Skorzeny watched the brigade’s military division go through maneuvers that morning on the training ground. Two captured American Sherman tanks and twelve German Panthers, which had been retrofitted to resemble Shermans, rumbled through their paces. In the afternoon, Stielau’s commando company conducted a sabotage demonstration, blowing up a mock bridge ahead of schedule against a running clock. Skorzeny appeared pleased with their performance.
When Skorzeny returned to the officers’ quarters for the evening, his adjutant was waiting for him outside. “Sir, a lieutenant from the commando company has requested a word with you.”
“I don’t have time for that now.”
The adjutant lowered his voice. “He is SS. From a diplomatic corps family.”
Skorzeny looked past him into the next room, where a young, upright man with close-cropped blond hair waited.
“All right, leave us,” said Skorzeny.
Skorzeny walked in to join the man, who snapped to attention and saluted. “Unterstürmführer Erich Von Leinsdorf, sir. It is an honor to meet you.”
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
“Sir, as a fellow SS officer, I take the liberty of speaking directly. The wildest rumors are circulating through camp regarding the mission. Once the men learned you were in charge, imaginations ran riot.”
“Give me an example,” said Skorzeny.
“We are going to rush across France to liberate our trapped garrison at Brest. Some have us crossing the Channel to invade London. There’s even one that claims we’re to cross the Atlantic by submarine and attack Roosevelt in the White House.”
Skorzeny shook his head, amused. “And what do you think, Lieutenant?”
“I believe I know the real objective of the 105th Panzer Brigade, sir.”
The man radiated such conviction that for a moment Skorzeny wondered if his seconds had disobeyed orders and taken him into their confidence. Skorzeny poured a drink, stood in front of the fire, and listened as Von Leinsdorf explained his theory. Hiding his astonishment at what the man told him, Skorzeny rolled the brandy in the snifter, a grand master with his hand poised over a suddenly useful pawn. He said nothing when Von Leinsdorf finished, letting him squirm.
“I will share this much with you,” said Skorzeny finally. “The Führer has given us a specific military objective, the details of which I am not at liberty to disclose.”
“I understand, sir,” said Von Leinsdorf.
“He also gave us a second objective,” said Skorzeny, moving closer. “No one else knows about it, not even your superior officers. Never mind how, but you’ve hit on it exactly. Let me tell you my problem, Lieutenant.”
Von Leinsdorf tensed. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble—”
Skorzeny held up a hand for silence. “For some time I have been looking for an officer capable of leading this phase of the operation. I’ve found my man.”
“I’m honored, sir.”
“Choose a few others from your company. The best English speakers, three men, each qualified to lead a small squad. Do any come to mind?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take them into your confidence, but without the particulars we’ve discussed. Have each of these men assemble his own four-man team. Then consider this objective carefully and work out the tactical details yourself.”
“What guidance can you give me, sir?”
“None. The rest is up to you. I don’t like to limit a talented young officer’s initiative. In the meantime, to help morale, introduce a rumor of our own into camp. Three American commandos were recently captured wearing German uniforms near Aachen. They were given safe passage back across the American line by the SS a few days later.”
“Is that true?”
“Of course not. They were shot immediately.” Skorzeny opened the door for him. “We’ll meet again on the eve of the attack and finalize your plan. Good luck to us all.”
“You may count on me, sir.” Von Leinsdorf saluted, spun on his heel, and exited the room. Skorzeny’s adjutant entered moments later.
“Bring me that man’s dossier,” said Skorzeny. “Ask Captain Stielau to come in.”
Skorzeny watched the fire as he waited, and felt the threads of three different fabrics bind into one satisfying whole. The adjutant and Stielau returned together. Skorzeny quickly scanned Von Leinsdorf’s dossier, while Stielau stood by.
“How did he end up here? His father was one-quarter Jewish.”
“Yes, on the mother’s side. According to Party standards that still made him half-caste, Mischlinge.”
“And he was Ambassador Ribbentrop’s right-hand man in London at the time?” asked Skorzeny. “I remember hearing about this. A minor scandal.”
“Ribbentrop shipped him off to an obscure post in Sweden. The mother took ill, went home, and died shortly after. When the father committed suicide a few months later, the boy, Erich, became a ward of the state.”
“How did he kill himself?”
“The rope. A coward’s death. Fit for a Jew.”
Skorzeny read something in the file. “Erich found the body.”
“Yes. He was sent back to Germany, and enrolled in the Hitlerjugend. He so excelled in every youth program they put him in—the Hitler School, the Political Institute—that he was transferred to the Ordensburgen. It’s for only the most fanatical young National Socialists. Intense physical discipline, military instruction, education in the racial sciences, and the Jewish question—all under SS.”
“In spite of his Jewish blood.”
“The mother’s line was pure Aryan, so he’s only one eighth, slightly more than twelve percent. In special cases one can argue the Aryan blood is more dominant. For all that, he seems determined to eradicate his father’s heritage. The lieutenant’s creativity at Dachau has been nothing less than astonishing.”
Skorzeny knew about the extermination program at Dachau and other death camps, but offered no comment. Senior officers working at a remove from the Final Solution never discussed what they knew in any way that required expressing an opinion. Stielau interpreted his silence as disapproval.
“In any case, since he is of such concern to you,” said Stielau, “we’ll have the man executed tomorrow.”
“No, Stielau, you miss my point entirely. He’s perfect.”
“If I may ask, in what way, sir?”
“It’s all very well to send our little brigade across enemy lines. If the stars align, and we catch them napping, there’s even a slight chance we might succeed.”
“Sir, I think you’re discounting a very good chance we might change the course of the war—”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Captain Stielau, and your devotion to our cause. But realism is the harshest discipline. The longer view suggests that a bleak future awaits us all, regardless of our interim efforts.”
Stielau said nothing, and Skorzeny instantly regretted his frankness.
“We are soldiers, nevertheless,” said Skorzeny, closing Von Leinsdorf’s dossier. “We play the hand we are dealt. And this man could turn out to be a wild card.”
Bernie saw the change in Von Leinsdorf as soon as he returned to the barracks. A hard set in his eyes, jaw taut. He recruited his first two squad leaders that same night: a fellow SS officer, Unterstürmführer Gerhard Bremer, and an Army Intelligence translator named Karl Heinz Schmidt. Bernie watched these conversations take place. When Von Leinsdorf returned to his bunk, Bernie asked what was going on but got no answer. He’s following new orders, thought Bernie. From Skorzeny himself.
Von Leinsdorf recruited his third squad leader the next morning, the former American Army sergeant William Sharper. After four years as a GI in North Africa and France, Sharper had deserted to the Wehrmacht three months earlier after beating his superior officer half to death during a barracks poker game. He’d spent those months in the custody of German Intelligence, before being cleared and released for this mission. Von Leinsdorf sized up Sharper as a working-class
hooligan, more suited to life as a Nazi storm trooper than in the conformist U.S. Army. He authorized each of the three men to recruit his own four-man squad. When Karl Schmidt pressed for details about this “second objective,” Von Leinsdorf said it had to remain classified until the night before the mission.
That night Von Leinsdorf asked Bernie Oster to join his squad, along with a middle-aged merchant seaman named Marius Schieff and a former bank clerk from Vienna named Gunther Preuss, both Category Two men. Von Leinsdorf told them nothing about what the new assignment involved, but it was clear to Bernie that his status within the brigade had changed for the worse. He no longer feared discovery for what he’d done in Berlin. The path Von Leinsdorf was leading him down now felt far more dangerous.
A week before the launch, Otto Skorzeny attended a final briefing with the Army General Staff at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. Skorzeny walked through his brigade’s role in the invasion, and they agreed on procedures to protect his commandos from German attack. His disguised American tanks would bear two yellow triangles within the unit insignia stenciled onto their armor. If any regular Wehrmacht and commando units met on the battlefield during daylight, the men of Operation Greif were to remove their American helmets and hold them over their heads. At night, when encountering regulation German forces, they were to use pistol-fired flares, known as Verey lights, to reveal their identities.
Skorzeny was told that weather forecasts for their target day appeared favorable, calling for heavy cloud cover that neutralized Allied air superiority. All signals were go.
The counteroffensive into Belgium and Luxembourg known as Operation Autumn Mist would begin at dawn on December 16.
4
Grafenwöhr
DECEMBER 10, 1944
Shortly after dark on December 10, the men of Operation Greif left their camp at Grafenwöhr and loaded onto a special transport train. Bernie saw that the cars had been camouflaged to resemble a shipment of Christmas trees being de livered to troops along the Western Front. Their vehicles, freshly painted and accessorized as American, were loaded on covered flatbeds at the rear of the train. Outfitted in their GI uniforms, Skorzeny’s men were not allowed to leave the crowded boxcars during the two-day journey. A Gestapo detachment came on board to protect the train and deflect questions from outsiders about its secret manifest. Bernie knew the heavily armed Gestapo was also there to prevent any of the brigade from deserting.
The 150th Panzer Brigade detrained just before midnight on December 12 near an infantry training grounds at Wahn, southwest of Cologne, where they quartered for the night. To avoid contact with regular Wehrmacht units, they remained confined to the buildings throughout the following day. That night, under blackout conditions, the brigade convoyed in their own vehicles to the town of Münstereifel, twenty miles closer to the Belgian border. Stielau’s commando group continued ten miles farther west, near the town of Stadtkyll. During that trip, camouflage netting slipped from a half-track in front of Bernie’s transport, revealing its white five-pointed Allied star. A Wehrmacht patrol tried to intercept what appeared to be a column of American vehicles. They were taken into custody by the Gestapo escort and weren’t seen again.
The commandos spent the rest of the night around a remote forester’s cottage, organizing into their patrol units and receiving fuel, ammunition, and last-minute supplies. As dawn approached, Bernie could make out the vast bunkers and ramparts of the German Western Wall. Since their arrival at Wahn, he had caught glimpses around the border of a massive Wehrmacht buildup that dwarfed their brigade.
At six A.M., Otto Skorzeny arrived and the company assembled outside the cottage. The only soldier present in German uniform, Skorzeny ordered them to circle around him, informally, in the American manner. He told them their appearance and manners reflected a complete and convincing transformation: They were GIs now. Shivering in the frigid predawn air, Bernie learned for the first time the full scope of Operation Autumn Mist, and their own primary objective. Not as bad as he’d feared, but he knew Von Leinsdorf had something far worse in store. Skorzeny tried to rally them with stories of the German Army’s long history of successes in the Ardennes, and how thinly it was now held by the Allies. He told them to be prudent about their use of gasoline, to scrounge any they could while in the field. They were to avoid at all costs any hostile engagement with the enemy.
“Every patrol must remain in radio contact with our corps command,” said Skorzeny. “Our mission depends on the intelligence you provide. Make note of everything you see and hear. Trust your training. Take no unnecessary risks.”
One man asked the question that was on all of their minds: “Will they treat us as spies if we’re captured?”
“I have consulted with experts on international law. If you are captured, we believe that if you wear your German uniform underneath, or change into it beforehand, you will be granted the same protection as any other prisoner of war.”
Before they had time to question that, Skorzeny wished them luck and shook every man’s hand. Following behind him, his adjutant handed every commando a silver Zippo lighter. Bernie noticed it gave off a faint smell of bitter almonds. They were told each lighter contained a glass vial of hydrocyanic acid, and that the poison could be used offensively to subdue an opponent. The implication that they were expected to use it on themselves in the event of capture was inescapable.
Skorzeny called Captain Stielau and Lieutenant Von Leinsdorf into the cottage. He asked to hear a summary of Von Leinsdorf’s plan for executing the Second Objective, listened quietly, made suggestions but appeared satisfied with his overall strategy. He asked Von Leinsdorf to call in the squad leaders he had selected. Skorzeny chatted briefly with each man, addressing them only by their adopted American names.
Skorzeny’s adjutant presented each squad leader with a packet of specially forged documents, including U.S. Army ID cards, high-level American security passes, letters of transit, and detailed maps of various cities in France. They were also given a cache of customized weapons, explosives, and ammunition prepared at Skorzeny’s request by the Technical Criminal Institute of Berlin. These included piano wire garrotes, concealed knives, and a new technology: a metallic silencer that attached to the end of their American officer’s handgun. He then drew their attention to a map of the Belgian border his adjutant laid out on the table.
“Your squads will be the first to cross, through these gaps in their line,” said Skorzeny, showing points of infiltration. “Begin your reconnaissance assignments. Your reports will be vital to us during the early hours. Avoid capture at any cost.”
Then Skorzeny for the first time detailed their second objective. When he finished, no one broke the silence. From their shocked reaction Skorzeny knew that Von Leinsdorf had followed orders and refused to discuss the mission with them.
“Sir, at what point are we expected to attempt this?” asked Karl Schmidt.
“I will explain when the colonel leaves,” said Von Leinsdorf to silence him.
“I would prefer to hear the colonel’s views firsthand,” said a defiant Schmidt.
“Your orders are perfectly clear,” said Skorzeny. “For the next two days, reconnaissance and support for the invasion. At midnight on the seventeenth, regardless of whether or not our brigade has reached its first objective, proceed with the second.”
“What should we tell the men in our squads?” asked Schmidt.
“Tell them nothing,” said Skorzeny. “Until you have to.”
“That was my advice as well,” said Von Leinsdorf, making clear his irritation.
“What kind of support will we have from the rest of our brigade?” asked Schmidt.
“That depends on the progress of the entire offensive,” said Skorzeny. He gestured to his adjutant to pack up, eager to leave.
“No more questions,” said Von Leinsdorf.
“But should we expect them, sir?” asked Schmidt, ignoring Von Leinsdorf. “Is anyone else involved or are we acting a
lone?”
“If all goes according to plan,” said Skorzeny, “help will be waiting when you near your target.”
“How much help?” asked Schmidt.
“A fifth squad,” said Von Leinsdorf.
“There, you see?” said Skorzeny with a smile. “Support will be there when you need it the most. On the other hand, as I always tell my men, expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed.”
Skorzeny wished them luck and walked out toward his waiting transport, followed by his adjutant. Their vehicle was parked on the edge of a clearing, near where the commandos’ twenty American jeeps were being serviced and fueled. The paint on the jeeps’unit insignia was still drying.
“Keep no records of that meeting,” said Skorzeny firmly to his adjutant. “As far as Autumn Mist is concerned, it never occurred.”
Skorzeny climbed into the transport where his bodyguards waited and drove off to the north.
In the cottage, standing over the various maps of Belgium and France on the table, Von Leinsdorf walked them one last time through their first two days. “On the seventeenth I’ll contact each of you by radio. If you don’t hear from me, assume we are going ahead and work your way south. We’ll stage the operation from here, on the evening of the nineteenth.”
He pointed to a prominent old cathedral city, an hour and a half northeast of Paris.
“We need a place to meet,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Any suggestions?”
“I was stationed there for a couple weeks,” said William Sharper, the American.
“In which army?” asked Schmidt.
“Fuck you, Schmidt. There’s an old movie house here, on an old square on the east bank of the canal,” said Sharper, pointing to the area. “The Wehrmacht showed films during the Occupation. GIs are using it now.”
“Mark it on your maps. Meet at this cinema between nine P.M. and midnight on the nineteenth,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Wait no longer than that. Even if you’re the only squad, move forward on your own initiative.”