   Sometime on December 16th, seven jeeploads of soldiers raced westward from the Losheim gap northeast of St. Vith. Fanning out, they spread word of the huge German attack. Hundreds of tanks were coming, they screamed at terrified GIs. "Run for your lives," they shouted. At empty crossroads, they re-arranged road signs, cut telephone wires, and redirected traffic in the wrong direction.
   They were German commandos, fluent in English, using captured American uniforms and equipment. Their assignment was to sow chaos and confusion. This they did well for their tiny numbers, but their greatest impact came after three of them were captured the next day and revealed the plan for Operation Greif ("Greif" is the German word for terror.) When it was learned that their commander was the notorious Otto Skorzeny, American security officers panicked.
   The word went out: the American rear areas were crawling with German agents who spoke perfect English. They were dressed just like Americans, driving regular American vehicles, and had American papers. They were, according to the rumors, up to all sorts of dastardly schemes, the most sensational of which was a plot to assasinate General Eisenhower. As a result, Ike was smothered with so much security that he could hardly function for two weeks.
    Just one of the seven teams made it back to German lines after a week of wild adventures behind enemy lines; the others were all caught or killed. Three of the captured German commandos -- Officer Cadet Gunther Billing, Corporal Wilhelm Schmidt, and Private First Class Manfred Pernass -- were court martialed by the Americans for fighting out of uniform. They were shot as spies.
/Otto Skorzeny
   Otto Skorzeny, the commander of Operation Greif, was the most successful commando of World War II. An Austrian trained as an engineer, Skorzeny's first big operation was the rescue of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini's government had collapsed in 1943 and he had been captured by the forces of the new Italian government. Hitler felt an obligation to save his old friend, and he gave the job to Skorzeny.
   Mussolini was being held in a remote mountaintop resort, reachable only by a tiny road. It was an impregnable position; no ground assault could succeed. Skorzeny led a glider attack against the mountaintop, rescued Mussolini, and spirited him away in a tiny Fiesler Storch, a German airplane that could take off and land in almost no space. To get it off the mountaintop, they had to push it over a cliff.
   Skorzeny's next job was slightly different. This time he had to kidnap Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian leader, who was considering defecting from the Axis cause and surrendering to the Russians. Horthy was holed up in a castle in Budapest. If Skorzeny went in shooting, the Hungarians would certainly not remain allies of the Germans. So he arranged a military parade for early one Sunday morning. His men were in dress uniform and standing at attention as they drove straight up to the fortress gates. Sure enough, the flustered guards let them pass. Skorzeny got his man.
   After Operation Greif, Skorzeny was given a regular military command on the Eastern Front. In the final collapse of the Third Reich, he made his way to Austria and gave himself up to the Americans. After being acquitted on war crimes charges, he escaped from the POW camp and made his way to Spain, where he began a successful career as an engineer./