiers of the 2nd Battalion were responsible for the Wormhoudt massacre , where 81 British and French soldiers were murdered after they surrendered. According to historian Charles Sydnor, the "fanatical recklessness in the assault, suicidal defence against enemy attacks, and savage atrocities committed in the face of frustrated objectives" exhibited by
4681-588: The SS-Oberführerbereich Ost , SS-Oberführerbereich West , and SS-Oberführerbereich Süd . The lower levels of the SS remained largely unchanged. Although officially still considered a sub-organisation of the SA and answerable to the Stabschef (SA Chief of Staff), it was also during this time that Himmler began to establish the independence of the SS from the SA. The SS grew in size and power due to its exclusive loyalty to Hitler, as opposed to
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4832-408: The SS-Totenkopf division during the invasion were typical of the SS troops as a whole. At the close of the campaign, Hitler expressed his pleasure with the performance of the SS-Leibstandarte , telling them: "Henceforth it will be an honour for you, who bear my name, to lead every German attack." The SS-VT was renamed the Waffen-SS in a speech made by Hitler in July 1940. Hitler then authorised
4983-521: The Wehrmacht ' s branches. Instead, it used the ranks established by the post-World War I Freikorps and the SA. This was primarily done to emphasise the SS as being independent of the Wehrmacht . In the September 1939 invasion of Poland , the LSSAH and SS-VT fought as separate mobile infantry regiments. The LSSAH became notorious for torching villages without military justification. Members of
5134-636: The Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS encountered resistance from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the Greek Army . The fighting was intensified by the mountainous terrain, with its heavily defended narrow passes. The LSSAH was at the forefront of the German push. The BEF evacuated by sea to Crete , but had to flee again in late May when the Germans arrived. Like Yugoslavia, the conquest of Greece brought its Jews into danger, as
5285-620: The laws of war during the Battle of the Bulge. He and nine officers of the Panzerbrigade 150 were tried before an American military tribunal in Dachau on 18 August 1947. They faced charges of improper use of American military insignia, theft of American uniforms, and theft of Red Cross parcels from American POWs. The trial lasted over three weeks. The charge of stealing Red Cross parcels
5436-594: The rules of war by wearing enemy uniforms. Skorzeny spent February 1945 as an acting major general commanding about 5,000 troops, only some of which were his SS commandos and paratroopers, during the defense of the Schwedt Bridgehead on the River Oder. On 17 March, he received orders to sabotage the last remaining intact bridge across the Rhine at Remagen following its capture by the Allies , but
5587-750: The "Big Three" ( Joseph Stalin , Winston Churchill , and Franklin Roosevelt ) at the 1943 Tehran Conference . Hitler supposedly gave the command of the operation to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the RSHA , who, in turn, ceded the mission to Skorzeny. Knowledge of the whole scheme was presented to the Western Allies by Stalin's NKVD at the Tehran Conference. The Soviets said they had learned about its existence from counter espionage activities against German intelligence . Their agents had found out
5738-402: The 258,000 Romani . The SS was involved in murdering people viewed as threats to race hygiene or Nazi ideology, including the mentally or physically disabled, homosexuals, and political dissidents. Members of trade unions and those perceived to be affiliated with groups that opposed the regime (religious, political, social, and otherwise), or those whose views were contradictory to the goals of
5889-623: The Apennine Mountains. On 12 September 1943, Skorzeny and 16 SS troopers joined the Fallschirmjäger to rescue Mussolini in a high-risk glider mission. Ten DFS 230 gliders, each carrying nine soldiers and a pilot, towed by Henschel Hs 126 planes started between 13:05 and 13:10 from the Pratica di Mare Air Base near Rome. The leader of the airborne operation, paratrooper- Oberleutnant Georg Freiherr von Berlepsch, entered
6040-659: The Austrian President Wilhelm Miklas from being shot by Austrian Nazis. After the 1939 Invasion of Poland , Skorzeny, then working as a civil engineer , volunteered for service in the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe ), but was turned down because he was considered too tall at 1.94 metres (6 ft 4 in) and too old (31 years in 1939) for aircrew training. He then joined the Waffen-SS, training with Hitler's bodyguard regiment,
6191-555: The Beer Hall Putsch). The new SS protected party leaders throughout Germany. Hitler's personal SS protection unit was later enlarged to include combat units. Schreck, a founding member of the SA and a close confidant of Hitler, became the first SS chief in March 1925. On 15 April 1926, Joseph Berchtold succeeded him as chief of the SS. Berchtold changed the title of the office to Reichsführer-SS (Reich Leader-SS). Berchtold
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6342-476: The Berlin Chancellory Guard, the SS security regiment assigned to the Obersalzberg, and a Munich-based bodyguard unit which protected Hitler when he visited his apartment and the Brown House Nazi Party headquarters in Munich. Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Dietrich was the real commander and handled day-to-day administration. Two other SS units composed the inner ring of Hitler's protection. The SS-Begleitkommando des Führers (Escort Command of
6493-449: The British launched an armoured counterattack against the flanks of the 7th Panzer Division and SS-Totenkopf . The Germans then trapped the British and French troops in a huge pocket at Dunkirk . On 27 May, 4 Company, SS-Totenkopf perpetrated the Le Paradis massacre , where 97 men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment were machine-gunned after surrendering, with survivors finished off with bayonets . Two men survived. By 28 May
6644-454: The French press the next day, causing him to move to Salzburg , where he met up with German veterans and also filed for divorce so that he could marry Lüthje. Shortly afterwards, with the help of a Nansen passport issued by the Spanish government, he moved to Madrid , where he set up a small engineering business. In April 1950, the publication of Skorzeny's memoirs by the French newspaper Le Figaro caused 1,500 communists to riot outside
6795-464: The Führer), formed in February 1932, served as Hitler's protection escort while he was travelling. This unit consisted of eight men who served around the clock protecting Hitler in shifts. Later the SS-Begleitkommando was expanded and became known as the Führerbegleitkommando ( Führer Escort Command; FBK). It continued under separate command and remained responsible for Hitler's protection. The Führer Schutzkommando ( Führer Protection Command; FSK)
6946-706: The Gaza Strip in 1953–1954. One of these Palestinians was Yasser Arafat . He stayed on to serve as an adviser to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser . According to some authors, he traveled between Spain and Argentina, where he acted as an advisor to President Juan Perón and as a bodyguard for Eva Perón , while fostering an ambition for the " Fourth Reich " to be centered in Latin America. The Israeli security and intelligence magazine Matara published an article in 1989 claiming that Skorzeny had been recruited by Mossad in 1963 to obtain information on German scientists who were working on an Egyptian project to develop rockets to be used against Israel. Reporting on
7097-399: The German attack. For the campaign, Skorzeny was the commander of a composite unit, the 150th SS Panzer Brigade . As planned by Skorzeny, Operation Greif involved about two dozen German soldiers, most of them in captured American Jeeps and disguised in American uniforms, who would penetrate American lines in the early hours of the Battle of the Bulge to cause disorder and confusion. Skorzeny
7248-494: The German soldiers. At 14:45 Major Mors accessed the Hotel via the funicular railway and introduced himself to Mussolini. Subsequently, Mussolini was to be flown out by a Fieseler Fi 156 STOL plane. Although under the given circumstances the small plane was overloaded, Skorzeny insisted on accompanying Mussolini, thus endangering the success of the mission. After an extremely dangerous but successful lift-off, they flew to Pratica di Mare. There they continued immediately, flying in
7399-429: The Gestapo on 22 April 1934. Heydrich also continued as head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; security service). The Gestapo's transfer to Himmler was a prelude to the Night of the Long Knives , in which most of the SA leadership were arrested and subsequently executed. The SS and Gestapo carried out most of the murders. On 20 July 1934, Hitler detached the SS from the SA, which was no longer an influential force after
7550-536: The Holocaust. After Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power on 30 January 1933, the SS was considered a state organisation and a branch of the government. Law enforcement gradually became the purview of the SS, and many SS organisations became de facto government agencies. The SS established a police state within Nazi Germany, using the secret state police and security forces under Himmler's control to suppress resistance to Hitler. In his role as Minister President of Prussia , Hermann Göring had in 1933 created
7701-419: The Italian leader right in front of the cameras. After a pro-SS propaganda coup at the behest of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels , Skorzeny and his special forces ( SS-Sonderverband z. b. V. "Friedenthal" ) of the Waffen-SS were granted the majority of the credit for the operation. "Operation Long Jump" was the alleged code name given to a plot to assassinate
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#17327646778907852-430: The LSSAH committed war crimes in numerous towns, including the murder of 50 Polish Jews in Błonie and the massacre of 200 civilians, including children, who were machine-gunned in Złoczew . Shootings also took place in Bolesławiec , Torzeniec , Goworowo , Mława , and Włocławek . Some senior members of the Wehrmacht were not convinced the units were fully prepared for combat. Its units took unnecessary risks and had
8003-409: The Luftwaffe, jumped between Tito's hideout in a cave and the town of Drvar; they landed on open ground and many were promptly shot by members of the Tito Escort Battalion , a unit numbering fewer than a hundred soldiers. The second wave of paratroopers missed their target and landed several miles out of town. Tito was long gone before paratroopers reached the cave; a trail at the back of the cave led to
8154-414: The Me 328, and the decision was taken to use instead a manned version of the V-1 flying bomb, the Fieseler Fi 103R ; however, it never entered operation. On 9 June 1944, Karl Koller announced that a group of KG-200s equipped with special Focke-Wulf Fw 190s was ready for "total operations". Each aircraft carried a heavy bomb, the weight of which meant that the machines could not carry enough fuel for
8305-439: The Nazi Party government, were rounded up in large numbers; these included clergy of all faiths, Jehovah's Witnesses , Freemasons , Communists , and Rotary Club members. According to the judgements rendered at the Nuremberg trials , as well as many war crimes investigations and trials conducted since then, the SS was responsible for the majority of Nazi war crimes. In particular, it was the primary organisation that carried out
8456-423: The Nazi regime became more oppressive, the concentration camp system grew in size and lethal operation, and grew in scope as the economic ambitions of the SS intensified. Intensification of the killing operations took place in late 1941 when the SS began construction of stationary gassing facilities to replace the use of Einsatzgruppen for mass murders. Victims at these new extermination camps were killed with
8607-403: The Nazis immediately took a variety of measures against them. Initially confined in ghettos, most were transported to Auschwitz concentration camp in March 1943, where they were murdered in the gas chambers on arrival. Of Greece's 80,000 Jews, only 20 per cent survived the war. On 22 June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa , the invasion of the Soviet Union . The expanding war and
8758-506: The Nazis knew the time and place of this meeting because they had cracked a US naval code. According to the NKVD the assassination plot was foiled after they identified the German spies in Iran forcing Skorzeny to call off the mission due to inadequate intelligence. Following Tehran, the story was treated with incredulity by the British and Americans who dismissed it as Soviet propaganda. Skorzeny supported this view by stating in his post-war memoirs that no such operation ever existed. He said
8909-417: The SA, which was seen as semi-independent and a threat to Hitler's hegemony over the party, mainly because they demanded a "second revolution" beyond the one that brought the Nazi Party to power. By the end of 1933, the membership of the SS reached 209,000. Under Himmler's leadership, the SS continued to gather greater power as more and more state and party functions were assigned to its jurisdiction. Over time
9060-616: The SA. Except in the Munich area, the SS was unable to maintain any momentum in its membership numbers, which declined from 1,000 to 280 as the SA continued its rapid growth. As Heiden attempted to keep the SS from dissolving, Heinrich Himmler became his deputy in September 1927. Himmler displayed better organisational abilities than Heiden. The SS established a number of Gaue (regions or provinces). The SS-Gaue consisted of SS-Gau Berlin , SS-Gau Berlin Brandenburg , SS-Gau Franken , SS-Gau Niederbayern , SS-Gau Rheinland-Süd , and SS-Gau Sachsen . With Hitler's approval, Himmler assumed
9211-401: The SA. Some 500 to 1,000 synagogues were destroyed, mostly by arson. On 11 November, Heydrich reported a death toll of 36 people, but later assessments put the number of deaths at up to two thousand. On Hitler's orders, around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps by 16 November. As many as 2,500 of these people died in the following months. It was at this point that
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#17327646778909362-495: The SD diamond on the lower left sleeve. The SS was closely associated with Nazi Germany's concentration camp system. On 26 June 1933, Himmler appointed SS- Oberführer Theodor Eicke as commandant of Dachau concentration camp , one of the first Nazi concentration camps. It was created to consolidate the many small camps that had been set up by various police agencies and the Nazi Party to house political prisoners. The organisational structure Eicke instituted at Dachau stood as
9513-429: The SS and SD to work on developing additional anti-partisan tactics and launched a propaganda campaign. Sometime in June 1943, Himmler issued the Bandenbekämpfung (bandit fighting) order, simultaneously announcing the existence of the Bandenkampfverbände (bandit fighting formations), with SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski as its chief. Employing troops primarily from the SS police and Waffen-SS ,
9664-403: The SS answered only to Hitler, the de facto merger of the SS and the police made the police independent of Frick's control. In September 1939, the security and police agencies, including the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; security police) and SD (but not the Orpo), were consolidated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich. This further increased the collective authority of
9815-565: The SS became answerable only to Hitler, a development typical of the organisational structure of the entire Nazi regime, where legal norms were replaced by actions undertaken under the Führerprinzip (leader principle), where Hitler's will was considered to be above the law. In the latter half of 1934, Himmler oversaw the creation of SS-Junkerschule , institutions where SS officer candidates received leadership training, political and ideological indoctrination, and military instruction. The training stressed ruthlessness and toughness as part of
9966-410: The SS grew in size and importance, so too did Hitler's personal protection forces. Three main SS groups were assigned to protect Hitler. In 1933, his larger personal bodyguard unit (previously the 1st SS-Standarte ) was called to Berlin to replace the Army Chancellery Guard, assigned to protect the Chancellor of Germany . Sepp Dietrich commanded the new unit, previously known as SS-Stabswache Berlin;
10117-406: The SS men did not meet the criteria. Inducements such as higher salaries and larger homes were provided to members of the SS since they were expected to produce more children than the average German family as part of their commitment to Nazi Party doctrine. Commitment to SS ideology was emphasised throughout the recruitment, membership process, and training. Members of the SS were indoctrinated in
10268-402: The SS state began in earnest its campaign of terror against political and religious opponents, who they imprisoned without trial or judicial oversight for the sake of "security, re-education, or prevention". In September 1939, the authority of the SS expanded further when the senior SS officer in each military district also became its chief of police. Most of these SS and police leaders held
10419-499: The SS value system, which helped foster a sense of superiority among the men and taught them self-confidence. The first schools were established at Bad Tölz and Braunschweig , with additional schools opening at Klagenfurt and Prague during the war. The SS was regarded as the Nazi Party's elite unit. In keeping with the racial policy of Nazi Germany , in the early days all SS officer candidates had to provide proof of Aryan ancestry back to 1750 and for other ranks to 1800. Once
10570-476: The SS-TV, and the SS Cavalry Brigade moved into the Soviet Union behind the advancing armies. At first, they fought Soviet partisans , but by the autumn of 1941, they left the anti-partisan role to other units and actively took part in the Holocaust. While assisting the Einsatzgruppen , they formed firing parties that participated in the liquidation of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union. On 31 July 1941, Göring gave Heydrich written authorisation to ensure
10721-489: The SS. During Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), SS security services clandestinely coordinated violence against Jews as the SS, Gestapo, SD, Kripo, SiPo, and regular police did what they could to ensure that while Jewish synagogues and community centres were destroyed, Jewish-owned businesses and housing remained intact so that they could later be seized. In the end, thousands of Jewish businesses, homes, and graveyards were vandalised and looted, particularly by members of
10872-681: The Skorzeny family plot at Döblinger Friedhof . His funerals in Madrid and Vienna were attended by former SS colleagues who gave the Hitler salute , and also sang some of Hitler's favourite songs. Like many other prominent World War II figures, Skorzeny has been portrayed in several works of fiction, such as the Worldwar tetralogy by Harry Turtledove and 1945 by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen . In The Eagle has Landed by Jack Higgins , Skorzeny's rescue of Mussolini inspires
11023-608: The West to refit and were converted to Panzergrenadier divisions. The SS-Panzer Corps returned to the Soviet Union in 1943 and participated in the Third Battle of Kharkov in February and March. The SS was built on a culture of violence, which was exhibited in its most extreme form by the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war on the Eastern Front . Augmented by personnel from the Kripo, Orpo (Order Police), and Waffen-SS ,
11174-565: The Western Allies had actively contemplated carrying out exactly the same kind of "false flag" operations; the Tribunal subsequently acquitted the ten defendants. The Tribunal drew a distinction between using enemy uniforms during combat and for other purposes including deception and were unable to prove that Skorzeny had given any orders to actually fight in American uniforms. Skorzeny was detained in an internment camp at Darmstadt awaiting
11325-613: The appointment of Hans Frank as Governor-General on 26 October 1939. On 10 May 1940, Hitler launched the Battle of France , a major offensive against France and the Low Countries . The SS supplied two of the 89 divisions employed. The LSSAH and elements of the SS-VT participated in the ground invasion of the Netherlands . Simultaneously, airborne troops were dropped to capture key Dutch airfields, bridges, and railways. In
11476-451: The army. After the invasion, Hitler entrusted the SS with extermination actions codenamed Operation Tannenberg and AB-Aktion to remove potential leaders who could form a resistance to German occupation. The murders were committed by Einsatzgruppen (task forces; deployment groups), assisted by local paramilitary groups. Men for the Einsatzgruppen units were drawn from the SS, the SD, and
11627-524: The authority to kill anyone at their discretion. Following Operation Barbarossa, these Einsatzgruppen units, together with the Waffen-SS and Order Police as well as with assistance from the Wehrmacht , engaged in the mass murder of the Jewish population in occupied eastern Poland and the Soviet Union. The greatest extent of Einsatzgruppen action occurred in 1941 and 1942 in Ukraine and Russia. Before
11778-595: The bridge collapsed that same day, and the naval demolitions squad that had been preparing its destruction instead unsuccessfully attacked a nearby Allied pontoon bridge between Kripp and Linz . Hitler awarded him one of Germany's highest military honours, the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross . Skorzeny was interned for two years before being tried as a war criminal at the Dachau trials in 1947 for allegedly violating
11929-520: The central telegraph office and other high priority facilities, before they could be destroyed. He was also ordered to capture the sluices of the Moscow-Volga Canal because Hitler wanted to turn Moscow into a huge artificial lake by opening them. The missions were canceled inasmuch as German forces had failed to capture the Soviet capital. In January 1942, Skorzeny was hit in the back of
12080-692: The command of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt ( SS Main Economic and Administrative Office ; WVHA) under Oswald Pohl . Richard Glücks served as the Inspector of Concentration Camps , which in 1942 became office "D" under the WVHA. Exploitation and extermination became a balancing act as the military situation deteriorated. The labour needs of the war economy, especially for skilled workers, meant that some Jews escaped
12231-503: The cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments to undertake genocide of the Jews in territories under German control. Heydrich was instrumental in carrying out these exterminations, as the Gestapo was ready to organise deportations in the West and his Einsatzgruppen were already conducting extensive murder operations in the East. On 20 January 1942, Heydrich chaired
12382-414: The decision of a denazification court. On 27 July 1948, he escaped from the camp with the help of three former SS officers dressed in American military police uniforms who entered the camp and claimed that they had been ordered to take Skorzeny to Nuremberg for a legal hearing. Skorzeny afterwards maintained that American authorities had aided his escape and had supplied the uniforms. Skorzeny hid out at
12533-615: The detection of actual or potential enemies of the Nazi state, the neutralisation of any opposition, policing the German people for their commitment to Nazi ideology , and providing domestic and foreign intelligence. The SS was the organisation most responsible for the genocidal murder of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during the Holocaust . Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45). The SS
12684-476: The enlistment of "people perceived to be of related stock", as Himmler put it, to expand the ranks. Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns volunteered to fight in the Waffen-SS under the command of German officers. They were brought together to form the new division SS-Wiking . In January 1941, the SS-Verfügungs Division was renamed SS-Reich Division (Motorised), and was renamed as
12835-643: The execution of actions such as Operation Diamond . He died of lung cancer on 5 July 1975 in Madrid at the age of 67. Otto Skorzeny was born in Vienna into a middle-class Austrian family which had a long history of military service. His surname is of Polish origin, and Skorzeny's distant ancestors came from Skorzęcin in the Greater Poland region, eventually immigrating to East Prussia . In addition to his native German, he spoke excellent French and
12986-408: The first glider, Skorzeny and his SS troopers sat in the fourth and fifth glider. To gain height before crossing the close by Alban Hills the leading three glider-towing plane units flew an additional loop. All following units considered this maneuver unnecessary and preferred not to endanger the given time of arrival at the target. This led to the situation that Skorzeny's two units arrived first over
13137-587: The five-day campaign, the LSSAH linked up with army units and airborne troops after several clashes with Dutch defenders. SS troops did not take part in the thrust through the Ardennes and the river Meuse . Instead, the SS-Totenkopf was summoned from the army reserve to fight in support of Generalmajor Erwin Rommel 's 7th Panzer Division as they advanced toward the English Channel . On 21 May,
13288-434: The gas chambers and crematoria before being murdered themselves. On Himmler's orders, by early 1942 the concentration camp at Auschwitz was greatly expanded to include the addition of gas chambers, where victims were killed using the pesticide Zyklon B . For administrative reasons, all concentration camp guards and administrative staff became full members of the Waffen-SS in 1942. The concentration camps were placed under
13439-615: The genocide. On 30 October 1942, due to severe labour shortages in Germany, Himmler ordered that large numbers of able-bodied people in Nazi-occupied Soviet territories be taken prisoner and sent to Germany as forced labour . By 1944, the SS-TV had been organised into three divisions: staff of the concentration camps in Germany and Austria, in the occupied territories, and of the extermination camps in Poland. By 1944, it became standard practice to rotate SS members in and out of
13590-677: The head by shrapnel; he was evacuated to the rear for treatment. He had previously been awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class while fighting in the Yelnya bridgehead. Recuperating from his injuries he was given a staff role in Berlin , where he developed his ideas on unconventional commando warfare. Skorzeny's proposals were to develop units specialized in such warfare, including partisan-like fighting deep behind enemy lines, fighting in enemy uniform, sabotage attacks, etc. In April 1943 Skorzeny's name
13741-619: The head of the Gestapo Department for Jewish Affairs in occupied Poland Leopold Gleim ; and Joachim Daemling, former chief of the Gestapo in Düsseldorf. In addition to training the army, Skorzeny also trained Arab volunteers in commando tactics for possible use against British troops stationed in the Suez Canal zone. Several Palestinian refugees also received commando training, and Skorzeny planned their raids into Israel via
13892-488: The heart of Europe, will the Jewish-Bolshevik revolution of subhumans be able to be kindled either from within or through emissaries from without. The SS ideology included the application of brutality and terror as a solution to military and political issues. The SS stressed total loyalty and obedience to orders unto death. Hitler used this as a powerful tool to further his aims and those of the Nazi Party. The SS
14043-514: The impending action; this was done so they could coordinate and control access to the execution grounds. Initially, the victims were shot, but this method proved impracticable for an operation of this scale. Also, after Himmler observed the shooting of 100 Jews at Minsk in August 1941, he grew concerned about the impact such actions were having on the mental health of his SS men. He decided that alternate methods of murder should be found, which led to
14194-419: The introduction of gas vans . However, these were not popular with the men, as they regarded removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them to have been unpleasant. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma. In response to the army's difficulties in dealing with Soviet partisans, Hitler decided in July 1942 to transfer anti-partisan operations to
14345-520: The invading Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae with 1400 warriors who fought to the last man against 100,000 Persians. Reitsch's plan was to attack Allied invasion shipping using the Messerschmitt Me 328 as a suicide weapon which would dive into the sea underneath ships and explode a 900 kilograms (2,000 lb) bomb. Heinrich Himmler approved the idea, and suggested using convicted criminals as pilots. The Luftwaffe's High Command
14496-430: The invasion there were five million registered Jews throughout the Soviet Union, with three million of those residing in the territories occupied by the Germans; by the time the war ended, over two million of these had been murdered. The extermination activities of the Einsatzgruppen generally followed a standard procedure, with the Einsatzgruppen chief contacting the nearest Wehrmacht unit commander to inform him of
14647-600: The involvement of Skorzeny in Krug's death, stating that Mossad boss Isser Harel ordered the murder. Like thousands of other former Nazis, Skorzeny was declared entnazifiziert ( denazified ) in absentia in 1952 by a West German government arbitration board, which meant that he could now travel from Spain into other Western countries, on a special Nansen passport for stateless persons with which he visited Ireland in 1957 and 1958. In late 1958, he qualified for an Austrian passport and in 1959, he purchased Martinstown House,
14798-555: The journal's headquarters. In 1952, Egypt was taken over by General Mohammed Naguib . Skorzeny was sent to Egypt the following year by former General Reinhard Gehlen (who was now working indirectly for the CIA ) to act as Naguib's military adviser. Skorzeny recruited a staff made up of former SS and Wehrmacht officers to train the Egyptian army. Among these officers were former Wehrmacht generals Wilhelm Fahrmbacher and Oskar Munzel ;
14949-520: The leadership of the Spanish neo-Nazi group CEDADE , established in 1966. It was rumored that under the cover names Robert Steinbacher and Otto Steinbauer and supported by either Nazi funds or (according to some sources) by Austrian intelligence, Skorzeny set up a secret organization named Die Spinne (English: "The Spider"), which helped as many as 600 former SS men escape from Germany to Spain, Argentina, and from there to other countries. In 1970,
15100-425: The military historian Antony Beevor , writing about the incident, claims that this was exaggerated and that only the railway bridge at Küstrin was definitely destroyed. Beevor comments that "thirty-five pilots and aircraft was a high price to pay for such a limited and temporary success". The missions were called off when the Soviet ground forces reached the vicinity of the squadron's airbase at Jüterbog and were in
15251-472: The model for all later concentration camps. After 1934, Eicke was named commander of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), the SS formation responsible for running the concentration camps under the authority of the SS and Himmler. Known as the "Death's Head Units", the SS-TV was first organised as several battalions, each based at one of Germany's major concentration camps. Leadership at the camps
15402-476: The name was changed to SS-Sonderkommando Berlin . In November 1933, the name was changed to Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler . In April 1934, Himmler modified the name to Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). The LSSAH guarded Hitler's private residences and offices, providing an outer ring of protection for the Führer and his visitors. LSSAH men manned sentry posts at the entrances to the old Reich Chancellery and
15553-420: The need to control occupied territories provided the conditions for Himmler to further consolidate the police and military organs of the SS. Rapid acquisition of vast territories in the East placed considerable strain on the SS police organisations as they struggled to adjust to the changing security challenges. The 1st and 2nd SS Infantry Brigades, which had been formed from surplus concentration camp guards of
15704-578: The new Reich Chancellery. The number of LSSAH guards was increased during special events. At the Berghof , Hitler's residence in the Obersalzberg , a large contingent of the LSSAH patrolled an extensive cordoned security zone. From 1941 forward, the Leibstandarte became four distinct entities, the Waffen-SS division (unconnected to Hitler's protection but a formation of the Waffen-SS ),
15855-646: The outbreak of World War II, the SS had consolidated into its final form, which comprised three main organisations: the Allgemeine SS , SS-Totenkopfverbände , and the Waffen-SS , which was founded in 1934 as the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) and renamed in 1940. The Waffen-SS evolved into a second German army alongside the Wehrmacht and operated in tandem with them, especially with
16006-533: The plan to him in February 1944. Günther Korten , the Luftwaffe's head of general staff, gave the matter to the commander of KG 200 to deal with. Over 70 volunteers, mostly young recruits, came forward; they were required to sign a declaration which said, "I hereby voluntarily apply to be enrolled in the suicide group as part of a human glider-bomb. I fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own death." Problems were experienced in converting
16157-479: The police. Some 65,000 Polish civilians, including activists, intelligentsia , scholars, teachers, actors, former officers, and others, were murdered by the end of 1939. When the army leadership registered complaints about the brutality being meted out by the Einsatzgruppen , Heydrich informed them that he was acting "in accordance with the special order of the Führer ." The first systematic mass shooting of Jews by
16308-444: The police. This placed the matter under Himmler's purview. As Hitler had ordered on 8 July 1941 that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, the term "anti-partisan operations" was used as a euphemism for the murder of Jews as well as actual combat against resistance elements. In July 1942 Himmler ordered that the term "partisan" should no longer be used; instead resisters to Nazi rule would be described as "bandits". Himmler set
16459-614: The populations of the conquered territories, seizing their assets and deporting them to concentration camps and ghettos , where they were used as slave labour or immediately murdered. Chosen to implement the Final Solution ordered by Hitler, the SS were the main group responsible for the institutional murder and democide of more than 20 million people during the Holocaust, including approximately 5.2 million to 6 million Jews and 10.5 million Slavs . A significant number of victims were members of other racial or ethnic groups such as
16610-560: The position of Reichsführer-SS in January 1929. There are differing accounts of the reason for Heiden's dismissal from his position as head of the SS. The party announced that it was for "family reasons". Under Himmler, the SS expanded and gained a larger foothold. He considered the SS an elite, ideologically driven National Socialist organisation, a "conflation of Teutonic knights , the Jesuits , and Japanese Samurai ". His ultimate aim
16761-434: The purge. The SS became an elite corps of the Nazi Party, answerable only to Hitler. Himmler's title of Reichsführer-SS now became his actual rank – and the highest rank in the SS, equivalent to the rank of field marshal in the army (his previous rank was Obergruppenführer ). As Himmler's position and authority grew, so in effect did his rank. On 17 June 1936, all police forces throughout Germany were united under
16912-474: The purview of Himmler and the SS. Himmler and Heydrich thus became two of the most powerful men in the country's administration. Police and intelligence forces brought under their administrative control included the SD, Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; criminal investigative police), and Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; regular uniformed police). In his capacity as police chief, Himmler was nominally subordinate to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick . In practice, since
17063-456: The racial policy of Nazi Germany and were taught that it was necessary to remove from Germany people deemed by that policy as inferior. Esoteric rituals and the awarding of regalia and insignia for milestones in the SS man's career suffused SS members even further with Nazi ideology. Members were expected to renounce their Christian faith, and Christmas was replaced with a solstice celebration . Church weddings were replaced with SS Eheweihen ,
17214-527: The railway tracks where Tito boarded a train that took him safely to Jajce . In the meantime, the Partisan 1st Brigade, from the 6th Lika Partisan Division, arrived after a twelve-mile (nineteen-kilometer) forced march and attacked the Waffen-SS paratroopers, inflicting heavy casualties. In October 1944, Hitler sent Skorzeny to Hungary after receiving word that the Regent of Hungary , Admiral Miklós Horthy ,
17365-460: The rank of SS- Gruppenführer or above and answered directly to Himmler in all SS matters within their district. Their role was to police the population and oversee the activities of the SS men within their district. By declaring an emergency, they could bypass the district administrative offices for the SS, SD, SiPo, SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; concentration camp guards), and Orpo, thereby gaining direct operational control of these groups. As
17516-606: The rebel tribes was suspect, and Operation François was deemed a failure. On the night between 24 and 25 July 1943 , a few weeks after the Allied invasion of Sicily and bombing of Rome , the Italian Grand Council of Fascism voted a motion of no confidence ( Ordine del Giorno Grandi ) against Mussolini. On the same day, the king replaced him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio and had him arrested. Hitler ordered military operations to liberate Mussolini, and, as
17667-497: The senior Mossad agent Rafi Meidan to whom Segev attributes the primary role in the recruitment of Skorzeny. Further details of the story were published by Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv in 2016. According to their information, a Mossad team had started to develop a plan to kill Skorzeny, but chief Isser Harel decided to attempt to recruit him instead, as a man on the inside would greatly enhance their ability to target Nazis who were providing military assistance to Egypt. He allegedly
17818-490: The story about the plans being leaked to Soviet spy Nikolai Kuznetsov by an SS- Sturmbannführer named Hans Ulrich von Ortel was a Soviet invention; Hans Ulrich von Ortel never existed. Skorzeny claimed his name was used only to add credibility to the story because the NKVD knew his renowned record as an SS commando would make the existence of such an operation more plausible. In early 1944, Sonderverband z.b.V. Friedenthal
17969-620: The target. Meanwhile, the valley station of the funicular railway leading to the Campo Imperatore was captured at 14:00 in a ground attack by two paratrooper companies led by Major Otto-Harald Mors , who was commander-in-chief of the whole raid. They also cut all telephone lines. At 14:05 the airborne commandos landed their ten DFS 230 gliders on the mountain near the hotel; only one crashed, causing injuries. The Fallschirmjäger and Skorzeny's special troopers overwhelmed Mussolini's captors (200 well-equipped Carabinieri guards) without
18120-546: The use of carbon monoxide gas from automobile engines. During Operation Reinhard , run by officers from the Totenkopfverbände , who were sworn to secrecy, three extermination camps were built in occupied Poland: Bełżec (operational by March 1942), Sobibór (operational by May 1942), and Treblinka (operational by July 1942), with squads of Trawniki men (Eastern European collaborators) overseeing hundreds of Sonderkommando prisoners, who were forced to work in
18271-594: The vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later Yugoslavia surrendered. SS police units immediately began taking hostages and carrying out reprisals, a practice that became common. In some cases, they were joined by the Wehrmacht . Similar to Poland, the war policies of the Nazis in the Balkans resulted in brutal occupation and racist mass murder. Serbia became the second country (after Estonia ) declared Judenfrei (free of Jews). In Greece,
18422-510: The war started and it became more difficult to confirm ancestry, the regulation was amended to proving only the candidate's grandparents were Aryan, as spelled out in the Nuremberg Laws . Other requirements were complete obedience to the Führer and a commitment to the German people and nation. Himmler also tried to institute physical criteria based on appearance and height, but these requirements were only loosely enforced, and over half
18573-400: The war, hundreds of camps of varying size and function had been created, holding nearly 715,000 people, most of whom were targeted by the regime because of their race. The concentration camp population rose in tandem with the defeats suffered by the Nazi regime; the worse the catastrophe seemed, the greater the fear of subversion, prompting the SS to intensify their repression and terror. By
18724-556: The watershed between paramilitary operations carried out by troops in uniform and the political warfare which is conducted by civilian agents". Based near Alicante , Spain, the Paladin Group specialized in arming and training guerrillas. Some of its operatives were recruited by the Spanish Interior Ministry to wage a clandestine war against the separatist group ETA . Skorzeny was a founder and an advisor to
18875-537: Was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany , and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II . It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich . In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from
19026-702: Was a protection unit founded by Himmler in March 1933. Originally it was only charged with protecting Hitler while he was inside the borders of Bavaria . In early 1934, they replaced the SS-Begleitkommando for Hitler's protection throughout Germany. The FSK was renamed the Reichssicherheitsdienst (Reich Security Service; RSD) in August 1935. Johann Rattenhuber , chief of the RSD, for the most part, took his orders directly from Hitler. The current FBK chief acted as his deputy. Wherever Hitler
19177-575: Was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labour . After Nazi Germany's defeat, the SS and the Nazi Party were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organisations. Ernst Kaltenbrunner , the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946. By 1923,
19328-423: Was considered more dynamic than his predecessor but became increasingly frustrated by the authority the SA had over the SS. This led to him transferring leadership of the SS to his deputy, Erhard Heiden , on 1 March 1927. Under Heiden's leadership, a stricter code of discipline was enforced than would have been tolerated in the SA. Between 1925 and 1929, the SS was considered to be a small Gruppe (battalion) of
19479-700: Was designated the Stabswache (Staff Guard). Originally the unit was composed of eight men, commanded by Julius Schreck and Joseph Berchtold , and was modelled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade , a Freikorps of the time. The unit was renamed Stoßtrupp (Shock Troops) in May 1923. The Stoßtrupp was abolished after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch , an attempt by the Nazi Party to seize power in Munich. In 1925, Hitler ordered Schreck to organise
19630-403: Was divided into five departments: commander and adjutant, political affairs division, protective custody, administration, and medical personnel. By 1935, Himmler secured Hitler's approval and the finances necessary to establish and operate additional camps. Six concentration camps housing 21,400 inmates (mostly political prisoners) existed at the start of the war in September 1939. By the end of
19781-452: Was dropped for lack of evidence. Skorzeny admitted to ordering his men to wear American uniforms, but his defence argued that as long as enemy uniforms were discarded before combat started, such a tactic was a legitimate ruse de guerre . On the final day of the trial, 9 September, F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas , a former British SOE agent, testified in defence of Skorzeny and his operatives wearing American uniforms behind enemy lines, claiming that
19932-619: Was easily recognizable and caused speculation among the English and Irish press as to why he was in Ireland. One Kildare resident recalled Skorzeny as someone who "wasn't particularly friendly and [who] didn't really mix with local people". Skorzeny also owned property on Majorca . In the 1960s, Skorzeny set up the Paladin Group , which he envisioned as "an international directorship of strategic assault personnel [that would] straddle
20083-431: Was entrusted with the commission of war crimes such as the murder of Jewish civilians. Himmler once wrote that an SS man "hesitates not for a single instant, but executes unquestioningly..." any Führer-Befehl ( Führer order). Their official motto was " Meine Ehre heißt Treue " (My Honour is Loyalty). As part of its race-centric functions during World War II, the SS oversaw the isolation and displacement of Jews from
20234-465: Was his common procedure, he issued similar orders to competing organisations within the German military. So he ordered Skorzeny to track Mussolini, and simultaneously ordered the paratroop General Kurt Student to execute the liberation. Mussolini was being transported around Italy by his captors (first to Ponza , then to La Maddalena , both small islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea ). Intercepting
20385-413: Was in residence, members of the RSD and FBK would be present. RSD men patrolled the grounds and FBK men provided close security protection inside. The RSD and FBK worked together for security and personal protection during Hitler's trips and public events, but they operated as two groups and used separate vehicles. By March 1938, both units wore the standard field grey uniform of the SS. The RSD uniform had
20536-556: Was involved in planning Rösselsprung and was intended to command it. However, he argued against implementation after he visited Zagreb and discovered that the operation had been compromised through the carelessness of German agents in the Nazi-affiliated Independent State of Croatia in occupied Yugoslav territory. Rösselsprung was put into action nonetheless, but it was a complete disaster. The first wave of paratroopers, following heavy bombardment by
20687-552: Was later renamed SS Jagdverband 502 , and in November 1944 again to SS Combat Unit "Center", expanding ultimately to five battalions). The unit's first mission was Operation François in mid-1943. Skorzeny sent a group by parachute into Iran to make contact with the dissident mountain tribes to encourage them to sabotage Allied shipments to the Soviet Union via the Trans-Iranian Railway . However, commitment among
20838-402: Was not amused by having to spend Christmas 1944 isolated for security reasons. Eisenhower retaliated by ordering an all-out manhunt for Skorzeny, with "Wanted" posters distributed throughout Allied-controlled territories featuring a detailed description and a photograph. In all, twenty-three of Skorzeny's men were captured behind American lines and sixteen were executed as spies for contravening
20989-522: Was proficient in English. In his teens, Skorzeny once complained to his father about the austere lifestyle the family was enduring; his father replied, "There is no harm in doing without things. It might even be good for you not to get used to a soft life." He was a noted fencer as member of a German-national Burschenschaft while studying at the Technical University of Vienna . He engaged in fifteen personal combats. The tenth resulted in
21140-531: Was put forward by Ernst Kaltenbrunner , the new head of the RSHA , and Skorzeny met with Walter Schellenberg , head of Amt VI, Ausland-SD (the SS foreign intelligence service department of the RSHA). Schellenberg charged Skorzeny with command of the schools organized to train operatives in sabotage, espionage, and paramilitary techniques. Skorzeny was appointed commander of the recently created Waffen SS Sonderverband z.b.V. Friedenthal stationed near Berlin (the unit
21291-633: Was re-designated SS-Jäger-Bataillon 502 with Skorzeny staying on as commander. They were assigned to Operation Rösselsprung , known subsequently as the Raid on Drvar . Rösselsprung was a commando operation meant to capture the Yugoslav commander-in-chief, Marshal Josip Broz Tito , who had also recently been recognized by the Allies as the Yugoslav prime minister . Marshal Tito led the Yugoslav Partisan resistance army from his headquarters near
21442-582: Was recruited and conducted operations for Mossad from 1964, working with Avraham Ahituv and Rafi Eitan . Other unnamed sources asserted Skorzeny was recruited after Mossad visited his home in Spain, where he expected that he would be assassinated. After undergoing instruction and training in Mossad's facilities in Israel, the rumoured work for Mossad included assassinating German rocket scientist Heinz Krug who
21593-432: Was reluctant, but eventually agreed to Reitsch's request to establish and train a suicide attack air unit, with the condition that it would not be operated in combat without his approval. The new unit, nicknamed the "Leonidas Squadron", became part of KG 200. It was named after Leonidas I , king of Sparta , who in 480 BC, after realizing that he was being flanked, dismissed the bulk of the Greek army he commanded and resisted
21744-465: Was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of the combat units of the SS, with a sworn allegiance to Hitler. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; " Death's Head Units" ), ran the concentration camps and extermination camps . Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organisations. They were tasked with
21895-409: Was secretly negotiating with the Red Army . The surrender of Hungary would have cut off the million German troops still fighting in the Balkans . Skorzeny, in a daring "snatch" codenamed Operation Panzerfaust (known as Operation Eisenfaust in Germany), kidnapped Horthy's son Miklós Horthy Jr. and forced his father to resign as head of state . A pro-Nazi government under dictator Ferenc Szálasi
22046-545: Was securing agricultural and forestry resources. The SS oversaw the collection of the harvest, which was deemed critical to strategic operations. Any Jews in the area were rounded up and killed. Communists and people of Asiatic descent were killed presumptively under the assumption that they were Soviet agents. After the start of the war, Himmler intensified the activity of the SS within Germany and in Nazi-occupied Europe. Increasing numbers of Jews and German citizens deemed politically suspect or social outsiders were arrested. As
22197-533: Was then installed in Hungary. In April 1945, after German and Hungarian forces had already been driven out of Hungary, Szálasi and his Arrow Cross Party -based forces continued the fight in Austria and Slovakia . The success of the operation earned Skorzeny promotion to Obersturmbannführer . As part of the German Ardennes offensive in late 1944 ( Battle of the Bulge ), Skorzeny's English-speaking troops were charged with infiltrating American lines disguised in American uniforms in order to produce confusion to support
22348-459: Was to turn the SS into the most powerful organisation in Germany and the most influential branch of the party. He expanded the SS to 3,000 members in his first year as its leader. In 1929, the SS-Hauptamt (main SS office) was expanded and reorganised into five main offices dealing with general administration, personnel, finance, security, and race matters. At the same time, the SS-Gaue were divided into three SS-Oberführerbereiche areas, namely
22499-416: Was unenthusiastic; Erhard Milch turned the plan down as impractical, and Hermann Göring showed little interest. Adolf Hitler was against the idea of self-sacrifice, believing that it was not in keeping with the German character, and furthermore did not see the war situation as being bad enough to require such extreme measures. Despite this, he allowed Reitsch to proceed with the project after she had shown
22650-414: Was well aware that under the Hague Convention of 1907 , any of his men captured while wearing American uniforms would be executed as spies and this possibility caused much discussion with Generaloberst Alfred Jodl and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt . A handful of his men were captured and spread a rumor that Skorzeny personally was leading a raid on Paris to kill or capture General Eisenhower , who
22801-555: Was working for the Egyptian government and posting a letter bomb which killed five Egyptians at the Egyptian military rocket site Factory 333 . He also allegedly supplied the names and addresses of German scientists working for Egypt and the names of European front companies supplying military hardware to Egypt. No confirmed source can explain Skorzeny's motives for working with Israel, but he may have craved adventure and intrigue and feared assassination by Mossad. An article featured in Der Spiegel on 22 January 2018 raised doubts as to
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