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He was Hitler's favourite Nazi commando, famously rescuing Mussolini from an Italian hilltop fortress, and was known as "the most dangerous man in Europe".
Decorated S.S. killer Otto Skorzeny later joined Israel's Mossad as a hitman
Allegations say Skorzeny assassinated rocket scientist Heinz Krug in 1962
Krug worked on Nazi V1 and V2 programmes but vanished from his office
Claimed to be Israeli plot to intimidate German scientists working for Egypt
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Israeli newspaper Haarertz said Otto Skorzeny (pictured) assassinated rocket scientist Heinz Krug on September 11, 1962
Adolf
Hitler's most decorated S.S. killer was signed up by the Israeli secret
service Mossad after WWII as a hitman charged with eliminating former
Nazi rocket scientists.
Israeli
newspaper Haarertz said Otto Skorzeny - the brutal but brilliant
rescuer of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini who went on to commit war
crimes by dressing German troops in American uniforms during the Battle
of the Bulge - assassinated Heinz Krug on September 11, 1962.
Krug,
49, was one of a number of Nazi rocket experts who worked on Hitler's
V1 and V2 programmes recruited to work for Egypt to develop missiles
capable of wiping out the Jewish state.
Krug was never found after vanishing from his office in Munich.
Now Haaretz reveals: 'Based on interviews with former Mossad officers and with Israelis who have access to the
Mossad's archived secrets from half
a century ago, Krug was murdered as part of an Israeli espionage plot
to intimidate the German scientists working for Egypt.'
Otto Photo: Roger Viollet/Getty Images
Otto Skorzeny with Benito Mussolini after the dictator's dramatic rescue in 1943
'Krug contacted Skorzeny in the hope that the great hero — then living in Spain — could create a strategy to keep the scientists safe,' said Haaretz.
The
most astounding part of the claim is that Lt. Col. Skorzeny - holder of
the Knight's Cross, Nazi Germany's highest award for valour - was a
member of the hit squad.
Haaretz said its sources spoke out about his extraordinary role within the Mossad only if they were not identified.
According
to the newspaper, Krug was at the top of the Mossad list for
assassination. He was a superstar during the war at Peenemunde, the
Baltic island where Wernher von Braun constructed the 'wonder weapons'
Hitler was convinced would bring Germany final victory.
Haaretz
said von Braun offered Krug the chance to go to America with him and
other members of the team to work on the rockets which would win the
race for space with the moon landings.
Otto Photo: Roger Viollet/Getty ImagesOtto Skorzeny with Benito Mussolini after the dictator's dramatic rescue in 1943
It
went on: 'Krug opted for another, seemingly more lucrative option:
joining other scientists from the Peenemünde group — led by the German
professor Wolfgang Pilz, whom he greatly admired — in Egypt. They would
set up a secret strategic missile program for that Arab country.
'In
the Israelis' view, Krug had to know that Israel, the country where so
many Holocaust survivors had found refuge, was the intended target of
his new masters' military capabilities. A committed Nazi would see this
as an opportunity to continue the ghastly mission of exterminating the
Jewish people.'
Krug was murdered as part of an Israeli espionage plot to intimidate the German scientists working for Egypt.
At
first Mossad contented itself with a war of harassment against Krug and
his comrades: anonymous threatening phone calls at midnight and
unsigned letters calling for him to quit his Egyptian assignment.
According
to Haaretz, Krug contacted Skorzeny, then 54, because he felt Hitler's
favourite warrior would protect him. American and British military
intelligence once labeled Skorzeny 'the most dangerous man in Europe'
for his remarkable exploits, the most famous of which was flying a
gliderborne rescue squad to the top of an
Italian mountain to rescue Mussolini from partisans.'Krug contacted Skorzeny in the hope that the great hero — then living in Spain — could create a strategy to keep the scientists safe,' said Haaretz.
But
unbeknown to him, the former servant of the organziation which carried
out the Holocaust of six million Jews, was already in the pay of Mossad.
Haaretz said its sources within the vaunted intelligence services said
Skorzeny drove Krug out of Munich in his car with three bodyguards
following in a vehicle behind.
Otto Skorzeny - the brutal but
brilliant rescuer of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini - was one of the
favourite assassins of Adolf Hitler (centre)
'He
said they would accompany them to a safe place in a forest for a chat,'
reported Haaretz. 'Krug was murdered, then and there, without so much
as a formal indictment or death sentence. The man who pulled the trigger
was none other than the famous Nazi war hero. Israel's espionage agency
had managed to turn Otto Skorzeny into a secret agent for the Jewish
state.'
Krug's
body was doused in acid and the remains of what were not burned away
plunged into a shallow grave. It is alleged that future Israeli prime
minister Yitzhak Shamir, who was then head of the Mossad's special
operations unit, greenlighted the operation.
Another
was Zvi Malkin who had tackled extermination expert Adolf Eichmann when
he was kidnapped by a Mossad gang. Yosef 'Joe' Raanan, the secret
agency's senior officer in Germany, coordinated the killing.
Skorzeny (pictured) died of cancer, at
age 67, in Madrid in July 1975, taking the secrets of his treachery to
Nazism to the grave
While
it may seem implausible for the state of Israel to hire a man so
closely linked with the regime which tried to destroy all Jews, Haaretz
went on: 'The Mossad's playbook for protecting Israel and the Jewish
people has no preordained rules or limits.
'Mossad
has sometimes found itself working with unsavory partners. When
short-term alliances could help, the Israelis were willing to dance with
the proverbial devil, if that is what seemed necessary.'
But
why would Skorzeny work for them? According to Haaretz's informants,
Skorzeny shunned an offer of money from Mossad operatives who met him in
Madrid, saying he had enough.
But
he did what one thing - to be removed from the list of wanted criminals
sought by the world's top Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Mossad agreed
to fix it.
His Mossad handler arranged a secret flight for him to Tel Aviv where Skorzeny was introduced to Mossad chif Isser Harel.
During
this visit, Skorzeny was taken to Yad Vashem, the museum in Jerusalem
dedicated to the memory of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. 'The
Nazi was silent and seemed respectful. There was a strange moment there
when a war survivor pointed to Skorzeny and singled him out by name as a
war criminal,'' said Haaretz.
His Mossad handler smoother over the situation by claiming he was his relative and a Holocaust survivor himself.
The
new recruit allegedly flew to Egypt and gathered valuable intelligence
on German scientists and the front companies supplying them. These
included Heinz Krug's company, Intra, in Munich.
One
man went on the record about his hiring, Rafi Eitan who, in 2006 aged
79, became an as head of a political party representing pensioners.
'Yes, I met and ran Skorzeny,' Eitan told Haaretz, refusing to confirm more details.
Ultimately,
Mossad were unable to persuade Holocaust survivor Wiesenthal to remove
Skorzeny from his list of war criminals. Instead the Mossad forged a
letter for their new recruit, allegedly from Wiesenthal, saying it had
been done.
As
well as eliminating Krug, Haaretz said Skorzeny mailed letter bombs to
Nazi scientist in Egypt, one of which killed five Egyptians in the
military rocket site Factory 333 where German scientists were employed.
Skorzeny died of cancer, at age 67, in Madrid in July 1975, taking the secrets of his treachery to Nazism to the grave.
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