Speaker 1: Hopefully streaming art work.
Speaker 2: It didn't work last other Warlife. Yeah, we are live. Hi,
Speaker 2: this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey investigates on
Speaker 2: today's show of a very special guest. He comes to
Speaker 2: us from the UK. His name is Stuart Smith, and
Speaker 2: I saw him on Netflix. I saw him on a
Speaker 2: documentary titled Europe's Most Dangerous Man, Auto Skorzeny in Spain,
Speaker 2: and so I was really fascinated by the subject. And
Speaker 2: I'd heard a little bit about Skorzeny's name, just as
Speaker 2: my interest in World War Two. But Stuart's an expert
Speaker 2: on Scorzenny. He wrote this book titled Auto Skorzenny The
Speaker 2: Devil's Disciple, published twenty eighteen, a terrific book with forty
Speaker 2: two five star reviews. So it's very well received on Amazon.
Speaker 2: So people can go check that out. But Stuart's going
Speaker 2: to talk more about that. So Stuart Smith, are you.
Speaker 1: There, I'm there, yeah, Hello.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, Well thanks for getting to the interview for
Speaker 2: people may not have heard your name. Can you talk
Speaker 2: about your background and what led you to write this
Speaker 2: book Otto Skorzeny The Devil's Disciple.
Speaker 1: Sure, surely I studied history at University. Modern history included,
Speaker 1: but not exclusively, so cerdainly not the end of the
Speaker 1: Second World War in any great detail. But then I
Speaker 1: became a journalist. I was a business journalist, a specialist.
Speaker 1: I edited a quite a well known marketing magazine in
Speaker 1: the UK, and after I left that job as editor,
Speaker 1: done it for twenty years, I set up my own blog,
Speaker 1: became a consultant. And one day when I was working
Speaker 1: with another of my colleagues from the same magazine, earlier editor,
Speaker 1: we were putting stuff together and a submission came in
Speaker 1: and it was a strange submission. It mentioned this character
Speaker 1: called Otto Scott Senni, who I barely heard of, and
Speaker 1: I had a pretty good outline knowledge of what happened
Speaker 1: in the Second World War, who had apparently rescued Massolini.
Speaker 1: This man was a former, very well known creative director
Speaker 1: in a UK advertising agency. And what he was trying
Speaker 1: to do, I suppose was it came across as slightly
Speaker 1: pretentious but interesting, was to say that there are different
Speaker 1: kinds of creative. You don't just have to be good
Speaker 1: at a partner or film. And in his sphere, Otto
Speaker 1: scots Sony was highly creative because he thought of the
Speaker 1: vertical axis, as he called it when rescuing Mussolini from
Speaker 1: imprisonment in the middle of Italy in nineteen forty three,
Speaker 1: some of which was true, and I thought, is this, well,
Speaker 1: let's have a look at that. That's almost too good
Speaker 1: to be true. Was he such a so called creative
Speaker 1: genius and military terms? And when I looked at it,
Speaker 1: I discovered he had indeed participate in the expedition to
Speaker 1: release Bussolini from captivity, but that there was an awful
Speaker 1: lot of controversy about him. A lot of people, including
Speaker 1: those who served with him, said he had he was there,
Speaker 1: but someone else actually dreamed up the plan to rescue Mussolini.
Speaker 1: And then I started looking at the rest of Otto
Speaker 1: Scotts in his career, and the one consistent thing about
Speaker 1: it is he's never without controversy. Everything he did attracted attention,
Speaker 1: some positive, not always there. And there are a number
Speaker 1: of events in his military career which I then touched on.
Speaker 1: And then I discovered that he'd had rather good war
Speaker 1: ultimately because he'd escaped justice and we can go into
Speaker 1: what justice might have been later and lived the what
Speaker 1: you might call the life of Riley, which did include it.
Speaker 1: It did include a mansion house in Ireland eventually, but
Speaker 1: mostly it was in Spain between nineteen fifty and nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five when he died in his bed, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's just an incredible character, Like how he
Speaker 2: skirted it, being involved in so many things, so many operations,
Speaker 2: how he skirted justice for all those years. People say
Speaker 2: maybe he wasn't as smart, but he I mean, reading
Speaker 2: your book, he got through so many things. So maybe
Speaker 2: for people who haven't heard the name Otters Kristini, who
Speaker 2: is it? What's his background? And how did did he
Speaker 2: become involved in World War Two?
Speaker 1: All right? Well up to the only part of nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three, you might say it was a study in
Speaker 1: failure in a way. He was born in nineteen hundred
Speaker 1: and eight in Vienna in the sort of what you
Speaker 1: might call the crepuscular radiance of a fading empire fifty
Speaker 1: four million people, to middle class parents. His father was
Speaker 1: a successful master builder who'd also been fought in the
Speaker 1: Versipal War, or at least he was in the army reserve,
Speaker 1: and his mother also came from a military family. The
Speaker 1: Scotsendy name, in fact, comes from something like Skotsin, which
Speaker 1: is a place in Pomerania in Prussia. In fact, that
Speaker 1: center is back. So they had eventually settled in Austria,
Speaker 1: but they were established folk. He had an elder brother
Speaker 1: who was eight years older him, born in nineteen hundred, Alfred,
Speaker 1: who was an engineer, and his father was, like Scott Sney,
Speaker 1: fascinated about technology. But we'll come to that in a
Speaker 1: little while. This sort of fairly idyllic middle class life
Speaker 1: was shattered very soon by the First World War. Austria
Speaker 1: Hungary soon well not soon, but it did collapse within
Speaker 1: three or four years. The Empire imploded on itself, and
Speaker 1: what was left after nineteen nineteen the Treaty of Sancho
Speaker 1: Man which is appended to the Treaty of Versai, imposed
Speaker 1: on the beaten Central Powers by the Allies, the Western Allies,
Speaker 1: was a very truncated country with lots of unemployed middle
Speaker 1: class folk, industries that didn't work. Either the factories from
Speaker 1: on the Austrian side or the raw materials on the side.
Speaker 1: Would have been a free trade area was now anything but.
Speaker 1: And the Scott Seianney family together in my middle class
Speaker 1: Austrians at a time, found it very very hard In fact,
Speaker 1: as a quote somewhere in one of the books about
Speaker 1: Scott Senni, he said that he didn't taste butter until
Speaker 1: about nineteen twenty three. It was that bad. And you
Speaker 1: know we've heard all the proverbial stories about wheelbarrows in
Speaker 1: the row in nineteen twenty three when the French army
Speaker 1: occupied the West Bank of Germany. Well, it's pretty much
Speaker 1: the same in Hungary. You know what would have bought
Speaker 1: a small house in nineteen thirteen, nineteen fourteen, would just
Speaker 1: about buy a postage stamp in nineteen twenty three.
Speaker 2: It was that bad, right, So he had grown up
Speaker 2: kind of in penury. He had said, his dad told him,
Speaker 2: you know this is actually might be good for you
Speaker 2: to grow that way. So they're very My sense was
Speaker 2: the family was really concerned about their financial status, and
Speaker 2: so was he. So he's trying to make a living.
Speaker 2: Leggy started you said, he started a business doing gutters
Speaker 2: or something up until the war started. So how did
Speaker 2: he get in what? How did he get involved? I
Speaker 2: mean as an Austrian, right, So how did he get
Speaker 2: involved in the whole Third Reich War effort? Right?
Speaker 1: Is quite a jump. He wasn't a political young man,
Speaker 1: but he was a sports to his father clearly had
Speaker 1: some resources he kept back because he was able to
Speaker 1: send him to university where he studied engineering. But what
Speaker 1: he actually did with most of his time, although he
Speaker 1: did pass his exams eventually, it was well. He was
Speaker 1: a massive young man. He was about six foot four,
Speaker 1: very very athletic, as he can see from the photographs
Speaker 1: of him, and what he mostly spent his time doing
Speaker 1: was drinking and sword play. And what I mean by
Speaker 1: sword play is there was a very established institution. It
Speaker 1: wasn't unusual in Austrian or German universities of the time
Speaker 1: of these what you might call very mannered combat jewel
Speaker 1: with sabers. They were called schlaga the sword, and the
Speaker 1: concept was called mensure. It originated in the post and
Speaker 1: Paneeronic War period and it was a sort of a
Speaker 1: ritual or rite of passage of certain not everyone in
Speaker 1: university did it, but certain matcho young men. And the
Speaker 1: idea with this, and it's important for later on here,
Speaker 1: I think the idea of this was to show your
Speaker 1: unflinching bravery, because although the rest of your body was protected,
Speaker 1: your face wasn't. And almost anyone who was anyone with
Speaker 1: one of these swords had the scars to prove it.
Speaker 1: And also Scott say he was particularly well. He was
Speaker 1: insanely brave, as will become apparent in various episodes, but
Speaker 1: he certainly showed it. At university he fought an unusual
Speaker 1: Most of most students might have fought I don't know
Speaker 1: three or four, any how long their nerve held, but
Speaker 1: he fought I think it was fourteen of these bouts
Speaker 1: over three years or so. And in nineteen twenty eight,
Speaker 1: after you've been at the Vienna Technical University for two years,
Speaker 1: he got unlucky and he was sliced down the left
Speaker 1: side of his face all the way to the jaw,
Speaker 1: which is how he got one of his nicknames among
Speaker 1: the Americans. Anyway of scarface.
Speaker 2: This was.
Speaker 1: This was sealed up without any anesthetic. It was just
Speaker 1: done with Carl.
Speaker 2: Bollock, right. They just stitching up right there, get.
Speaker 1: Some yeah, and you went home, and then you came
Speaker 1: back from if you were him, you came back for
Speaker 1: another one.
Speaker 2: For four And there is a picture of him online.
Speaker 2: You can see it with the cut on his face
Speaker 2: and they're wearing kind of like a guard for the neck.
Speaker 2: A metal guard. It looked very rough, but yeah, but
Speaker 2: it shows kind of his sensibility of being in a
Speaker 2: man's club. You're right, and it lays that groundwork with
Speaker 2: fearlessness and kind of bravado that he would.
Speaker 1: Have a chismo man. Yeah, with the athleticism to prove
Speaker 1: his point. But he liked to say, like on even
Speaker 1: though he was kind of a political before he went
Speaker 1: to university, that the saber play well. He taught in
Speaker 1: what he called the knowledge of pain, how to take
Speaker 1: it as well as give it. But he was also
Speaker 1: quite keen on this idea, almost chivaler, chivalrous idea that
Speaker 1: when you went for the enemy, you went straight for
Speaker 1: the head. You didn't waste time with the body, decapitate
Speaker 1: your enemy. And this was one small idea I think
Speaker 1: behind his decapitation missions later on when he was doing
Speaker 1: military service. So it was something that the rite of
Speaker 1: passage he has, but something that left a lasting impression
Speaker 1: on him.
Speaker 2: Right, So he's part of these mensical He also likes
Speaker 2: the speed race. I think he was involved in kind
Speaker 2: of automobile racing too, so you kind of have that daring.
Speaker 2: And then how did he get involved in war effort.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, this is where we come to the politics.
Speaker 1: These student clubs, dueling clubs were in our very right
Speaker 1: wing anyway, and it become more so with the disgruntlement
Speaker 1: after the First World War. With Austria as a rump state,
Speaker 1: it seemed to be going nowhere. It's in the hands
Speaker 1: of coalitions who couldn't rule the country properly, and the army,
Speaker 1: which was very small, had to rely on a large
Speaker 1: number of paramilitaries. The most famous parliamentary organization in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties was the heimspheare the Home Force, really, that's
Speaker 1: what it meant, and these students were affiliated to that
Speaker 1: so in their spare time they could go out beating
Speaker 1: up gangs of communists. There was There was virtual civil
Speaker 1: war in Austria in nineteen twenty seven nineteen twenty eight,
Speaker 1: but a pattern began to develop and Scotseny moved towards
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party. Was originally part of the Heims Fair,
Speaker 1: which yes was right wing, but it wasn't affiliated to
Speaker 1: the Nazis. In Germany in the early nineteen thirties, when
Speaker 1: the Heimsphair leader made a fatal political mistake, he decided
Speaker 1: to join government and he dropped the essential stipulation for
Speaker 1: a lot of these paramilitary students you like, of what
Speaker 1: was called Anschluss. That meant there was a very technical
Speaker 1: term which meant simply that Austria would be joined with Germany.
Speaker 1: There's a great deal. I think this is quite an
Speaker 1: important point on why so many young Nazis felt justified
Speaker 1: in what they did in the early days. Anyway, there
Speaker 1: was a great deal of resentment after the Treaty of
Speaker 1: Versailles had imposed what was seen as a very skewed
Speaker 1: settlement on Europe. I mean, it talked about self determination,
Speaker 1: meaning that you know, people's of one language and one
Speaker 1: culture should fit together, but it seemed to be skewed
Speaker 1: so that Germans never won aut That was why Austria
Speaker 1: was so small, Hungary was so small because they were
Speaker 1: the beaten powers. The only way it became increasingly obvious
Speaker 1: that Austria had any kind of future was to join
Speaker 1: up with Germany again, and Adolf Hitler from certainly nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty onwards seen to be the future for a lot
Speaker 1: of these people. And then the Nazi party itself, where
Speaker 1: the Heinswheer had put aside Angelus as a policy and
Speaker 1: certainly the Austrian government didn't believe in it. The Nazi
Speaker 1: Party adhered to it very fiercely, but it was banned.
Speaker 1: It was banned after essentially it assassinated Dolphus, the Austrian Chancellor,
Speaker 1: and so it was banned from nineteen thirty four onwards. Now,
Speaker 1: by that time, the nineteen thirty two Scott Sainy had
Speaker 1: joined the Nazi Party. He thought it was dynamic, it
Speaker 1: had lots of easy solutions that appealed to him, and
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty four he joined the ss the elite
Speaker 1: Nazi organization. I should say something here about what the
Speaker 1: SSS meant in those days. It was a kind of
Speaker 1: It was conceived by Himmler and Heydrich I Heydrich the
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen twenties early thirties as a sort
Speaker 1: of prietorian guard around Hitler and his Garlighters. But it
Speaker 1: was a lot more, and there was a sort of
Speaker 1: separate organization in Austria which it was essentially a middle
Speaker 1: class intelligence police organization, intelligence gathering. So it would be
Speaker 1: very much smaller than say the typical well, it was
Speaker 1: certainly smaller Nazi Party membership and much much smaller than
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party storm Troopers, the Essay or brown Shirt. Proverbally,
Speaker 1: the SS were called the black Shirt, which was actually
Speaker 1: only true during the nineteen thirties. They changed the UNI
Speaker 1: from later, but at the time he's a distinction. That's
Speaker 1: what happened. So Scott Sonny joined this elite organization and
Speaker 1: in it nearing the top, and he was top dog.
Speaker 1: After nineteen thirty six was someone called Ernst Carton Brunner,
Speaker 1: a real brute. I mean he was sort of six
Speaker 1: foot seven, even taller than Scott Seeney, even bigger, granite
Speaker 1: faced colossus and scars.
Speaker 2: And they're all from Austria.
Speaker 1: So Hitler, yes, yeah, I haven't really mentioned another thing
Speaker 1: that's from Austria. Was unusual for a lot of Nazism.
Speaker 1: We might meet in this conversation. He was actually a
Speaker 1: lawyer by tradition is his parent his father was a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and I think his father's father. But he he'd actually
Speaker 1: met Scott Senny socially. I think they knew each other.
Speaker 1: They probably met because there are different universities and they
Speaker 1: were involved in these student duels. But Scott Senny was
Speaker 1: certainly he didn't he liked to conceal this later because
Speaker 1: after all, Anst. Carlton Burner became the head of the
Speaker 1: Nazi security apparatus, the RSHA eventually from nineteen forty three onwards,
Speaker 1: and he was a war criminal, absolutely no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: And Scott Senne liked to see himself as a sort
Speaker 1: of clean a political soldier that he might differ about that.
Speaker 1: So this idea of this relationship with Colton Berner his
Speaker 1: memoirs is very suppressed. It is mentioned. He doesn't completely
Speaker 1: show that away from it, but you don't get the
Speaker 1: impression they were very close.
Speaker 2: I mean that all kind of distance after the war,
Speaker 2: they tried to distance himself from the bad guys. But
Speaker 2: there's a picture I've seen a video of Hitler with
Speaker 2: the two huge guys, Calton Berner and Skorzenny walking in tandem.
Speaker 2: I don't know where it was from or what year
Speaker 2: it was, but it's really remarkable to see all those
Speaker 2: three guys together considering what happened during World War Two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the magic moment for Scott Senny where he
Speaker 1: becomes a really commissied, useful pair of hands to the
Speaker 1: Nazis is nineteen thirty eight and the Angelus operation where
Speaker 1: Hitler essentially a stage is a coupditar and overthrows the
Speaker 1: Austrian state, I mean Scott Senny. At that point, he's
Speaker 1: gone through university, he's got a degree. It doesn't add
Speaker 1: up to very much because there aren't many jobs. So
Speaker 1: he becomes a mechanic in a depot. Not many people
Speaker 1: have cars at that time, so it's a bit more
Speaker 1: prestigious than it is today perhaps, but nevertheless, he then
Speaker 1: graduates to a scaffolding a building company actually, but it
Speaker 1: specializes in scaffolding, and he's a sharp practitioner because he
Speaker 1: marries the boss's daughter, who's called Gretel Schreiber, and gets
Speaker 1: a share, eventually a major share in the business, and
Speaker 1: he continues in some way to be associated with it
Speaker 1: until nineteen forty five, and which we say force measure
Speaker 1: took over.
Speaker 2: But he.
Speaker 1: Divorces this young woman who was I think only about
Speaker 1: nineteen or twenty when he married her. And after after
Speaker 1: three years, and he marries someone else, an aspiring actress
Speaker 1: called Emmy Lindhart, and we may hear her of her.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Soon enough he's in the building trade, but in his
Speaker 1: spare time, what he's doing is he's participating in something
Speaker 1: called the Deutsche's Tunable, which is a gym club. And
Speaker 1: these were these gym clubs athletics clubs in Austria were
Speaker 1: below the radar in the sense that they were perfectly legal,
Speaker 1: but everyone knew they were actually operated by the Nazi Party.
Speaker 1: So come the day when Hitler's threatening to invade Scott
Speaker 1: saying he is, if you like, on the inner ring,
Speaker 1: and he's part of the crowd, although he denies it
Speaker 1: in his books, he's part of the crowd outside the
Speaker 1: Chancellor's built a calling for him to resign, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very threatening experience, a sort of ring of
Speaker 1: He wasn't in uniform himself, I believe, but he was
Speaker 1: wearing a ski coat. But there are plenty of black
Speaker 1: shirts and brown shirts around, and he plays this cameo
Speaker 1: role which points the way to the future. He's the
Speaker 1: chancellor at around about midnight only I think it was
Speaker 1: the thirteenth of March nineteen thirty eight. He finally buckles
Speaker 1: to the pressure and he resigns. Carlton Brunners in there
Speaker 1: because he's unofficially head of the SS and moment he's
Speaker 1: part of the investment of the chancellory. But there's a
Speaker 1: problem because the president, who's called Miklass, refuses to give in.
Speaker 1: And this could be very embarrassing for Hitler. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a half cocked coup d'etar. He doesn't really want
Speaker 1: to have to actually use the tanks, so somebled outside,
Speaker 1: the armored vehicles and so on. He wants it to
Speaker 1: be a smooth, seemingly civilian affair where the the chancellor
Speaker 1: has just given up, the presidents given up when the
Speaker 1: Hitler takes over. So what happens is that we're not
Speaker 1: quite sure who gave the order, but I think indirectly
Speaker 1: Colton Brunner himself told Scott SENNI because he happened to
Speaker 1: be around, and he happened to have access because as
Speaker 1: you said earlier, he was very much into motorsport, which
Speaker 1: was another Nazi sponsored business. He had access to a
Speaker 1: car and a few of his in a few of
Speaker 1: his mates raced to the residency of the of the
Speaker 1: of the President and effectively burst in. And now the
Speaker 1: way he tells it, he was there as a mediator
Speaker 1: because he was worried that the guy would get murdered,
Speaker 1: which would not be a good look for Hitler or
Speaker 1: anyone else for that matter, with so here with the Nazi.
Speaker 1: But they wanted him to meet class, to leave peaceably.
Speaker 1: But what actually happened was he went in there. Meeklas
Speaker 1: said later that actually he felt fear for his life,
Speaker 1: and so did his wife, because Scott Sending actually grabbed
Speaker 1: him as if to arrest him, and Miklas had a
Speaker 1: presidential guard read by the led by. Someone got left
Speaker 1: hand a bear sack who testified much the same thing
Speaker 1: that in fact Scott sayn he was much more aggressive
Speaker 1: than he portrayed himself. But nevertheless the thing ended peaceably,
Speaker 1: and Micholas could see the way things were going there
Speaker 1: was no way out, so he gave in. And I
Speaker 1: think somewhere in there you know Scott sat had done it.
Speaker 1: He wasn't armed. He himself wasn't armed, though he'd had,
Speaker 1: you know, soldiers rifles pointed out him as he came
Speaker 1: up the stairs to arrest the president. The overall tape
Speaker 1: from it, as far as the leading Nazis were concerned,
Speaker 1: Carlton Brenner in particular, was he'd mission accomplished, He'd been
Speaker 1: a useful pair of hands, and that was stored for
Speaker 1: later footnote in history. But you can begin to see
Speaker 1: the style, you know, insanely brave, dashes up the stairs,
Speaker 1: not armed. He's so self confident that he'll somehow sort
Speaker 1: the situation out, and he does. He does. I lost
Speaker 1: your sound.
Speaker 2: Let me unmute, sir. You state that in your book, like,
Speaker 2: it's really interesting that this is the groundwork for future
Speaker 2: things that he's involved in, being at the center of
Speaker 2: a thing, kind of bluffing his way into or just
Speaker 2: manhandling it through sheer like moral authority or something like that,
Speaker 2: where shots aren't viral anyway. Yeah, well, I mean, and
Speaker 2: I think that pulls it up. So you see that
Speaker 2: groundwork leading into World War Two, where so this is
Speaker 2: like the first of many. I mean, Skorzeny's a remarkable
Speaker 2: he's almost like a Zelig or something where he's at
Speaker 2: pivotal events in World War two, like an observer like it,
Speaker 2: just a remarkable historical figure. So what happens after the antelists?
Speaker 1: Okay, so effectively he gets married to Emmy Lynnhat and
Speaker 1: he has a one child, daughter of another. Very day
Speaker 1: she's born more or less than thirty nineteen, he's called up.
Speaker 1: He's he's tried to join the you know, you can imagine,
Speaker 1: given his political inclinations, he's very keen to fight for
Speaker 1: his country, for Adolf Hitler and so on. He tries
Speaker 1: to join the luft Father because this is the romantic
Speaker 1: art Service. It is full of new, you know, leading
Speaker 1: edge technology, and most of those involved where they've only
Speaker 1: learned to fly, they're very young. They've only learned to
Speaker 1: fly the in the recent past. There usually because they're younger,
Speaker 1: more ardent Nazis than those in the army. We've been
Speaker 1: a better brunt of the war, of course. But he's
Speaker 1: chucked out in effect. I mean, he's he must have
Speaker 1: known when he joined tried to join the loof Father,
Speaker 1: who he was thirty one, he was too old for it,
Speaker 1: and he was too big to fit in the cockpit
Speaker 1: of an Emmy one O nine. Which is this is
Speaker 1: he here? You know, going back, this goes back a
Speaker 1: bit to the Mensia business. Here's Scott Sayny, the sort
Speaker 1: of lone gladiator type, and he loved the idea of
Speaker 1: being able to get into aerial combat, but it just
Speaker 1: wasn't for him. So he did the next best thing.
Speaker 1: He joined up As I said more or less. He
Speaker 1: went to serve more or less the day his daughter
Speaker 1: was born in Vultra in February nineteen forty. And you
Speaker 1: had to sort of start to You had to start
Speaker 1: in as a very strange organization. Actually the VAF in SS,
Speaker 1: it was the armed part of the party, but it
Speaker 1: had only just come into being, certainly as the VAF
Speaker 1: and SS that were there were armed units of the SS,
Speaker 1: and there were in fact two regiments before the war
Speaker 1: broke out, and it has to be quickly expanded. So
Speaker 1: they were looking for a lot of people like Scott Sending,
Speaker 1: and a lot of professional people actually joined up. It
Speaker 1: expanded hugely fast. It wasn't particularly well disciplined at the
Speaker 1: beginning because of the massive intake. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who came from the what was called the
Speaker 1: Ulga Minor SS, which was the General SS, which meant
Speaker 1: basically that they were snoop as they were policemen or
Speaker 1: or spies in terms of their training and usefulness the Nazis.
Speaker 1: There were also even concentration camp guards. You know, the
Speaker 1: organization was that desperate. But to get the numbers to
Speaker 1: get up to one hundred thousand or so, they'd only been.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they were a couple of thousand
Speaker 1: or so fully armed, fully trained soldiers at that point,
Speaker 1: so it was a nascent organization, but it had lots
Speaker 1: from his point of view of potential, and it was
Speaker 1: very unorthodox in its approach to fighting. He joined a
Speaker 1: Vafen SS regiment which became known later on as dusk Reik.
Speaker 1: It was called the SS division right to begin with,
Speaker 1: which was it eventually operated in Russia. But initially what
Speaker 1: he was was a technical officer, which was seen as
Speaker 1: a sort of in terms of the military hierarchy, cut
Speaker 1: below being a field commander, which I think he aspired
Speaker 1: to be but never actually became. He served mostly in
Speaker 1: tanked depots, sort of sorting out armored vehicles and refitting
Speaker 1: tanks for the armored SS divisions he served in France.
Speaker 1: He did serve relatively actively well orbit in a rear
Speaker 1: echelong position in the war with Yugoslavia in April ninety
Speaker 1: forty one. Lasted all of eleven weeks in which he
Speaker 1: took a lot of prisoners, but more by luck than judgment,
Speaker 1: I think, and I think this probably gave him a
Speaker 1: very mis the war in Yugoslavia was perfect blitzkery. Hitler
Speaker 1: was trying to as people only realized later, I was
Speaker 1: trying to protect his his western flank for the upcoming
Speaker 1: Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union, despite
Speaker 1: the fa that Germany was in an alliance for the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union the time. So Scott Senne's next post is
Speaker 1: actually on the in the Reich Division and his riding
Speaker 1: point in the Spearhead was called Army Army Group Middle
Speaker 1: or Center, which attacked after June nineteen forty one. It
Speaker 1: attacked Moscow and all went very well in the initial weeks,
Speaker 1: and they got to Minsk, and they got to Smolensk,
Speaker 1: and they seemed to be in fighting distance certainly well
Speaker 1: before Christmas, and then the weather began to change and
Speaker 1: the Russians began to change. And this is where he
Speaker 1: actually acquired his first medal, which was the Iron Cross.
Speaker 1: Past too, he was cited for actually rescuing an armored
Speaker 1: vehicle in what was called the Yelnia bridgehead, which was
Speaker 1: it was the idea was that outside Smolensk, which was
Speaker 1: putting up a stiff resistance to the Russian Sorry, the
Speaker 1: German advanced. The Germans were going to outflank the Russians,
Speaker 1: Scott saying he got into this, into this bridgehead, and
Speaker 1: then things started to go disastrously wrong for the Germans.
Speaker 1: It was partly the sort of very very heavy storms
Speaker 1: in November, the worst winter sunset and one hundred years
Speaker 1: it was only minus thirty at times. So the whole
Speaker 1: of the German army, the armored part of it, certainly
Speaker 1: was reduced to a crawl, the loofaff that couldn't take off,
Speaker 1: you know, fuel froze suddenly, the the it turned from
Speaker 1: a blitz creek to a war of attrition. At the
Speaker 1: same time, Stalin's greatest bluff of all probably he pulled
Speaker 1: eighty divisions from the Eastern Front, so there's no real
Speaker 1: protection against the Japanese should they attack him. But he
Speaker 1: calculated right, and the Russians just proved far superior at
Speaker 1: winter war. The Germans were forced to pull back and
Speaker 1: it was absolutely horrific for people who were still well,
Speaker 1: just to take one instance, fighting in summer uniforms in
Speaker 1: many cases. In this In this instance, Scott Saine is
Speaker 1: stuck in the Jani a bridgehead, was bombarded all around
Speaker 1: his regiment was not unusual for often SS regiments which
Speaker 1: stood their ground was absolutely pularized, huge casualties, and he
Speaker 1: himself he was afflicted by two things. One was a
Speaker 1: shrapnel into the back of his head, which finally saw
Speaker 1: him taken back to Berlin. But he also had a
Speaker 1: nasty attack of colitis. So actually he wasn't on the
Speaker 1: Russian front for that long. He was withdrawn in January
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two, and that meant he was back into
Speaker 1: depots sorting out the next new range of Panzer tanks
Speaker 1: for buffer SS divisions March for Panza's tiger I's whatever,
Speaker 1: and he became very, very depressed. His father father died
Speaker 1: about that time, so nineteen forty two was not a
Speaker 1: good year for him, and he was seriously wondering about
Speaker 1: what his future was going to be. And then he
Speaker 1: gets what you might call the phone call, the thing
Speaker 1: that's going to completely change his.
Speaker 2: Life, right, and so that changes him from this frontline
Speaker 2: soldier to kind of the commando commando type person. Can
Speaker 2: you talk about that transformation and how that happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as you would have gathered by now,
Speaker 1: he had no special puncho for commando he had the
Speaker 1: temperament in some ways anyway, the extreme individualism, the ability
Speaker 1: to think on his feet for himself, if not for
Speaker 1: the people around him. But he wasn't actually seen as
Speaker 1: instant commando material. What had happened was that, I mean,
Speaker 1: Germany was now even somewhere. Hitler and Himmler must have
Speaker 1: been beginning to appreciate that Germany was losing, I mean,
Speaker 1: after Stalingrad, after that Summer Corsk, the German army was
Speaker 1: incapable of taking the conventional army, the Panser army, the
Speaker 1: grand attack aircraft, you know, the backbone of Blitzkrieg, and
Speaker 1: the Prussian military tradition of the time was failing. And
Speaker 1: Hitler had this meeting with Himmler in Baptor's Garden I
Speaker 1: think had the Berghoff in at the end of March
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, in which it was the discussion point
Speaker 1: was really, well, it's time for us to turn to
Speaker 1: what the Germans called Kleiner Creek guerrilla warfare. We'll do
Speaker 1: anything we can to stop the advance of the Soviet army,
Speaker 1: but what are we going to do? There was no
Speaker 1: I think the British had been outstanding at this kind
Speaker 1: of warfare because for the most of the last two
Speaker 1: and a half years or so they've been losing the war.
Speaker 1: But the Germans did admire some of the things they'd done.
Speaker 1: It had spectacularly successful commander raids like the one on
Speaker 1: Sanna's air. And also there's something that came up a
Speaker 1: lot in Scott Seine's own assessment of the situation, something
Speaker 1: called Operation Flipper, which was a November nineteen forty one
Speaker 1: attack by British commandos which were usmately under Lord Mountbatten
Speaker 1: at the time, combined Operations Laycock as well. They tried.
Speaker 1: What they tried to do was very much as Scott
Speaker 1: Sainey type operation. They tried to kill Rommel in his
Speaker 1: Benghazi headquarters. Romo of course led the Africa Corps at
Speaker 1: the time, so they launched a surprise attack in November
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one. Is amphibious attack because Rolls headquarters are
Speaker 1: quite near the coast in North Africa. It failed. It
Speaker 1: failed busily, I mean the leader of the operation, Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Colonel Keyes, was killed and the Germans managed to capture
Speaker 1: several of participants who were wearing German uniforms, which was
Speaker 1: against the rules of war at the time. Come back
Speaker 1: to that as well. What they admired, when he admired
Speaker 1: was the fact that, you know, the British get up
Speaker 1: and go asymmetric warfare. It was obviously a pattern of
Speaker 1: something which could have succeeded. The fact of the matter
Speaker 1: was Romin wasn't there at the time. The intelligence is wrong.
Speaker 2: So you see this, You see the Germans looking and
Speaker 2: seeing what's what the British are doing, and that gets
Speaker 2: implemented in when Italy.
Speaker 1: So Himler says to Hitler in essence, well why don't
Speaker 1: we You know, the SS has something like that. And
Speaker 1: the reason why the SS up to this time hasn't
Speaker 1: had anything like that is because there's basically a deal
Speaker 1: between Hitler on the top of the Nazi Party with
Speaker 1: the army, which is essentially Prussian aristocracy elite. They fight
Speaker 1: the war. They deal with external security and internal security
Speaker 1: in the form of the r s HA, which, as
Speaker 1: I said, well, it was led by Ryan Hodd Hydrich
Speaker 1: until he got himself assassinated in Bohemia in nineteen forty two,
Speaker 1: and then by Caldenbrenner later on. They dealt with internal
Speaker 1: security in all forms, most notoriously. Of course, carden Bern
Speaker 1: was in charge ultimately of the Gestapo, but there were
Speaker 1: other repressive forces available, so Himle's point was, well, we
Speaker 1: need to develop our own, and in fact there was.
Speaker 1: There was a small organization s S commando force of
Speaker 1: merely two or three hundred troopers actually mostly NCOs who've
Speaker 1: been turned into a unit which was run by something
Speaker 1: called Ausland SD, which translated means the SS Foreign intelligence
Speaker 1: Service run by someone called Walter Schellenberg. And the idea
Speaker 1: was that resources would be put into this, the forces
Speaker 1: could be built up, and the SS could have its
Speaker 1: very own toy. But what the message that went out was,
Speaker 1: and the one that also has called Senny received, was
Speaker 1: that they were looking for a technical opera which he
Speaker 1: certainly was an engineer, to lead this new force which
Speaker 1: he knew nothing about, very good reason that no one
Speaker 1: else did either. So he applied for the job and
Speaker 1: it was mediated by someone called han Hans Jutner, who
Speaker 1: was actually the sort of administrative head of the SS.
Speaker 1: He went for the interview and miraculously easily he got
Speaker 1: the job. The surprising thing about the job, which had
Speaker 1: the type called leader of S S Commanders, but it commanded,
Speaker 1: the the the the only he only acquired the rank
Speaker 1: of a captain, which in SS terms was called an
Speaker 1: S S Helpsta. He was only a captain, yet he
Speaker 1: was leader of S commanders. What did this really mean? Well,
Speaker 1: he soon found out when he met Schellenberg. Schellenberg was
Speaker 1: really a spymaster. And the organization which Scott Senny was
Speaker 1: going to be leading was called something called a M
Speaker 1: T six s now. A MT was the name German bureaucracy.
Speaker 1: Here was the name of the organization. There was seven
Speaker 1: of these organizations. A MT means department basically or division.
Speaker 1: Seven of these organizations under Carden Brunner's ultimate authority. NT
Speaker 1: six was the Foreign Service and MT S was, as
Speaker 1: Scott Sney thought, MT sabotage in other words, the commander unit.
Speaker 1: Actually the S stood for schooler. What what Shellenberg was
Speaker 1: doing was he was trying to recruit someone who'd straddle
Speaker 1: the two things. He'd help to recruit spies, but he'd
Speaker 1: also run a sort of part time command of outfit.
Speaker 1: And this was not what Scottsney wanted at all. He
Speaker 1: wanted action. He was, you know, the the incarnate a
Speaker 1: Salt Force type. You know, the man of action. And
Speaker 1: he was so depressed by this that he talked to
Speaker 1: his friend Carl Raddle, whom he co opted as his adjutant,
Speaker 1: even though he's only one rank below him as a
Speaker 1: lieutenant s S lieutenant. He talked to me and said, well,
Speaker 1: you know this is this is really awful. I hate Shellenberg.
Speaker 1: He's such a sort of suave smoothie, and he's forcing
Speaker 1: me to run a spy network. I'm fitted for that
Speaker 1: at all. Where all these commanders, there was a small
Speaker 1: command of forces I said. It had actually been put
Speaker 1: together from scratch by Schellenberg, but a year previously was
Speaker 1: commanded by a Dutch officer SS officer called Van Beerssen,
Speaker 1: and its original purpose was in fact an aborted campaign
Speaker 1: to counter invade Ireland when America came into the war.
Speaker 1: Was a real fear in Nazi Germany that neutral island,
Speaker 1: which of course was very important because it wasn't that neutral.
Speaker 1: It was Nazi leaning, and they allowed Nazi U boats
Speaker 1: to take you know, they had access not to the ports,
Speaker 1: but they could look about outside. So the idea was
Speaker 1: that this force would actually help with a sort of
Speaker 1: kouder Man and in fact was attached to it had
Speaker 1: IRA contact, but it never happened. Operation Osprey I believe
Speaker 1: it was called. So this was the kernel force that
Speaker 1: Scott Seny was given. He was given no real brief
Speaker 1: and what he was supposed to do. I mean, Carton
Speaker 1: Brunner personally wasn't remotely interested in command as what they
Speaker 1: could do. He was all about state repression. And he
Speaker 1: just simply said to Scott Soney when they had an interview, well,
Speaker 1: you know, just get on with it. And Scott Sandy said, well,
Speaker 1: get on with what exactly. I mean, Shalldom bog seems
Speaker 1: want a sky a spy school, and I'm not planning
Speaker 1: to do that. So as crude as this, Carton Brunner said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, study the British. They seem to know what
Speaker 1: they're doing.
Speaker 2: And that's what he did, right, And I mean it
Speaker 2: was pretty fascinating, Like he they ran tons of operations.
Speaker 2: There were just so many operations for somebody who didn't start.
Speaker 2: I mean, they were Operation Peter, there's all that, and
Speaker 2: he was just involved in so many things. Can you
Speaker 2: talk about how the Mussolini situation happened and how that
Speaker 2: added to Scorzini's theme yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, when Scott Sney joined the organization, Schallenberg was running
Speaker 1: an operation in per it was then called Really and
Speaker 1: this was immensely important for the Allies because it was
Speaker 1: essentially a railroad for all sorts of supplies coming on
Speaker 1: stream from nineteen forty two onwards, when, of course the
Speaker 1: Americans were in the war sending all their sort of
Speaker 1: Sherman tanks, planes and jeeps up to the Russians via
Speaker 1: the Gulf of Persia. So the idea was that the
Speaker 1: Germans would attempt to ambush this rail this railway by
Speaker 1: supplying tribesmen in the south of what's now Iran. Scotts
Speaker 1: only had little to do with this. He acted as
Speaker 1: a recruitment agency and all that was a good idea.
Speaker 1: It was badly run. I mean, the ss were not
Speaker 1: the right they let's say they went hadn't got the
Speaker 1: right psychological frame of mind to mount such an operation.
Speaker 1: They didn't really know what they were doing. It looked
Speaker 1: like everything was going into a dead end. And then
Speaker 1: the Mussolini event happens, and it's an expotential emergency for
Speaker 1: the Nazi state, the Third Reich, and for this reason
Speaker 1: Mussolini had been losing the war. The Allies had invaded
Speaker 1: successfully invaded Sicily, they were known to be about to
Speaker 1: create a bridgehead It turned out to be Salerno. In
Speaker 1: mainland Italy, the Fascist Council, which nominally underpins Mussolini's absolute rule,
Speaker 1: managed to put through a vote of no confidence, effectively
Speaker 1: deposing him and then the King of basically victory Manual
Speaker 1: the Third was actually a very powerful figure behind the
Speaker 1: scenes stage La Couditar. He put someone called Marshal Badoglio
Speaker 1: Pietro Mondolio in charge, and he tried to sue for
Speaker 1: peace with the Allies. Now this wasn't going to wash
Speaker 1: in itself, because back in early forty three, I think
Speaker 1: January forty three, there was an accord in Casablanca between
Speaker 1: Roosevelt and Churchill which effectively said that there is going
Speaker 1: to be no it is unconditional surrender, under no circumstances.
Speaker 1: Will Germany or any of its allies be able to
Speaker 1: put down conditions if they surrender. But the King and
Speaker 1: Bodolio thought, well, look if we use Mussolini as a hostage,
Speaker 1: then maybe even get terms, and so they basically they
Speaker 1: kidnapped him and moved him around the country with the
Speaker 1: help of the Italian military Secret service SIM and he
Speaker 1: was guarded by carabinari and there were three or four
Speaker 1: staging posts for this. It was quite cleverly done, but
Speaker 1: Hitler was absolutely determined to get him back. There was
Speaker 1: a sentimental surprising to hear anything said about Hitler's sentimentality,
Speaker 1: there was a sentimental to this. I mean, Mussolini had
Speaker 1: been his mentor in a way, the first Fascist leader,
Speaker 1: first effective Fascist leader anyway. But mostly it was a
Speaker 1: strategic consideration because you know, the Italians, they hadn't exactly
Speaker 1: had a glorious record in the war, but there are
Speaker 1: an awful lot of garrison troops all over the Balkans,
Speaker 1: allowing a lot more German troops to be deployed in
Speaker 1: the Eastern War, which was going badly. So the last
Speaker 1: thing Hitler wanted was to actually have to occupy Italy
Speaker 1: with lots of troops he couldn't afford, probably against a
Speaker 1: very hostile backdrop. But he couldn't leave it as a
Speaker 1: vacuum either, because it would be an easy win for
Speaker 1: the Allies. There'd be no resistance, Rome would fall, then
Speaker 1: they'd roll up the peninsula. So somehow he had to
Speaker 1: find Mussolini and he had to get Mussolini back alive
Speaker 1: and install him in a new fascist republic, which is
Speaker 1: eventually what he did. The problem was no one could
Speaker 1: find it for about between Lebas July the twenty sixth
Speaker 1: and the beginning of September. There was some lead, some false,
Speaker 1: some good, but they didn't actually find out for sure
Speaker 1: what he was until the beginning of September nineteen forty three.
Speaker 2: And what happened when they found out where it was?
Speaker 2: Like I think initially he was taken to in Ireland
Speaker 2: south of Sardinia. So they had him and they were
Speaker 2: moving around in Skorzeni and these other Intel characters were
Speaker 2: trying to really find exactly where he was.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, So this is the turning point in Scott's
Speaker 1: sent his career. This is where the leader of SS
Speaker 1: commanders really becomes important and there's no looking back afterwards.
Speaker 1: But how does he get What happens is one day
Speaker 1: he's in the Hotel Eden in Berlin because he hadn't
Speaker 1: really got very much to do, drinking with a former
Speaker 1: university professor, I believe, and he gets a call from
Speaker 1: his secretary at a play from a place called Freedom Thal,
Speaker 1: which was Easter Berlin, which is where they were set
Speaker 1: up as their command of army camp. And it's to say, look,
Speaker 1: you better get yourself on a plane. It's been trying
Speaker 1: to you know, I've been trying to reach you for hours.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're doing, but you need to
Speaker 1: get on a plane straight away to the evolve Schanzer,
Speaker 1: which is Hitler's Layer, the Wolf's Layer in Eastern Prussia,
Speaker 1: because the Furer wants to see you. And you can
Speaker 1: imagine the reaction he gets onto. He gets on the
Speaker 1: phone to his adjutant, so, god, I could have a
Speaker 1: clean set of clothes for this, but first of all,
Speaker 1: they'll have another drink. Drink is a big part of this. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he gets on the plane and it's one of these
Speaker 1: younger JU fifty two. It's very basic passenger plane actually,
Speaker 1: but it's got a VIP lounge. So he sort of
Speaker 1: amply fuels himself with more brandy on the way. This
Speaker 1: three hour flight to Eastern Prussia lands. There is escorted
Speaker 1: in a black Mercedes car through all the defense and
Speaker 1: placements and he finally arrives at something towards the end
Speaker 1: of the day. If he arrives in something called the
Speaker 1: tea room, where is invited to wait for Adolf Hitler
Speaker 1: turn up, who, like most heads of state, never turns
Speaker 1: up early, and he gets a bit irritated with Hitler's
Speaker 1: it's not very wise, really, but then he's been drinking.
Speaker 1: Hitler's adjutant is a man called gun because this man
Speaker 1: fails to pronounce his name correctly. His vein like that,
Speaker 1: it's Scott Sennie. I think Scott Sennie is most people,
Speaker 1: probably most Germans pronounced it when not educated, so Scott SENNI. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Eventually he finds himself he's hauled into a room with
Speaker 1: five others I think it is, and there are various
Speaker 1: special forces types, some from the maybe one from another
Speaker 1: off in SS unit, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: And into the room comes out of Hitler. Nothing's been explained,
Speaker 1: and Hitler starts asking these strange questions. Scott Seene is
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the roe because he's the most tune. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's only a captain. Some of them sort of majors
Speaker 1: and lieutenant colonels, and Hitler sort of starts asking them
Speaker 1: strange questions about Italy, and they come back with formulaic answers.
Speaker 1: They know there's a problem down there, but they don't
Speaker 1: know that Mussolini has been heisted.
Speaker 2: And Scorzeny had been down there like for his Yeah,
Speaker 2: like he traveled down there with his wife starts.
Speaker 1: With his first wife on their honeymoon, and he had
Speaker 1: been back later he liked Italy. He had been too
Speaker 1: precisely the place, it turned out that or very close
Speaker 1: to the place where where Mussoline is finally held captive.
Speaker 1: But I come to that in a minute in the
Speaker 1: Brute Sea. So Hitler sort of goes down the line
Speaker 1: and he comes to Sco Sny and sort of Scott
Speaker 1: Seaney's stammers, well, you know, what do I think about Italy? Well,
Speaker 1: I've been there. I know quite a bit about it.
Speaker 1: That six a box for a start. It turns out,
Speaker 1: say you talk about this sort of the topography of Italy.
Speaker 1: But he said, you know the thing about me and
Speaker 1: Italy is I'm an Austrian. And Hitler pricks up his
Speaker 1: ear is because what's that really means is this is
Speaker 1: a coded message. It's going back to the Treaty of Versailles.
Speaker 1: Sandre Mao and Austria. Don't forget is Hitler, of course,
Speaker 1: just outside the point is himself an Austrian. Austria lost
Speaker 1: a lot of territory to in the Tarrol to Italy.
Speaker 1: That's one of the bit was one of the victors.
Speaker 1: And there's something like, I don't know, two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: Germans living in Italy and Deutsch bag Stutsch, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: essentially ethnic Germans, and Hitler had voiced his opinion on
Speaker 1: this in the past, but because of his close association
Speaker 1: with Selini, he hadn't wished to act, whereas he had
Speaker 1: acted in places like Romania, which I awful lot of
Speaker 1: Hungarians for example, and folk storage down there as well,
Speaker 1: which have been moved back into German areas of influence
Speaker 1: within the Reich anyway, so that sort of seems to
Speaker 1: trigger something. We don't know exactly why Hitler chose Scott Seney,
Speaker 1: but basically he said, right, everyone else can go, you're
Speaker 1: the man for me, and then he explained everyone else
Speaker 1: went out of the room. Then he explained in a
Speaker 1: one to one to Scott Seeny exactly what was going
Speaker 1: on that he had to get. He was going to
Speaker 1: send Scott say out as his personal emissary, and they
Speaker 1: had to get back Mussolinia or costs. And then he
Speaker 1: explained why now going on around this was a power
Speaker 1: play because the SS, this is Shellenberg and Colton Brann
Speaker 1: and of course Himmler, they were all at the Wolfshots.
Speaker 1: Coincidentally enough, at this point they knew something big was
Speaker 1: going on, and they've just got their man embedded into
Speaker 1: a military operation while they were trying to do obviously
Speaker 1: it was highly important that they succeed, but they were
Speaker 1: trying to sort of take ownership, if you like, of
Speaker 1: the raid, because if they could rescue Mussolini, then it
Speaker 1: was one up against the for example, the conventional military
Speaker 1: Secret Service the otherwhere, which was much bigger, but in
Speaker 1: the view of the SS, incompetantly run by Admiral Canaries.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of competition behind the scenes, and
Speaker 1: they were gratified that their man, because they had no
Speaker 1: control over this, that actually won, if you like, the
Speaker 1: beauty competition. So the next thing was to send him
Speaker 1: to he was He was put under the command of
Speaker 1: someone called Kurt Student, who was really the foremost airborne
Speaker 1: troops expert in the in the in the in the
Speaker 1: in the German Army or the German Luftwaf in fact
Speaker 1: uh and it sent nominally he was in the luflather.
Speaker 1: He was obliged to wear a lufflather uniform during the
Speaker 1: operation because strutting around an SS officer might send out
Speaker 1: the wrong signal to the Italians. They know something was
Speaker 1: up and it wasn't very nice. So he's got this
Speaker 1: access to the leader of the expedition is acting as
Speaker 1: his adjutant. In fact, behind the scenes, Arto Scott Serny
Speaker 1: is able to tap into ousland SD the intelligence the
Speaker 1: foreign intelligence service of the SS, and it proves much
Speaker 1: more efficient than any of the other intelligence services which
Speaker 1: are trying to establish the same thing. Where exactly has
Speaker 1: Mussolini been put At the beginning of September, just as
Speaker 1: things are really deteriorating on the warfront and Victor Emanuel
Speaker 1: Alton Badolio can't spit it out much longer, the Americans
Speaker 1: are losing patients and they declare that Italy has in
Speaker 1: fact surrendered, which is of course a trigger sign for
Speaker 1: the Germans to invade, because they don't want a vacuum go.
Speaker 1: The police attache attached to the German embassy in Rome.
Speaker 1: It's called Herbert captain discovers exactly where he is, and
Speaker 1: he's upper mountain in the Brute Sea. It's in fact
Speaker 1: that a ski resort. It's about twenty two hundred meters
Speaker 1: up and the only way to get to it is
Speaker 1: apparently by a cable car, because that it still exists,
Speaker 1: actually that the nowadays as a road as well. In
Speaker 1: those days there's just a cable car from the nearest
Speaker 1: village below, which is called a sergi. And so Scott
Speaker 1: Syne is able to take some of the credit for
Speaker 1: this because he's the one who's been scurrying around looking
Speaker 1: for information. He's been pushing it all the time. Student
Speaker 1: is a man who's quite worried by his other duties.
Speaker 1: He's not a political man at all. He lets Scott
Speaker 1: Sney do a lot of the talking at the Volva
Speaker 1: Schantzer because he's a much better presenter and somehow gives
Speaker 1: the impression that what Scott Saine is in charge, even
Speaker 1: though he's not. And Scott Sayne has after all managed
Speaker 1: to be. He's the one of the bang on information
Speaker 1: thanks to his intelligence. So Scott Senne is students who
Speaker 1: is in Scott Sene's debt in a sense also he's
Speaker 1: very worried about this operation because it's wasting his time
Speaker 1: as a soldier. It's a political issue as far as
Speaker 1: he's concerned, and a minor one too, and he's got
Speaker 1: nothing invested in Mussolini personally. What he's worried about is
Speaker 1: he knows that in a couple of days time is
Speaker 1: going to be involved in the most almighty fight with
Speaker 1: Italian forces over keeping Roman German hands. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happens. So there's a picture here building up as
Speaker 1: Scott Sainny is able to move into a vacuum you like.
Speaker 1: But the question now and claim some of the credit.
Speaker 1: The question now is how he actually going to get
Speaker 1: hold of their man. And it's pretty obvious that, well,
Speaker 1: there are three ways of doing it. There's a ground
Speaker 1: attack and then two forms of airborne attack. You can
Speaker 1: send in paratroopers, you know, parachuters, or you can send
Speaker 1: them in by glider. Paratroopers by glider. And the problem
Speaker 1: with parachuters list to dismiss this straight away is it
Speaker 1: had never been done at that kind of altitude. They'd
Speaker 1: be blown all over the place. There's no accuracy. Glider's
Speaker 1: pretty dangerous too, especially if we didn't set our first
Speaker 1: thing in the morning because of the thermals. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Scott saying, he was later to claim that he'd foreseen
Speaker 1: all this, and you know, the only way to do
Speaker 1: it was a combined operation. A ground force would attack
Speaker 1: a searcher, overpower the carabinari guards at the bostom take
Speaker 1: command of the cable car. But while they were doing this,
Speaker 1: a glider force of about one hundred men, ten gliders
Speaker 1: it turned out originally twelve, would land on the mountain
Speaker 1: and storm this hotel and rescue Missolini. Then they joined forces.
Speaker 1: Now there's a huge amount of controversy after the war,
Speaker 1: I say, rather than during it, because with Hitler around,
Speaker 1: no one want to argue about who gets first DIBs
Speaker 1: the laurels for the the for what turned out to
Speaker 1: be a dangerous but very successful mission. Scott's Sony Wow
Speaker 1: he he he claimed later on to have been actually
Speaker 1: involved in the planning of the This is absolutely he
Speaker 1: had no knowledge of airborne tactics at that time at all.
Speaker 1: He'd been in an infantry soldier effectively, it was someone
Speaker 1: called Major Moor's. He had a lot of experience, he'd
Speaker 1: been involved in There's a famous Commando Raident a fortress
Speaker 1: called evan Emil in the opening stages of the German
Speaker 1: invasion drum in nineteen forty, which was masterminded. It took
Speaker 1: about six months actually to masterminded planning for it. It
Speaker 1: was sort of prototype of its kind that had been
Speaker 1: done with gliders, and there was a similar operation in
Speaker 1: crete less successful, but the Germans did prevail in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one, and he'd been involved in both of these.
Speaker 1: He'd also carried out similar operations in the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: immensely experienced. But his problem was that he had a
Speaker 1: dodgy political record. He'd let it be known. It was
Speaker 1: either defeat his talk or he wasn't too keen on
Speaker 1: an artsist, so he wasn't the obvious hero everyone was
Speaker 1: looking for. Neverthless, he did all the groundwork on it,
Speaker 1: and he decided the operation it was more sound in
Speaker 1: to lead the ground force, which was actually bigger, about
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty men in armored trucks and so
Speaker 1: on up to a surgery. This left Scort saying an
Speaker 1: interesting position. He wangled his way, persuaded Student to let
Speaker 1: him go with the glider force. They're about fifteen ss
Speaker 1: men actually, originally fifty brought in in the operation, only
Speaker 1: fifteen participate in the actual glider landing. Most of the
Speaker 1: people and the gliders were Lufaffe Assort paratroopers and a
Speaker 1: way it was supposed to pan out, and students said
Speaker 1: this afterwards in his memoirs, you know, essentially Scott saying
Speaker 1: his view was just a sort of police escort he was.
Speaker 1: He was there to sort of take charge once the
Speaker 1: Lufafer Hood, shall we say, relieved Massoline, relieve the Italians
Speaker 1: of Massolini, was supposed to take him back to Berlin.
Speaker 1: But that was about it really, But it didn't work
Speaker 1: out like that because what happened was that the ten
Speaker 1: gliders which finally turned up from southern France that day,
Speaker 1: they were late, late, taking off about one o'clock I believe,
Speaker 1: which made it even more of a dangerous expedition. Well,
Speaker 1: problem morale probably wasn't helped by our so called PEP
Speaker 1: taught a student gave and you just gave it from
Speaker 1: the shoulder, and he said, look, you know, there are
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of casualties in this eighty
Speaker 1: percent casualties. Nothing like this has been tried before. They
Speaker 1: had almost no time to put this together. That's the way.
Speaker 1: That's the that's what the funeral wants. That's the way
Speaker 1: it's going to be. So off you go. While they
Speaker 1: were going, the German glider tactics involved, and this is
Speaker 1: quite important in the gliders in strings of three and
Speaker 1: the first three had the supposedly the commander of the
Speaker 1: father ground troops. The paratroopers are commanded by someone called
Speaker 1: bailepch On bare Lips was a lieutenant. And in the
Speaker 1: number four that is the beginning of the next what
Speaker 1: were called Ketty. The next triad of gliders the Scot
Speaker 1: Siny with this Italian general that he captured because they
Speaker 1: thought it would be a good bit of substitution. Come
Speaker 1: to that in a minute. And then the glider behind
Speaker 1: him was Carl Radley's adjutant and lots of other SS paratroopers.
Speaker 1: Where they went really paratroopers, there were simply troops who
Speaker 1: knew so much about flying in gliders that they actually
Speaker 1: had a hearty breakfast beforehand with more results. They were
Speaker 1: that inexperienced and amateuris in a way. So anyway, what's
Speaker 1: happened is that Scott Senny, in part of his intelligence gathering,
Speaker 1: no one actually knew what they was going to confront
Speaker 1: them when they got to you know, two thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred feet what exactly were they landing on. Scott Sney
Speaker 1: had been up in a Hinkel bomber earlier on and
Speaker 1: he'd done some intelligence work. The uh look farther intelligence
Speaker 1: officer had fallen out with him because the stereoscopic camera
Speaker 1: in the plane had failed. This would have given high
Speaker 1: resolution photographs of the landing ground. It failed. So this
Speaker 1: guy Langut, whose name was, said, well, let's return, maybe
Speaker 1: mission on accomplished. Were just going to manage somehow. But
Speaker 1: a Scotsne insisted in taking pictures with a less sophisticated
Speaker 1: camera in very difficult conditions, and he got something which
Speaker 1: was developed and it was a bit like you know,
Speaker 1: picture of lunar craters or something. It was very interestinct,
Speaker 1: about four inches by four inches when they developed it.
Speaker 1: But this was the only plan they had of a
Speaker 1: landing zone. As Scotsene thought it might be a sort
Speaker 1: of gentle ski slope. It's nothing that sort of. It's
Speaker 1: very rocky anyway. What happens is that as the glyders
Speaker 1: are climbing and going towards their target, the first three,
Speaker 1: containing the most important elements of loof off the force
Speaker 1: are forced to turn and re enter the glider path
Speaker 1: because they haven't gained enough height. Over there are sort
Speaker 1: of hills around Tillerley, and so the second group of three,
Speaker 1: that's number four glider containing Scorseenne, are now in the lead.
Speaker 1: So by a chart once my happenstance, Scott Sney is
Speaker 1: the first to land in his glider and they actually
Speaker 1: land quite well. I mean that that there's some discussion
Speaker 1: as to how much influence Scott Sainey had over the landing,
Speaker 1: whether you could actually talk to the pilot through the partition,
Speaker 1: But anyway, it was said later in general staff reports
Speaker 1: that Scott Sney had bulleted the pilot, making him make
Speaker 1: a crash landing, but he was actually specifically told not to.
Speaker 1: They landed without too much damage anyway, and they you
Speaker 1: know that, the SS troopers get out very shaken. They there,
Speaker 1: they've been airsick and so on, stumble around not having
Speaker 1: a clue what they're doing really. Then the second the
Speaker 1: second rider lands and the commander in there, the sy commander,
Speaker 1: and that manages to break his leg. So it's all
Speaker 1: a bit kick down a door at the side of
Speaker 1: the of the of the Hope tell but it's not
Speaker 1: actually an entry to the hotel at all. It's it's
Speaker 1: a dead end and it's just got a radio operate
Speaker 1: to it. So it's got Sonny gets out his lugo
Speaker 1: or whatever sort of smashes the radio and then they're
Speaker 1: looking for Mussolinia. They go bound round the back. There's
Speaker 1: still no one else in sight, none of the other
Speaker 1: gliders have turned up yet. And then he has his charts,
Speaker 1: he sees his chance. He comes around the back out
Speaker 1: to the front and there's there's Mussolini peering out of
Speaker 1: the first floor windows saying I'm I'm here, I'm here,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's it, really without more ado. Just
Speaker 1: as the other gliders are landing, these people who should
Speaker 1: actually being taken command of the operation, Scott sny Is
Speaker 1: makes a sort of heroic dash to the doors. He
Speaker 1: doesn't meet any resistance up to the first floor room
Speaker 1: where Musline is being held, and basically takes over. He
Speaker 1: does it by bluff. He has said to his troops
Speaker 1: the safety catch is on noquiring. We've got to do
Speaker 1: this by stealth, and that's what.
Speaker 2: Happens, right, So he kind of he kind of imposes
Speaker 2: the same thing he did back in Vienna, so it's
Speaker 2: the same type of thing. No shooting, I'm going to
Speaker 2: take care of this. So he handles it, and he's
Speaker 2: the one who leaves with Mussolini too, right.
Speaker 1: That's right, hey, I mean he's lucky that Mussolini. Mussoline's
Speaker 1: been watching the gliders through the window come down and thinking, ahs,
Speaker 1: come from me after all, thank God for that, and
Speaker 1: impetuously sort of get breaks away from the garden room
Speaker 1: and he opens the window and signals to Scott Senni
Speaker 1: and they say all sorts of things together. But I
Speaker 1: knew that, you know, I knew Hitler wouldn't forsake me in,
Speaker 1: and Scott Sinney says, no, no's I'm here to rescue
Speaker 1: you and take you back. So it looks like he's
Speaker 1: sealed up, you know. Burleps arrives about that time and
Speaker 1: secures the perimeters of the hotel and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth. They disarm all the Italian guards through about
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty of them. I mean, any you
Speaker 1: have to say that it was insanely brave of Scott's Senny.
Speaker 1: He was very lucky too, but he could have been
Speaker 1: shot at any time. It technically Italy was now in
Speaker 1: a state of war with Germany, so.
Speaker 2: They've been right. So they took Mussolini and installed them
Speaker 2: at sale right and created kind of like a fascist
Speaker 2: romp state.
Speaker 1: Actually yes, it gave it gave up political figrely for
Speaker 1: at least half of Italy, which meant that it didn't
Speaker 1: have to be quite so many occupying German troops, although
Speaker 1: they were quite a few round just to make sure.
Speaker 1: So you know, the operation, I would say the operation
Speaker 1: in terms of its historical significance. It didn't change the
Speaker 1: outcome of the Second wor world, of course, but it
Speaker 1: did slightly change its course because what could have happened,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, was that the Allies could have
Speaker 1: occupied a vacuum that the if the King and Badoglio
Speaker 1: had had their way and there's been a show you know,
Speaker 1: Maussoleon had been passed over the bit of show trial.
Speaker 1: I think the Allies might have been grateful enough and
Speaker 1: they'd opened their doors fully before the Germans could occupy
Speaker 1: the country. The war in Italy might have been very
Speaker 1: different to what it was taken two years, but.
Speaker 2: It was like that all throughout the third right, there
Speaker 2: was problems that involved Hungary. So any gets said in there,
Speaker 2: I mean it's really incredible. So there, I mean this,
Speaker 2: these operations that he did lengthened the duration of World
Speaker 2: War two. At least he helped at least in some
Speaker 2: of them too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I would say that Operation Ico, as it
Speaker 1: was called, it was by far the most important operation.
Speaker 1: He participated in it and it did have a material
Speaker 1: effect on the outcome of the war. And what I'd
Speaker 1: also say as well, so a lot of other people
Speaker 1: were clearly involved in the success of the operation. You know,
Speaker 1: he did a lot of the legwork. He reinforced shall
Speaker 1: we say, student's commitment to get Mussolini out. And of
Speaker 1: course he was the one who when the film cameras
Speaker 1: came out, because the even on a dangerous mission like this,
Speaker 1: they had a commando company propaganda unit with them. There
Speaker 1: was a journalist and a cameraman and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth coming up from from from below. So he
Speaker 1: was on film and this made him look like a superhero,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: It was like a propaganda.
Speaker 1: Small man where without a sort of charismatic personality, it
Speaker 1: was just very good at his job. Scott Saining and
Speaker 1: man with a astarte stood out like a Hollywood film star,
Speaker 1: and that of course went you know, it went out
Speaker 1: on out to all German cinemas. De Vocean Charles the
Speaker 1: weekly news for him. That's how most Germans got their news.
Speaker 1: Of course it was carefully manicured by girls. The propagandism history,
Speaker 1: but it really made him look like a superhero.
Speaker 2: So and it was.
Speaker 1: Difficult for anyone else to say, oh, yes, but we
Speaker 1: did this and we did that, and Hitler was convinced
Speaker 1: it was all about Scott Sney. He got his riz
Speaker 1: A Cross, which is the need. I explained that Rita Cross.
Speaker 1: It was the benchmark of German military achievement at the time.
Speaker 1: There were higher forms of rich Across. The basically Rita
Speaker 1: Cross was something like a Victoria Cross, a little below it,
Speaker 1: i'd say in the status. But they're about by the
Speaker 1: end of the war, about eight thousand holders, I seem
Speaker 1: to remember. So he got his ritt Across, which was
Speaker 1: a coming of age for him, and then he didn't
Speaker 1: really have to he really didn't have to look back.
Speaker 1: I mean, Hitler wanted to give him. Anything happened whenever
Speaker 1: Hitler had a problem, something that needed to be shut down.
Speaker 1: These other operations, he referred to Scott saying he was
Speaker 1: often the man first chosen to accomplish the task.
Speaker 2: Right, So he was involved in he was involved in
Speaker 2: the Staufenberg plot, or he was there in Berlin. Then
Speaker 2: he was involved in what was it the operation in
Speaker 2: like I said, in Hungary. Then Grief, which the Americans
Speaker 2: called Battle of the Balls he was involved with, correct,
Speaker 2: I mean, all these different things very important, and then
Speaker 2: all the way to the Eastern Front again really just
Speaker 2: a important figure for many reasons. And then I mean
Speaker 2: those are all covered in your book. He gets arrested
Speaker 2: and he spends two years in jail. Well, some of
Speaker 2: his compatriots didn't make it. He made it through. So
Speaker 2: you know, Ernst Coltenberg got hong or shot. I don't
Speaker 2: know what happened to him, but one of his solow auctions,
Speaker 2: but for some reason he speeds through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Well what happened was that
Speaker 1: I need to say something at least about it's a
Speaker 1: very complicated operation, Operation Grief. But if you've seen the
Speaker 1: film Battle of the Bulge, you'll know that those at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the German campaign Hitler's last throw. Really
Speaker 1: there is a company of German commanders dressed as US,
Speaker 1: armed as US servicemen, with US documents, authentic fakes if
Speaker 1: you like, driving US dreams, and they power behind the
Speaker 1: American lines with the Panzas behind them, and the idea
Speaker 1: is to sew a lot of discord among the Americans,
Speaker 1: which they actually succeeded in doing. It's complicated and in
Speaker 1: some ways a rather distressing story because a lot of
Speaker 1: them got killed. But it was a clever ploy and
Speaker 1: Scott Saeny and his officers made sure they it's impossible
Speaker 1: to keep a secret operation of that size completely off
Speaker 1: the books. Rumors were going to get out, they might
Speaker 1: get through to Allied intelligence. So what they quite cleverly
Speaker 1: did was they allowed the rumors to multiply up on
Speaker 1: the objective of this. This this it was called Panza
Speaker 1: Brigade one point fifty, which involved fate Allied weapons converted Panzas.
Speaker 1: There were some genuine captured stuff, but it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to get at that stage of the war, which Germany
Speaker 1: had been losing for quite some time, it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to haul back the right kind of materiel. So the
Speaker 1: Germans sort of built their own really painted a few
Speaker 1: German Ford trucks and American colors. That sort of thing
Speaker 1: turned German tanks into what looked like Shermans and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. And the idea behind it was
Speaker 1: that the the jeep company, where supposedly everyone on board
Speaker 1: spoke fluent English, with an American accident far from the
Speaker 1: case in fact, would go and so discord behind the
Speaker 1: American lines. The idea was that the Germans had to
Speaker 1: get from their border in the Eiffel Forest quite near Cologne,
Speaker 1: to the Merz Bridges. The tanks force anyway had to
Speaker 1: get there within four days and then they would go
Speaker 1: as far as Antwerp in seven days. They cut off
Speaker 1: the twenty first British Army and a large part of
Speaker 1: the American Army up there, and it'd be another Dunkirk.
Speaker 1: That's what Hitler thought. It was crazy, but that's what
Speaker 1: he thought, I mean. And they would capture munitions and
Speaker 1: petrol dunce, which is very important because tanks crawl along,
Speaker 1: you know, they can consume a massive amount of petrol
Speaker 1: and diesel. So they needed to act by that time
Speaker 1: of the war. They needed to capture stuff as they
Speaker 1: went along, and so Scott Sainne was in charge of
Speaker 1: this fast mechanized force. But the interesting part of it
Speaker 1: was really the command of company of jeeps. Some of
Speaker 1: them got captured and they were full of all these rumors,
Speaker 1: but they didn't know which ones were correct. Among them
Speaker 1: was this idea that the real purpose of the operation was, yes,
Speaker 1: a breakthrough, but Scottsany and his commanders were going to
Speaker 1: jeep their way to Paris under the guys of being
Speaker 1: American soldiers, and then they were going to kidnap the
Speaker 1: SuperM Alle command and general. Yeah, this was something that
Speaker 1: was not forgotten and not appreciated because it made an
Speaker 1: idiot of the American security detail. Eisenhower's pinned down for
Speaker 1: over a week from the middle of December on was
Speaker 1: just when he should have been directing operations in the
Speaker 1: Battle of the Bulge. But nevertheless, they didn't forget it,
Speaker 1: and at payback time came somewhat later. Scottsaney eventually surrenders
Speaker 1: around about sixteenth May nineteen forty five. That's dead, he's
Speaker 1: in the Austrian mountains, but he realizes a gorilla war
Speaker 1: was going to be hopeless. The Americans they make some
Speaker 1: mistakes with them actually, because obviously, as you were see
Speaker 1: from now by now, he's a very mediogenic, charismatic kind
Speaker 1: of person, and they it's a high profile arrest in
Speaker 1: which she's not exactly beaten up, but he's brutalized a bit,
Speaker 1: and there are the media's around slash Bob Pop, so
Speaker 1: he's sort of turned himself into a bit of a
Speaker 1: martyr already, and then comes his trial about two years later.
Speaker 1: This is not unusual, by the way, The Allies spent
Speaker 1: quite a long time, especially Americans, who was slow but patient,
Speaker 1: spent quite a long time interrogating suspect officers. Most officers,
Speaker 1: including wehrmarket officers, non often officers, spent time in jail,
Speaker 1: but most hadn't committed verifiable war crimes. The question was,
Speaker 1: had scored Seney committed a war crime? And the answer
Speaker 1: is technically maybe, because what he'd done with his jeep
Speaker 1: commando unit was he'd broken something. It's a very strange
Speaker 1: thing because the war in the East was fought absolutely
Speaker 1: brutally without any rules, including dressing up in each other's
Speaker 1: uniforms all the time, firing on each other while in
Speaker 1: these uniforms, Russia didn't adhere to the Geneva Convention. For example,
Speaker 1: in the West, it was fought in a form as
Speaker 1: more gentle and main manner. Of course there were atrocities,
Speaker 1: of course there were, but the German generals as well
Speaker 1: as the Allied ones, liked to fight by the book.
Speaker 1: And the book was something called the nineteen oh seven
Speaker 1: Hay Convention, and in it was this article twenty three,
Speaker 1: which said basically that you know, okay, ruses, what we
Speaker 1: would call false flag operations today, ruses camouflage operations were
Speaker 1: allowed in war. But here's the absurdity of it. You
Speaker 1: had to effecting a more chivalrous age. I think when
Speaker 1: you engage the enemy, you had to rip off your
Speaker 1: false uniform to a display who you were, and only
Speaker 1: then could you fire at them. And the question was,
Speaker 1: had these Commando Company troops in their jeeps had there
Speaker 1: at any time actually fired on the Americans without alerting them,
Speaker 1: because if so, they could be technically arrested as spies
Speaker 1: and shot. And that's what happened to him. Fifteen of
Speaker 1: them the.
Speaker 2: Right so they do get shot. And there was also
Speaker 2: the massacre of Malmedi. I think, yes, something that they
Speaker 2: were trying to pin on him too.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of detail you can go into it
Speaker 1: with this, but essentially a man who was the prosecutor
Speaker 1: in what's in Scott Siney's war trial in Dacau in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, who was called Abraham rosenfelt he had
Speaker 1: tried to nail Scott Senne previously, together with the whole
Speaker 1: of the senior part of what was called kamp Grouper Piper,
Speaker 1: which was undoubtedly in some way responsible for the death
Speaker 1: of eighty five service when they said more all the
Speaker 1: time eighty five was due. This was during a push
Speaker 1: some days into the operation which at one time looked
Speaker 1: if it might be quite successful. And there's no rhyme
Speaker 1: or reason why this massacre happened. The American unit was
Speaker 1: disarmed and some Buffaness troops. We don't notice this day
Speaker 1: exactly who was responsible, but the army command, led by
Speaker 1: Yoku and Piper, was very sort of dynamic of ruthless.
Speaker 1: Tank commander was held responsible because they'd issued orders sort
Speaker 1: of say take no prisoners basically in some ofthing SS
Speaker 1: soldiers had taken it seriously. The question was was Scott Sainey,
Speaker 1: who was sort of in the area at the time,
Speaker 1: but not in the area. Was he also responsible had
Speaker 1: he also issued similar orders say no prisoners to shoot
Speaker 1: them regardless of who they are, as they have some
Speaker 1: asset about looking for information. And actually, I mean when
Speaker 1: I went through the detail of it, it was clear
Speaker 1: in fact that this was a put up job. That
Speaker 1: Scott Sainey had absolutely nothing to do with the Malmadi massacre.
Speaker 1: He was nohea at the time. There was one reconnaissance
Speaker 1: cheap that was that happened in the area of Malmady
Speaker 1: by mistake about three hour hours after their massive happened
Speaker 1: on the seventeenth December I think it was nineteen forty four.
Speaker 1: What was going on was it was payback time. Really
Speaker 1: from Rosenfeld's point of view. These court martials, they were
Speaker 1: administered as the name suggests, under military or not civil law.
Speaker 1: You could do all sorts of things. You could if
Speaker 1: you were rosenfeldt anyway you could. You could stage manage
Speaker 1: the evidence, you could beat evidence if you like, out
Speaker 1: of prisoners because no one's going to stop you, you know, good,
Speaker 1: and beat them, starve them, all sorts of things. Obviously
Speaker 1: you couldn't to get the kind of outcome you wanted,
Speaker 1: because in the court from the court was made up
Speaker 1: largely of these sort of field colonel lieutenant colonel types,
Speaker 1: we weren't actually lawyers at all. Rosenvelt was a professional lawyer,
Speaker 1: so he knew what he wanted, and he couldn't get
Speaker 1: Scott Sane in on the mal made trial the previous
Speaker 1: year because he was actually ill. He had another bout
Speaker 1: of collitus and he had to have his gall bladder
Speaker 1: operated on at the time. So this is payback time.
Speaker 1: So that's why the charge was appended. There's another technical
Speaker 1: reason why Rosenfeld did it, but I won't go into
Speaker 1: that now. Uh, that was the biggest thing held against him. Initially,
Speaker 1: because there was no witness who turned up in time,
Speaker 1: the charge had to be dropped. But the issue of
Speaker 1: whether Scott saying his Commando company troops had fired without
Speaker 1: warning while an American uniform stuck for a lot longer.
Speaker 1: But eventually he had a very good lawyer called Robert D. Durst,
Speaker 1: who's from Missari, I think a Springfield Massari, and he
Speaker 1: was backed up by someone who actually did have experience
Speaker 1: of criminal trials, a criminal trial lawyer, lawyer. I think
Speaker 1: he'd been in the DA's office in San Francisco. Someone
Speaker 1: called Donald McClure a good team, and they learned from
Speaker 1: them as takes of the previous trial, where basically people
Speaker 1: have been able to proffer their own defenses, and what
Speaker 1: happened was that, you know, all the German lawyers suggested
Speaker 1: a cutthroat defense, so everyone blamed everyone else and everyone
Speaker 1: or the defendants went down. Some were condemned to death,
Speaker 1: although that was reprieved some you know, as little as
Speaker 1: ten years. So this was not a good outcome. And
Speaker 1: Deurst could see that the way to get through this
Speaker 1: trial was to impose a single narrative on what actually
Speaker 1: happened and choose a leader, and Scott Seney was the
Speaker 1: obvious leader. There were ten defendants altogether in this trial,
Speaker 1: so he was selected as their spokesman. Say it had
Speaker 1: quite a harrying time being cross examined, and he seems
Speaker 1: to have performed quite well under pressure, but he was
Speaker 1: sort of stage managed by Dost and what Dewist did,
Speaker 1: and this was almost an accident, but not quite. He
Speaker 1: realized that you couldn't really get away with this charge
Speaker 1: that easily, but you could almost fit by pointing out
Speaker 1: if you can find the evidence that the Allies had
Speaker 1: done just the same thing, you know, in nineteen oh
Speaker 1: seven conventions that was put together at a time when
Speaker 1: there weren't tanks, airplanes or indeed really commandos in the
Speaker 1: modern sets that were and you know, it was out
Speaker 1: of date, and the British and Americans had done similar things.
Speaker 1: Hitler was convinced this was the justification for Scortsinny's type
Speaker 1: of undercover operation in the first place, that the Americans
Speaker 1: had done just the same at Arkham, which was the
Speaker 1: first city in Germany to fall in September I think
Speaker 1: it was nineteen forty four. In fact, there was an
Speaker 1: OSS unit had cloaked itself in German uniform and shot
Speaker 1: her from German machine gun posts. It subsequently emerged, so
Speaker 1: there was some justification. So what dust the defense lawyer
Speaker 1: did was he found this man called Tommy Yo Thomas,
Speaker 1: Wing commander Tommy Tommy Thomas, who was a war hero,
Speaker 1: a British war hero, who had assisted in an operation
Speaker 1: called ACM top Ta nineteen forty four. But the idea
Speaker 1: was to where German uniforms, they're actually SD uniforms, not
Speaker 1: military ones. It didn't matter the operation didn't come off.
Speaker 1: It was a bit theoretical, but basically in the witness box,
Speaker 1: you Thomas was very sympathetic to scorts in his position,
Speaker 1: and when asked by the defense accounts of what he
Speaker 1: had done if the operation had gone ahead and they've
Speaker 1: been challenged by German centuries, so they were trying to
Speaker 1: rescue a leading member of the French resistance in Rent,
Speaker 1: he said, well, we would have bumped them off, no question.
Speaker 1: We'd have just shot them and disappeared with our prisoner.
Speaker 1: So that it wasn't very good lead. You know, as
Speaker 1: a legal argument, it didn't hold up very well, but
Speaker 1: it made a huge impression on the judges and everyone.
Speaker 1: There were other aspect trial, of course, but everyone that
Speaker 1: he was Unit. All the defendants were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they quidd it right, Stuart. We're at almost like
Speaker 2: an hour and a half. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 2: more in this book. I mean, he had twenty five
Speaker 2: years of life after World War Two with all kinds
Speaker 2: of shenanigans and intrigue and subterfuge. I mean, his life
Speaker 2: was really and he had an incredible life. I mean
Speaker 2: it really just there's no other way to say it.
Speaker 2: I Mean, he double's Disciple I think is fitting. Not really,
Speaker 2: you know, he wasn't a saint for by any stretch
Speaker 2: of the imagination, but the fact that he skirted out
Speaker 2: of so many predicaments is really something. Else Where's the
Speaker 2: best place for people to get this book? Auto score
Speaker 2: Skinny The Devil's Disciple.
Speaker 1: Amazon easily available on Amazon.
Speaker 2: And and do you you have a website or Twitter
Speaker 2: or or social media account.
Speaker 1: There is something called Stuart Smith's blog which has a
Speaker 1: few pieces of journalism Tasher. It was partly promotional material,
Speaker 1: but it's factually base, which would probably give you other
Speaker 1: aspects of Scott Senny. I mean, one thing I did
Speaker 1: was I looked at the influence Scott Senni had on
Speaker 1: one of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, Moonraker. You'll find
Speaker 1: that he plays a part in that. In that tracks,
Speaker 1: the villain is in some ways based on Scott Sennie.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. Well, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I need you to read that. It's quite interesting, but
Speaker 1: just a bit of a curio really it is.
Speaker 2: Well, there are other characters Fleming borrowed from Crowley too.
Speaker 2: Alister Crowley was his first one of the shift, so
Speaker 2: he probably just found sinister type of characters and integrated
Speaker 2: them in his novels. But this was a true story
Speaker 2: and its excellent, very well read book, very very thoroughly
Speaker 2: researched too, So thanks so much for your time, Stewart. Again,
Speaker 2: the title of the book is is Otto Skorzeni, The
Speaker 2: Devil's Disciple and the author of Stuart Smith.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, well, thank you very much. Indeed,
Speaker 1: all right, stay there
Speaker 2: A little bit