75 Years Ago: The Doomed German Spy Mission in the Battle of the Bulge

Seventy-five years ago, on December 16, the Battle of the Bulge began. Many don’t know about a doomed spy mission that Hitler had devised for his surprise Ardennes Offensive. Under the code name Greif, German soldiers who could speak English were trained and equipped to impersonate American troops behind the enemy lines, where they would wreak havoc and secure depots and bridges in advance of the main assault.

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Planet news /TopFoto

The German offensive caught American troops resting in Belgium’s forested Ardennes region completely off guard, and in the bloody chaos the rumor quickly spread that the American impersonators were crack enemy terrorists out to kidnap or kill US General Eisenhower, commander of the Allied Forces.

The lore of German agents impersonating American soldiers reemerged in films, fiction and even history books as a frightening and deadly ploy carried out with skill and cunning. The commander, SS Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny, already had an overhyped daredevil’s reputation that only fueled the legend.

The reality was completely different, though. The Germans had hastily put together units of English-speaking soldiers using whatever troops and materiel they could gather. The men came from all branches of the German military and possibly included civilians. The ones who spoke English best had lived in America or Britain, but these numbered very few.

Many of the English speakers had been sailors and naive students and were far from ideal soldiers let alone crack terrorists. One, Otto Struller, had been a professional ballet dancer, and some had occupations such as waiter or writer. Some appear to have been misled about the mission, and couldn’t back out. At least one was shot for a breach of secrecy.

The planning and training were slapdash, the mission desperate, its chances slim. Skorzeny and his officers placed the better English speakers into a special commando unit, Einheit Stielau. They were sent out in captured American jeeps to infiltrate the US lines, and managed to confuse (already bewildered) US troops by switching signs, passing along bogus info, and committing sabotage.

The Americans captured some of the Stielau men and promptly shot them by firing squad, including Struller. As the main German offensive sputtered, Skorzeny called off Operation Greif. If anything, the commando mission helped the Americans, since those wild rumors about cutthroat Germans in GI uniform gunning for Eisenhower only served to keep American counterintelligence alert and strengthen the troops’ rattled resolve.

In 1947, the Allies’ Dachau Trials were supposed to make an example of the infamous Skorzeny and his officers for running a villainous ruse that ran counter to the so-called rules of war, but the defense brought in Allied officers who had to admit they’d been running similar special missions. Skorzeny and all of the defendants were acquitted. Not cool. The little guy gets screwed again while the bigshot walks.

If you want to geek out on this, there’s a fellow in Holland named Wolfgang Stienes who’s devoted his spare time to discovering the identities of some of those doomed Germans posing as Americans. It’s no easy task, since extant records are tough to find and many of them confusing.

Most of it is in German, here: https://www.oorlogsslachtoffers.nl/greif1944/#

There’s some in English, here: https://www.tracesofwar.com/themes/5892/Operation-Greif.html

Herr Stienes contacted me a while back with a surprise. He was able to identify the two captured Greif men on the photo above, which is also the cover for my novel The Losing Role (2010). The photo’s true origin is a mystery even to its copyright holder, Planet News/TopFoto, and the two prisoners previously unknown. They are:

Obergefreiter Rolf Meyer alias 2nd Lt. Sammy Rosner

Leutnant zur See Günther Schilz alias Corporal John Weller

To me, this tale reveals the various traps involving language and cultural differences in spy operations. But more than that, it speaks loads about the utter absurdity and insanity of war.

The mission features in The Losing Role (2010), is described in my nonfiction Kindle Single Sitting Ducks (2011), and it also plays a role in my later novel Under False Flags (2014). Give them a read for more on this.

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Some of this borrows from an earlier post, “The True Story that Inspired The Losing Role,” as well as the Afterword to The Losing Role.