Never Had a Chance: German Spies in US Uniform
The real-life WWII mission that inspired my novel The Losing Role
Imagine being able to speak a second language. Then imagine being forced to impersonate a deadly enemy using that second language. You’re now a spy but have zero experience. Plus, this sudden hell transpires during a major battle. If you’re caught, you’re dead.
This grim scenario damned hundreds of English-speaking Germans late in WWII, when an increasingly delusional Adolf Hitler created a special unit. The plan: impersonate American troops behind the lines at the height of a bloody battle.
It was a bold and desperate ruse—and as it turned out, a suicide mission.
Fantasizing Total Victory
By late 1944, Hitler’s regime of power-mad fascists faced total defeat. In the East, the Soviets were closing in on Nazi Germany’s borders. The same in the West—colossal Allied British and American Armies had penetrated the Reich.
In their frenzy, Hitler and his criminal generals dreamed up the Ardennes Offensive: Secretly amass a huge strike force in the West, using all they had left of their battered, fragmented armies. Then, punch through Belgium’s dense Ardennes Forest at the weakest point in the US lines.
For this gambit to succeed, one secret ploy became crucial: Operation Greif. They would find any and all German soldiers who could speak English, dress them up like American GIs and officers, and send them over in captured American vehicles. Their assignment: seize crucial bridges, wreak havoc, and possibly assassinate Allied military leaders.
A Con Job With No Way Out
At 5:15 a.m. on Dec 16, 1944, the Germans’ surprise and massive Ardennes offensive barreled through the freezing, densely forested Belgian border—and right through the complacent and thinly spread American front lines. The bloody combat became what’s known as the Battle of the Bulge.
For Operation Greif, the Germans had put the better English speakers into a special commando unit. They were sent out in teams, four each in American jeeps, to infiltrate the American lines at the head of the shock offensive.
In ensuing legend, these Germans impersonating American soldiers was a frightening and deadly subterfuge. The German offensive caught American troops resting in Belgium’s forests completely off guard, after all, and in the bloody chaos the rumor spread that the American impersonators were crack enemy terrorists out to kidnap or kill US General Eisenhower, commander of the Allied Forces. The lore reemerged in films, fiction, and even history books as an operation carried out with skill and cunning. The commander, SS Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny, already had a daredevil’s reputation that didn’t temper the legend.
The reality was so much different. Skorzeny and his officers had scrambled to put together units of English-speaking soldiers using whatever ragtag troops and Allied vehicles and materiel they could find. They improvised the planning, rushed the training.
The men came from all branches of the German military and possibly included civilians. Few spoke American English well enough to fool anyone. The ones who did had lived in America or Britain, but these numbered very few. Others had been waiters, artists, writers, sailors, and students before getting drafted. One of them, Otto Struller, had been a professional ballet dancer.
They were far from ideal soldiers let alone crack terrorists. More like dupes. Some appear to have been misled about the assignment and couldn’t back out. Most had no idea what they were getting into. At least one recruit was shot for a breach of secrecy.
At first, the fake Americans managed to confuse and panic the (already bewildered) US troops by switching signs, passing bogus information, and committing sabotage. But as the US counterattack raged on, the Americans soon captured some of the Greif men.
After brief interrogation, the US Army promptly shot some of the fake Americans by firing squad, including Otto Struller. And when the main German offensive eventually sputtered, Skorzeny called off Operation Greif, and the false flag infiltrators fell back to join regular units.
If anything, the Greif ruse helped the Americans. Wild rumors quickly spread about cutthroat Germans in GI uniforms. They’re gunning to kill General Eisenhower! They’re storming to take back Paris! Any US soldier passing a checkpoint got asked detailed questions about American sports and movies that only a native speaker could know. This all only served to keep American counterintelligence alert and strengthen the troops’ rattled resolve.
Justice Meets Reality
After the war, in 1947, the Allies held trials to make an example of the infamous Skorzeny and his officers for Operation Greif—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 ops themselves all along. Skorzeny and all defendants were acquitted.
And how’s this for irony? In 1948, Otto Skorzeny escaped US custody: Supposedly, former SS officers impersonating American MPs pretended to take Skorzeny to a legal hearing. Skorzeny himself later claimed the Americans knew about the ruse and even supplied the uniforms. For many years after, he continued hyping his daredevil reputation in Spain and South America.
Meanwhile, those underdogs sent out in jeeps to die had no escape. The ones who weren’t promptly shot by firing squad remained in US custody, only until later trials sent them to the gallows. Call it karma. Call it tough luck for being in the wrong regime at the wrong time. But it’s also yet another case of the little guy getting screwed while the bigshot walks.
Now Playing: The Losing Role
This tragic tale inspired my novel, The Losing Role, in which the SS orders banned actor/entertainer Max Kaspar to impersonate a US officer during the Battle of the Bulge.
Max doesn’t want to die for an evil regime, so he devises his own secret mission to escape the war and flee to America. All he’s got are his language skills and acting talent.
The Losing Role has just been re-released—in e-book and paperback—along with the whole Kaspar Brothers series. A fourth Kaspar Brothers novel is coming in early 2024. Now’s a great time to start reading the series if you haven’t before.