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The 1st SS Panzer Division's Dash Westward, and Operation Greif

Operation Greif was a special false flag operation commanded by the notorious Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and consisted of using specially-trained German soldiers in captured American uniforms and vehicles to cause confusion in the rear of the Allied defense. A lack of transport aircraft, uniforms and English-speaking soldiers limited this operation, but the confusion created by this so-called "Trojan Horse Brigade" was considerable.

In the first wave of the operation, a company of German soldiers in captured American army Jeeps^[1] set out to penetrate the Allied lines in the initial confusion of December 16, 1944, the first day of the Battle of the Bulge. Of these, about forty jeeps got through.^[2] The Germans began changing signposts and creating panic among American troops they encountered. A group managed to blow up a munitions depot. A second, follow-up wave using US Army tanks and trucks was aborted because of lack of equipment and the failure of conventional forces to achieve a breakthrough in the northern sector of the operation.^[3]

Many of the saboteurs were captured by the Americans. Because they were wearing American uniforms, a number of the Germans were executed, either summarily or after court martial.^[4]

The Allies were tricked at some point into thinking that Skorzeny's aim was to go to Paris to either kill or capture overall Allied commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The latter was thus assigned a look-alike in Paris, and himself closely protected and confined to a secret place for several days.

The Americans had already captured some documents referring to Operation Greif. In reality, the word Greif was probably used simply to mean a mythical heraldic beast, the griffin. Because Skorzeny was already well-known for rescuing Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (Operation Oak or Unternehmen Eiche) and kidnapping the son of Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy (Operation Panzerfaust or Unternehmen Eisenfaust), the Americans were more than willing to believe Eisenhower was his next target.

Because of the perceived threat, Eisenhower was confined to his headquarters for several days, and thousands of American MPs were put to work trying to hunt down Skorzeny's men. Checkpoints were soon set up all over the Allied rear, slowing the movement of soldiers and equipment. Military policemen drilled servicemen on things which every American was expected to know, such as the identity of Mickey Mouse's girlfriend, baseball scores, or the capital of their state. This latter question resulted in the brief detention of General Omar Bradley himself; although he gave the correct answer — Springfield, Illinois — the GI who questioned him apparently believed that the capital was Chicago.^[5] Several other Allied soldiers were detained, erroneously thought to belong to Skorzeny's group.^[6]

The overall mission was regarded by Skorzeny as a failure, mostly because of lack of material and support from other Wehrmacht divisions. Because a total breakthrough wasn't achieved on the first day of the battle, Skorzeny had to use most of his panzer brigade as ordinary combat troops, in German uniform.

After the war, Skorzeny was tried by the Allies as a war criminal for allowing his men to wear enemy uniforms. He was acquitted when the British Wing Commander Yeo-Thomas of the Special Operations Executive testified in his defense that he and other Allied commandos had done the same thing.

One example of the tactics, techniques and procedures used in Operation Greif can be seen in the 2002 film Hart's War, in which 1st Lieutenant Hart, played by Colin Farrell, and an infantry captain are ambushed by German soldiers posing as American soldiers on a main supply route.

There was another documented military operation with this name, an anti-partisan operation conducted by the German Army Wehrmacht Heer, begun on August 14, 1944, in the vicinity of Orsha and Vitebsk, USSR.

1. ^ Shirer, William, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Pan Books, 1960
2. ^ Liddell Hart, Basil, Liddell Hart's History of the Second World War, Pan Books, 1973 - the figure of forty jeeps is also cited by Shirer.
3. ^ Liddell Hart, Basil, Liddell Hart's History of the Second World War, Pan Books, 1973
4. ^ Shirer, William, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Pan Books, 1960
5. ^ Bradley, Omar, A Soldier's Story
6. ^ Otto Skorzeny, Skorzeny's Special Missions (Greenhill Books, 1997) ISBN 1-85367-291-2

• Revealed: Farce of plot to kidnap Eisenhower
• The Battle of the Bulge on the Web, Operation Greif links