Otto Skorzeny

On July 5, 1975, Otto Skorzeny, SS special operations commander, died at the age of 67. Unbelievably, he worked for the Mossad later in his life. An excerpt from the article:

"Skorzeny enjoyed the reputation as Europe’s most dangerous man and published a memoir in 1957, Skorzeny’s Special Missions: The Autobiography of Hitler’s Commando Ace. He also became an advisor to various governments, including the Egypt’s, which brought him into contact with former Nazi rocket scientists helping the Nasser regime to develop the capability to threaten Israel.

The Israelis had made stopping the Egyptian project a top priority and were threatening the scientists and considered killing Skorzeny. Instead, the Mossad decided to recruit him to allow them to get closer to the scientists. According to journalists Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, an Israeli agent and a female helper met Skorzeny and his wife at a bar in Madrid. The two couples ended up at Skorzeny’s villa where the German pulled a gun out and threatened to kill the others because he believed they were Israeli agents sent to kill him.

The Israelis said they wanted to hire him, not kill him. Skorzeny said he didn’t want any money, but would help in exchange for the Israelis convincing Simon Wiesenthal to remove Skorzeny from his list of outstanding war criminals. The Israelis agreed and later made the request to Wiesenthal. The Nazi hunter refused, so the Mossad forged a document they presented to Skorzeny saying that he had been removed from Wiesenthal’s list.

Skorzeny was brought to Israel and met the head of the Mossad, Isser Harel. He was subsequently sent to Cairo where he compiled a list of German scientists and their addresses, as well as the names of front companies in Europe that were procuring and shipping components for Egypt’s military projects. During one trip, he mailed exploding packages, one of which killed five Egyptians where German scientists worked.

On September 11, 1962, Heinz Krug, a German rocket scientist working for the Egyptians, met with Skorzeny in the hope the war hero would help develop a strategy to protect him and other scientists from Israel. They met in Munich and Skorzeny drove him out to the forest outside the city and killed him.

Skorzeny never explained why he worked for the Mossad. Raviv and Melman speculate he may have wanted to ensure the Mossad would not kill him, that he was seeking atonement for his Nazi past, that he was attracted by the idea of once again engaging in secret missions or a combination of these factors.

Otto Skorzeny died of cancer in Madrid on July 5, 1975. He had two funerals, one in a chapel in Spain’s capital and the other to bury his cremated remains in the Skorzeny family plot in Vienna."