Otto Skorzeny

Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German intelligence officer and commando who held the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in several high-profile missions, including the overthrow of Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy and the raid on Gran Sasso that freed Benito Mussolini. He also led Operation Greif, where German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines wearing enemy uniforms.

This operation led to his 1947 trial before the Dachau Military Tribunal for violating the 1907 Hague Convention; he was acquitted. After escaping from an internment camp in 1948, Skorzeny hid on a farm in Bavaria, then lived in Salzburg and Paris before settling in Francoist Spain. In 1953, he became a military advisor to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, and there are reports—though historically uncertain—that he also advised Argentine president Juan Perón. Skorzeny died of lung cancer on 5 July 1975 in Madrid at age 67.

Skorzeny was born on 12 June 1908 in Vienna to a middle-class Austrian family with a long military tradition. His surname is Polish, and his distant ancestors came from Skorzęcin in Greater Poland before moving to East Prussia. Besides German, he spoke excellent French and good English. As a teenager, he complained to his father about their austere lifestyle; his father replied that doing without things was not harmful and might prevent him from getting used to a soft life.

While studying at the Technical University of Vienna, Skorzeny was a noted fencer in a German-national Burschenschaft, fighting fifteen personal duels. The tenth left a dramatic scar, known as a Schmiss, on his cheek. He joined the Austrian Nazi organization in May 1932 and became a member of the Austrian SA in February 1934. During the Anschluss on 12 March 1938, he claimed to have saved Austrian President Wilhelm Miklas from being shot by Austrian Nazis.

After the 1939 invasion of Poland, Skorzeny—then a civil engineer—volunteered for the Luftwaffe but was rejected as too tall (1.94 m) and too old (31) for aircrew training. He then joined the Waffen-SS, training with Hitler's bodyguard regiment, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. He fought with the SS Division Das Reich during the invasion of the Soviet Union and saw action on the Eastern Front. In October 1941, he led a "technical section" during the Battle of Moscow, tasked with seizing Communist Party buildings, the NKVD headquarters at Lubyanka, the central telegraph office, and other key facilities before they could be destroyed.

He was also ordered to capture the sluices of the Moscow-Volga Canal, as Hitler wanted to flood Moscow by opening them. These missions were cancelled when German forces failed to take the capital. In January 1942, shrapnel hit Skorzeny in the back of the head, and he was evacuated. He had already received the Iron Cross, Second Class at the Yelnya bridgehead.

While recovering, he took a staff role in Berlin, where he developed ideas for unconventional commando warfare, including partisan operations behind enemy lines, fighting in enemy uniforms, and sabotage. In April 1943, Ernst Kaltenbrunner recommended Skorzeny to Walter Schellenberg, who put him in charge of training schools for sabotage, espionage, and paramilitary operatives. Skorzeny was then made commander of the Waffen SS Sonderverband z.b.V. Friedenthal near Berlin, later renamed SS Jagdverband 502 and then SS Combat Unit "Centre," which eventually expanded to five battalions.

The unit's first mission was Operation François in mid-1943, where Skorzeny sent a parachute team into Iran to encourage mountain tribes to sabotage Allied shipments to the Soviet Union via the Trans-Iranian Railway. The mission failed due to unreliable tribal commitment.

Skorzeny was involved in several operations: Operation François (guerrilla coordination in Iran), Operation Oak (the September 1943 rescue of Mussolini), Operation Long Jump (a planned assassination of Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt at the 1943 Tehran Conference, which Skorzeny denied ever existed), Operation Knight's Leap (a May 1944 attempt to capture Josip Broz Tito alive), and Operation Armoured Fist (also known as Operation Eisenfaust, in October 1944).