In 2005, by decision of the US Congress, American intelligence services transferred to the open national archive about 250 thousand pages of documents on cooperation of various organizations with Nazi criminals. Among them were materials related to the Israeli intelligence "Mossad". According to written testimonies, one of those who helped ensure the security of Israel was … the Fuhrer's favorite, the number one fascist saboteur, the famous Otto Skorzeny. And he did his work not for the sake of money, but out of fear for his own life.
On the death list
Recently, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and the American edition of The Forward almost simultaneously published an article by US journalist Dan Raviv and his Israeli colleague Yossi Melman. After examining the documents of the national archives, they announced a sensational discovery: Otto Skorzeny was a contract killer in the service of the Mossad!
According to the authors of the article, initially the Mossad wanted to find and kill Skorzeny - or, if possible, take him to Israel and execute him there after the trial, as happened in 1962 with one of the organizers of the Holocaust, Adolph Eichmann, who was secretly taken out of Argentina. Skorzeny's surname was included in the list of Simon Wiesenthal, the "Nazi hunter", the head of a secret organization engaged in the search and elimination of war criminals.
But then-Mossad director Isser Harel instructed his staff to try recruiting. Israeli special services learned that in Egypt a group of former scientists of the Third Reich is developing missile weapons. The help of the Fuhrer's pet could be invaluable in stopping this activity.
Who was Otto Skorzeny and why was his services so interested in the intelligence of the Jewish state?
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Knight's Cross
The future German saboteur number one was born on June 12, 1908 in Vienna, and later studied at the local university. He was distinguished by a quick-tempered character - in his student years he took part in 15 duels with swords and in one of them he received an injury to his left cheek, as a result of which he left a scar for life.
In 1931 he joined the Nazi Party, took part in the fascist unrest in Vienna. During the Jewish pogroms in Austria, Otto Skorzeny became the owner of a luxury yacht, the owner of which disappeared without a trace, as well as a large amount of other property belonging to the Jews.
After the outbreak of World War II, he served in the elite SS troops. In April 1943, with the rank of SS Hauptsturmführer, he became commander of a special reconnaissance and sabotage group. In the same year, Adolf Hitler personally appointed him head of the operation to free the former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was removed from power and arrested as a result of the Allied invasion of Italy. In September 1943, German paratroopers led by Skorzeny parachuted down in the mountainous region of Gran Sasso and attacked the Campo Imperatore hotel, where they were holding the main Italian fascist. Mussolini was taken to Munich, and Otto Skorzeny was awarded the Knight's Cross and the glory of the best saboteur of the Third Reich for a brilliant operation.
Work for the soul
The career of the Fuhrer's favorite went up sharply. By May 1945, he already had several highest fascist awards and the title of Obersturmbannführer. Skorzeny was considered not only the best saboteur, but also the "ideal Nazi", ready to do anything for the sake of the task set by the Fuhrer. American and British intelligence officers called him the most dangerous man in Europe.
After the war, Skorzeny was arrested by the Allies, and in August 1947 he was put on trial - not for war crimes, but for theft and damage to American military property during one of the 1944 operations. Skorzeny was acquitted and moved to the United States, where he trained local saboteurs. True, under public pressure, he was again sent to the camp of the German city of Darmstadt, from where Hitler's favorite escaped. According to one of the versions, former SS men helped him, according to another - American special services.
After several years of wandering, Skorzeny settled in Spain, where the fascist dictator Francisco Franco ruled. In 1950, the wedding took place between Skorzeny and Ilse von Finkenstein, niece of the finance minister of Nazi Germany. Thanks to her money, Skorzeny could live happily. And for his heart he had the opportunity to do his favorite job: it is known that he advised Argentine President Juan Peron and the Egyptian government on security issues.
Jewish relatives
Of course, Israeli intelligence knew about Skorzeny's war crimes. Before escaping from the Federal Republic of Germany, he was charged that in April 1945 he participated in a punitive operation against the population of the village of Ploshtina in Czechoslovakia, where 27 civilians were killed.
But the main thing is that in the documents, which the Israeli intelligence could not but familiarize themselves with, Skorzeny's crimes against the Jews were listed: in 1938 he led the pogroms in Vienna. Then they burned down five synagogues, confiscated numerous personal property, and women were subjected to violence. In 1943-1944, Skorzeny led the testing of new types of weapons, which were carried out on Jewish prisoners of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In the fall of 1944, a German saboteur was in Hungary and played a key role in the seizure of power by the Nazis, after which more than 100 thousand local Jews were killed in the country.
The Mossad leadership turned a blind eye to all this. Any people and means were suitable for ensuring the security of the state.
An interesting detail - after examining all the available documents, the Mossadites found out that Jewish blood flowed in the veins of the “ideal Nazi”. His relatives lived in Israel, moreover, Skorzeny had the imprudence to contact them, and they helped to establish in which country and under what name he was hiding.
In 1962, a group of agents was sent to Spain under the leadership of Yosef Ra'anan, an Israeli intelligence officer who, like Skorzeny, was born in Vienna. Contact with the Fuhrer's pet was entrusted to establish a girl known under the pseudonym Anke and her partner. Almost nothing is known about him.
Conversation at the villa
In a restaurant in Madrid, agents disguised as a German couple met Skorzeny and his wife, telling them that as a result of the robbery, they were left without money and documents.
Ilse invited her "compatriots" to spend the night in their villa. After arriving there, Skorzeny pointed a pistol at the guests and said that he guessed: they were from the Mossad and had come to kill him.
The agents admitted that they are Israeli intelligence officers, but they do not want assassination, but cooperation - and as evidence they listed where and how they could easily eliminate Otto. The conversation continued, and Skorzeny agreed to work for Israeli intelligence - but in exchange for his name disappearing from the list of "Nazi hunter" Simon Wiesenthal.
Skorzeny was tasked with stopping rocket development, which was carried out in Egypt by former employees of the secret laboratories of the Third Reich.
In 1962, a new Israeli agent visited Egypt, restored old and acquired new contacts - and gave Mossad a detailed list of specialists working on the missile program, as well as data on European firms engaged in the supply of strategic raw materials, including the Munich-based Intra company, owned by a longtime acquaintance of Otto Skorzeny Heinz Krug.
The persons on the list were pressured and threatened in no uncertain terms if they continued to work. So that no one had any doubts, Skorzeny personally made and sent to one of the secret enterprises a parcel with a bomb, the explosion of which killed five employees.
Intimidation tactics worked - almost all German specialists left Egypt, work on the missile program was curtailed.
Fake letter
But intimidating scientists would not have had a chance of success without a concrete and clear example. In other words, an exemplary liquidation of one of those involved in the Arab missile program was needed. The already mentioned Heinz Krug became such a person.
It was he, a resident of Munich, who asked for help from the rest of the German specialists. And Heinz Krug, to his misfortune, turned to Skorzeny - a man he knew as an "ideal Nazi" and a true hero.
Their meeting took place in Munich on September 11, 1962, after which the famous scientist and businessman disappeared without a trace.
According to documents declassified many years later, Skorzeny took him to the forest and shot him there. Two other Mossad employees, one of whom, Yitzhak Shamir, later became Prime Minister of Israel, poured acid on Krug's body to make it impossible to identify him.
As a reward for Skorzeny's active work, Israeli intelligence attempted to persuade Simon Wiesenthal to abandon plans to eliminate German saboteur number one. But the consent of the "hunter for the Nazis" was not achieved. In order not to lose face, Mossad employees forged a letter from Wiesenthal, in which he allegedly reported that from now on Skorzeny was "clean before the law."
Nevertheless, by accident or by heeding the recommendations of the special services, the group of Israeli liquidators never made it to Skorzeny. The Fuhrer's favorite died of cancer in 1975 in Madrid. His body was cremated and his ashes were buried in the family crypt in Vienna. The ceremony was attended by Yosef Raanan, who was once in charge of collaborating with Skorzeny. By then he had retired and became a businessman, but he could not help but pay tribute to the brilliantly working agent.
Platon VIKTOROV
