German commando actions with political implications

[MikeKardec]

I'm researching any German commando actions I can find that had political or propaganda motivations. My first stop has been the career of Otto Skorzeny, his rescue of Mussolini and his wife, and his kidnapping of Admiral Horthy's son and later attack on Horthy's headquarters. Those are good examples but as soon as I've tried to move past Skorzeny's career I have run out of leads. Anyone know of any others?

Thanks, as always!

 

[Turnip]

„Admiral Heye“ and „Kleinkampfverbände der Kriegsmarine“ would be keywords to look for, though I don’t know if there’s English literature available about that and everything they tried had a military background.
„Werwolf“ would be a keyword that leads to action with no military background but pure propagandistic purpose that though caused some dead.

 

[Harp]

I'm researching any German commando actions I can find that had political or propaganda motivations. My first stop has been the career of Otto Skorzeny

A film, I Was Monty's Double centers around the German commando attempt to kidnap Montgomery.
The plot was foiled and the attempted snatch later recounted in a book written by the actor who posed
as the field marshall, adapted to the screen. The movie has a very poignant scene as to the consequences
of taking war guard duty less seriously than a soldier should; who paid with his life for a bite of chocolate,
other men slain in their sleep.

Skorzeny later ran a private post war commando school in Spain, which was attended on the sly
by US Army incognizants. 'Nuff said, say no more.

 

[Tiki Tom]

You might also look at Elyesa Bazna, who was a German agent code named Cicero. He provided key political info to get Operation Long Jump on the drawing board. I think Skorzeny was also supposed to lead Long Jump.

Of course, Skorzeny was an endlessly fascinating bad guy. “The most dangerous man in Europe.” Skorzeny also supposedly ran an ODESSA operation out of Madrid after the war AND was supposedly recruited by MOSSAD (truth is stranger than fiction) to whack a Nazi missile scientist in Egypt. Born, and now buried in Vienna, I went out of my way once to visit his grave and family burial plot. I included a couple of pages on him in my Vienna book.

Good luck with your project.

 

[Turnip]

Hans Kammler would be another name to follow and is possibly easier to snoop for as he carried his career on in the USofA, being closely linked to the career of Wernher von Braun.

 

[Turnip]

@Tiki Tom Did you also visit the grave of Walter Nowotny?

 

[Tiki Tom]

@Tiki Tom Did you also visit the grave of Walter Nowotny?

No. Had I known, I might have visited it. I spent a fair amount of time poking around the ZentralFriedhof, Wien. One of my best finds was the grave of Ludwig Boltzmann.

I do have an autographed copy of the autobiography of Erich Hartmann (“Holt Hartmann vom Himmel”) that the author signed for my father.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Hans Kammler would be another name to follow and is possibly easier to snoop for as he carried his career on in the USofA, being closely linked to the career of Wernher von Braun.

Hans Kammler of “die Glocke” fame? (Nazi project to develop an anti-gravity machine.) Crazy stuff!

 

[Turnip]

Hans Kammler of the V2 program, just like von Braun. He organized the construction of the production site as well as the manufacturing at Mittelbau Dora by KZ prisoners.
I heard about that Glocke robber pistol in one of those trashy US „documentaries“ somewhere in TV…

V2 has been one of the few weapons that caused more victims during production than by use, about 20000:8500 afaik.

 

[Tiki Tom]

I was kidding, of course.

 

[MikeKardec]

Thanks! Good info here that I'll be going through. A the moment I have just given in and used Skorzeny, though I may need to back up and rewrite using a fictional character (and events perhaps inspired by some of these suggestions) if I find I need to place him in some circumstance that does not jive with history. Unfortunately, for me the era I'm working in is the early 1960s, a time when Skorzeny's life is somewhat less carefully documented, yet enough is still known to get me in trouble. We'll see how it goes. I'm certainly open to any other suggestions in the meantime!

 

[Turnip]

Leon Degrelle and Otto Ernst Rehmer might be two characters to look at when it’s about old Nazis in Spanish post war exile.
I wouldn’t also be too astonished if some old SS folks would have contributed to Gladio, a NATO stay behind org founded soon after war in Italy, as well.
The French Cepi Blanc also gave not too few former Wehrmacht and WaffenSS fighters a new home after the war.
Have fun researching.

 

[Turnip]

And how could I leave out the colorful Kongo-Müller…

 

[Tiki Tom]

Many stories have been told about Waffen SS veterans who made their way into the French Foreign Legion and then served in the first indochina war, but it’s hard to nail down the truth about these stories. Probably a good subject for a book.

 

[Tiki Tom]

And how could I leave out the colorful Kongo-Müller…

Holy cow! What a character! What a story!

 

[Harp]

Many stories have been told about Waffen SS veterans who made their way into the French Foreign Legion and then served in the first indochina war, but it’s hard to nail down the truth about these stories. Probably a good subject for a book.

I lived in Munich once and was introduced to a Waffen SS Yugoslavia/Foreign Legion Indochina veteran
through GI contacts. He (Hans) later hooked up with Christians in Action as a local/European asset.
Some Germans caught in Soviet occupied zones or near USSR lines managed to evade capture and signed
as Legion recruits taking what fate offered.

 

[CatsCan]

Walter Nowotny

I live close to the place where his Me 262 was shot down. There was a big debate about to remove a memorial plate from the wreck site after Neo Nazi commemorations took place there every year. It is removed now.