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Operation Greif (; ) was a special operation commanded by Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and its purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse River before they could be destroyed. German soldiers, wearing captured British and U.S. Army uniforms and using captured Allied vehicles, were to cause confusion in the rear of the Allied lines. A lack of vehicles, uniforms and equipment limited the operation and it never achieved its original aim of securing the Meuse bridges. Skorzeny's post-war trial set a precedent clarifying article 4 of the Geneva Convention: as the German soldiers removed the Allied uniforms before engaging in combat, they were not to be considered francs-tireurs.
There was an earlier Nazi military operation that used this name, namely an anti-partisan operation conducted by the Wehrmacht, begun on 14 August 1942, in the vicinity of Orsha and Vitebsk in the Soviet Union.
Skorzeny was to form a special brigade, Panzer Brigade 150, whose purpose would be to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse River before they could be destroyed. Hitler informed him that he had decided that this could be accomplished more quickly and with fewer losses if Skorzeny and his men wore U.S. uniforms. Hitler also remarked that small units disguised in enemy uniforms could cause great confusion among the enemy by giving false orders, upsetting communications, and misdirecting troops.
Skorzeny was well aware that under the Hague Convention of 1907, any of his men captured while wearing U.S. uniforms could be executed as espionage and this possibility caused much discussion with Generaloberst Alfred Jodl and Field Marshal von Rundstedt.
The new brigade needed U.S. Army vehicles, weapons and uniforms; OB West was asked to find 15 tanks, 20 armored cars, 20 self-propelled guns, 100 jeeps, 40 motorcycles, 120 trucks, and British and U.S. Army uniforms all to be delivered to the brigade's training camp which had been set up at Grafenwöhr in eastern Bavaria. The equipment delivered fell short of the requirements, including only two Sherman tanks in poor condition, and Skorzeny had to use German substitutes, five tanks (Panzer V "Panther tank") and six armored cars. The brigade was also flooded by Polish and Russian equipment sent by units who had no idea what the request was for. To make matters worse, Skorzeny had only 10 men who spoke perfect English and had some knowledge of U.S. idioms, 30–40 more spoke English well but had no knowledge of slang, 120–150 who spoke English moderately well, but the majority of his men spoke little to no English.
Faced with these setbacks, Skorzeny scaled down Panzer Brigade 150 from three battalions to two and assembled the 150 best English speakers into a commando unit named Einheit Stielau. Skorzeny also recruited a company of SS- Jagdverbände "Mitte" and two companies from SS- Fallschirmjäger-Abteilung 600, and was given two Luftwaffe parachute battalions formerly of KG 200, tank crews from Panzer regiments, and gunners from artillery units. A total of 2,500 men were eventually assembled at Grafenwöhr, 800 fewer than had been hoped.
The final total of equipment assembled was also less than had been hoped; only enough U.S. Army weapons had been found to equip the commando unit, and only four U.S. Army scout cars, 30 jeeps, and 15 trucks were found, the difference being made up with German vehicles painted in U.S. olive drab with Allied markings applied. Only a single Sherman tank was available, and the brigade's Panther tanks were disguised as M10 tank destroyers by removing their cupolas and disguising their hulls and turrets with thin sheet metal. The problem of recognition by their own forces was crucial, and they were to identify themselves by various methods: displaying a small yellow triangle at the rear of their vehicles; tanks keeping their guns pointing in the nine o'clock position; troops wearing pink or blue scarves and removing their helmets; and flashes from a blue or red torch at night.
As the brigade prepared for action, rumors began to fly that they were to relieve the besieged towns of Dunkirk or Lorient, capture Antwerp, or to capture the Allied Supreme Command at SHAEF at Paris.Delaforce, p. 60 It was not until 10 December that Skorzeny's own commanders were made aware of the brigade's true plans. Panzerbrigade 150 was to attempt to capture at least two of the bridges over the Meuse River at Amay, Huy, and Andenne before they could be destroyed, the troops to begin their operation when the Panzer advance reached the High Fens, between the Ardennes and the Eifel highlands. The three groups (Kampfgruppe X, Kampfgruppe Y, and Kampfgruppe Z) would then move towards the separate bridges.
Dressed in U.S. Army uniforms (the highest U.S. Army rank used was that of colonel), armed with U.S. Army weapons, and using U.S. Army jeeps, the commandos were given three missions:
As a consequence, on 17 December Skorzeny attended a staff conference at the 6th Panzer Army's HQ, and suggested that his brigade be used as a normal army unit. This was agreed, and he was ordered to assemble south of Malmedy and report to the 1st SS Panzer Division's HQ in .
On 21 December 1944 this brigade, under Skorzeny's command tried to take Malmedy. Several assaults of the Skorzeny brigade were eventually successfully repelled by the U.S. defenders. This would constitute the only noticeable attempt from the Germans to take Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge.
As a result, U.S. troops began asking other soldiers questions that they felt only Americans would know the answers to in order to flush out the German infiltrators, which included naming state capitals, sports and trivia questions related to the U.S., etc. This practice resulted in Brigadier General Bruce C. Clarke being held at gunpoint for some time after he incorrectly said the Chicago Cubs were in the American League and a captain spending a week in detention after he was caught wearing German boots. General Omar Bradley was repeatedly stopped in his staff car by checkpoint guards who seemed to enjoy asking him such questions. The Skorzeny commando paranoia also contributed to numerous instances of mistaken identity. All over the Ardennes, U.S. soldiers attempted to persuade suspicious U.S. military policemen that they were genuine GIs. On 20 December, two American soldiers were killed by a nervous military policeman. Two more American soldiers were killed and several wounded as late as 2 January 1945 when an armor task force from the U.S. 6th Armored Division moving into the Wardin area of Bastogne opened fire on the U.S. 35th Infantry Division in a case of mistaken identity. According to Paul Fussell, an uncorrected typographical error on U.S. identity cards could serve as a tell: the top of a genuine card read "Not a pass. For indentification sic purposes only." Fussell suggests that a German preparing the disguises of the commandos could not resist correcting the spelling on their false cards to read "identification". Fussell does not cite a particular example.
In all, 44 German soldiers wearing U.S. uniforms were sent through U.S. lines, and all but eight returned, with the last men being sent through the lines on 19 December; after this, the element of surprise had been lost and they reverted to wearing German uniforms. It was not an uncommon practice at the time to send camouflaged reconnaissance units behind enemy lines, but because of the impact of Operation Greif, every occurrence of this was attributed to Skorzeny's men. In addition, German infantry often salvaged any items of U.S. Army clothing they found, thus it was not out of the question that regular German troops might be killed or captured wearing items of U.S. uniforms.Pallud, p. 14
The team's leader of Operation Greif, Günther Schulz, was tried by a military commission sometime in May 1945 and executed near the German city of Braunschweig on 14 June. It is not known why his trial was delayed until May 1945, and it is unclear who ordered his death sentence to be carried out. His execution was carried out by the U.S. Ninth Army.
After World War II, Skorzeny was tried as a war criminal at the Dachau Trials in 1947 for allegedly violating the laws of war during the Battle of the Bulge. He and nine officers of the Panzerbrigade 150 were charged with improperly using U.S. uniforms "by entering into combat disguised therewith and treacherously firing upon and killing members of the armed forces of the United States". They were also charged with participation in wrongfully obtaining U.S. uniforms and Red Cross parcels consigned to U.S. prisoners of war from a prisoner-of-war camp. Acquitting all defendants, the military tribunal drew a distinction between using enemy uniforms during combat and for other purposes including deception; it could not be shown that Skorzeny had actually given any orders to fight in U.S. uniforms. Trial of Otto Skorzeny and Others Skorzeny said that he was told by German legal experts that as long as he did not order his men to fight in combat while wearing U.S. uniforms, such a tactic was a legitimate ruse of war. A surprise defense witness was F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, a former Allied SOE agent, who testified that he and his operatives wore German uniforms behind enemy lines.
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