A Nazi commando leader magnified by propaganda
Standing before Mussolini at Gran Sasso, Skorzeny became the face of a victory whose command credit belonged elsewhere.
Born in Vienna, Skorzeny became a Waffen-SS officer who directed sabotage and commando operations for Nazi Germany. In the 1943 Gran Sasso raid, he helped locate Benito Mussolini and led an SS detachment at the landing site, but the operation as a whole was planned and commanded by the airborne officers Harald Mors and Kurt Student. Nazi propaganda presented him as Mussolini's liberator, while he also took part in the overthrow of Hungary's government and the Ardennes deception operation. Acquitted at a postwar war-crimes trial, he later lived in Spain amid far-right networks.
Also known as: Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny · Otto Skorzeni
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1932Joined the Austrian Nazi organisation
- 1938Served with the SS during the Anschluss
- 1943Led the RSHA sabotage and commando section
- 1943Led an SS detachment in the Gran Sasso raid
- 1944Took part in Operation Panzerfaust in Hungary
- 1944Commanded Operation Greif in the Ardennes
- 1947Acquitted at the Dachau military trial
- 1953Military adviser to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser
Related historical events
- 1944.03–1945.02Hungary under German occupation: from Operation Margarethe to the siege of BudapestSS commando leaderKidnapped Horthy’s son on 15 October and advanced on Castle Hill with tanks.
- 1943–1945The Italian Campaign and the Fall of MussoliniSS commander in the Gran Sasso raidHe took part in the raid to free Mussolini, though actual command lay with Harald Mors.
- 1941–1945The Yugoslav Partisan WarParticipant in the Tito capture operationIn 1944 he helped plan Operation Rosselsprung to capture Tito and was to command it, but argued against carrying it out.
Commando Command and Anti-Partisan Operations
In April 1943, Skorzeny was charged by Walter Schellenberg, head of Amt VI (Ausland-SD), the SS foreign intelligence department of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), with command of the schools training operatives in sabotage, espionage and paramilitary techniques. He was appointed commander of the newly created Waffen-SS Sonderverband z.b.V. Friedenthal; the unit became SS-Jagdverband 502, was redesignated SS Combat Unit 'Centre' in November 1944, and ultimately expanded to five battalions.
The unit was directed against the resistance movements of workers and oppressed peoples. In its first mission, Operation Francois in mid-1943, Skorzeny sent a group by parachute into Iran to make contact with mountain tribes and incite them to sabotage Allied shipments through the Trans-Iranian Railway; the mission was deemed a failure. In 1944 he helped plan Operation Rosselsprung, intended to capture the Yugoslav Partisan commander Josip Broz Tito, and was to command it. After visiting Zagreb, however, Skorzeny argued against carrying it out because the operation had been compromised by the carelessness of German agents. It went ahead nonetheless: the paratroopers attacked at Tito's Drvar headquarters, but he had already escaped, and a Partisan brigade counterattacked, inflicting heavy casualties.
In early 1945 Skorzeny commanded about 5,000 troops in the defence of the Schwedt bridgehead on the Oder; that spring he led battle groups including 'Centre' and 'Nord-West' in the defence of Frankfurt an der Oder, earning the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross. At the end of the war he hid with Ernst Kaltenbrunner in the 'Alpine Fortress' area near Radstadt and Salzburg, where he received the post of chief of the military office of the RSHA. His responsibility for anti-partisan reprisal operations in this period, including the destruction of the Czech village of Plostina, was raised as a case before the UN War Crimes Commission, though no court ever convicted him.