US CIC vs Einheit Stielau (Panzer Brigade 150) – Battle of the Bulge

Einheit Stielau Increases Activity

Another sign of the increased activity of the Einheit Stielau appeared on the fifth day. Two German jeep teams, spotted on the enemy side of the line by troops of the 99th Infantry Regiment (S) near Stavelot were destroyed by fire from 75-MM guns. One of the bodies was recovered by US troops for verification. Further indications that the Panzer-Brigade 150 was in the forward areas were added when three other Germans from the 5th Company, Special Fallschirmjäger Regiment of the 2nd Combat Group, were captured in the Heppenbach area. Wounded when taken prisoner, they were sent to the Field Hospital and later to a General Hospital. Only one, Alfred Franz (alias Cpl Ted Darland), was wearing a US uniform. Ralph Jesch and Henry Pepetz, captured with him, however, wore German uniforms, and after being cared for medically, were tried by a US Military Commission, acquitted, and evacuated as prisoners of war. Franz was also tried a found guilty.

A Scharführer Netted

The campaign against the Belgian Hitlerjugend went on, Josef Sonnet, a Hitlerjugend Scharführer from Butgenbach, was arrested by the 2nd CIC Detachment and charged with espionage and sabotage. Sonnet had informed Stammführer Walter Dennis of artillery positions and numbers of American troops and trucks in the area. Dennis, the leader of the Hitlerjugend organization in Butgenbach, was safe from the 2nd CIC’s vigilance because he was in German-held territory.

Reports of German Intelligence Service Activity Circulated

As one countermeasure to the German Intelligence Service deception, a constant flow of information, aimed at uncloaking the disguised enemy, was fully circulated throughout the American sector. Some of the information, like the following excerpt from an Army Group report, discussed mannerisms: Prisoners have stated that the enemy has established certain methods of identifying German troops in American uniform. Germans will wear one pink or one blue scarf and the top button of the blouse or overcoat will be left unbuttoned. To identify themselves, they will knock twice on their helmet, and their vehicles will have the letter C or D on the left side of the hood. Enemy troops have been found to carry a small vial of sulphuric acid. These containers might well be overlooked in a cursory search, thus leaving the enemy with a valuable weapon for trowing in the face of his captor to facilitate escape or commit further sabotage on the way to the PW Cages.

Advice was given to those who would have contact with invading force. Type of questions to ask persons were suggested. Some of the suggestions included: What are the password and the reply? What staging area did you pass through in the States? What is the price of an airmail stamp? Of a V-mail stamp? What is Sinatra’s first name?

The Sixth Day – The Panzer-Brigade 150 Makes Try

The enemy continued to push westward in the Ardennes Forest, but on the sixth day, December 21, Patton’s Third Army arrived to attack the bulging salient toward Bastogne. On this date, the Panzer-Brigade 150 made its first and last attack as an entity. CIC could justifiably claim a vital role in the defeat of this brigade, through widespread publicity given to the probabilities of such a plan and to the security education of troops which they had carried out. Elaborate plans had been made for the mission of the Panzer-Brigade, which was to strike in the Malmedy Area with Jeep teams at their head. Only the Second and Third Combat Group were designed to take part, as the First Combat Group was in another area to the rear. The Second Combat Group was to attack from the southeast; the Third from the southwest. Jeep teams of the Second Group were assigned to approach a roadblock at the bridge leading to the town, simulating part of a US unit which had been cut off. These teams were to neutralize the roadblock and thereby permit the rest of the group to take the objective. They had proceeded only about three miles from Ligneuville (Engelsdorf) when they crossed into a minefield. The column halted, and American small arms fire and artillery zeroed on them. The fire was devastating, and most of their highly prized captured US vehicles were destroyed. A few succeeded in withdrawing.

The Third Combat Group in the southwest, three miles from Malmedy, was forced into combat by alert American forces. Finding themselves savagely opposed, unable to practice their deception, this enemy group also suffered heavy losses in personnel and equipment, including all their tanks. The commander, Capt von Foelkersam was wounded. Captured in the aftermath of the Second Group’s action was Gefreiter Otto Struller (aliases Capt Cecil Dryer or Pvt Richard Bumgardner) – his AGO card had the first name and the Dog Tags he was wearing, the other – was captured by troops of the 30th Infantry Division. He was immediately relinquished to the 30th CIC. Struller, a former ballet dancer, chose to discuss his successes on the New York stage, but his interrogators were more interested in his failure in the Ardennes. He denied membership in the Einheit Stielau or any organized band of English-speaking German soldiers, reiterating several times that he did not know which unit he had served before his capture and disclaiming knowledge that there was any organized deception practiced by Germans masquerading as American soldiers with US Equipment. He explained that his mission was merely one of reconnaissance, not sabotage or espionage. He said he had heard of Skorzeny’s assassination mission, adding that it was already underway. He was tried, convicted, and executed (January 13, 1945, Huy, Belgium).

Einheit Stielau member Josef Kania was captured, along with two soldiers of the Third Combat Group. These men also said they knew about the Skorzeny assassination plan. While most of these reports placed Skorzeny en route to his objective, a later report established his presence in front of the Hotel du Moulin in Ligneuville (Engelsdorf) on December 21. He had been wounded slightly by shrapnel near the right eye.

1st CIC’s First Hitlerjugend Member Arrested

While the 2nd CIC Detachment had learned, two days before, that Hitlerjugend members had been directed to collect arms and ammunition, it remained for the 1st CIC Detachment to establish that some, at least, had carried out the order. Members of a Battery with the 32nd Field Artillery Battalion (105-MM) had questioned a small boy in the vicinity when a carbine which had been leaning against a barn suddenly disappeared. When he reacted suspiciously, they searched his home and found a small cache of miscellaneous military equipment; a search of the barn revealed the missing carbine and ammunition for it. When they turned the boy, Klemmens Esser, over to CIC, he implicated his brother, Peter Esser, and a friend Kornell Cuepper. At about this time, Peter Esser had been wounded by German artillery fire and was in a US Army Field Hospital. Eventually, the story developed that the three boys had been instructed by a German non-commissioned officer to aid Germany by stealing American supplies and equipment to give the Germans on their return. An informant later accused Klemmens Esser of cutting American telephone wires, and the young admitted it, saying I did it for Germany. Before CIV turned the trio over to Belgian authorities for re-education, Klemmens Esser led them to the main cache of ammunition. The young lad had collected bayonets, .30 caliber ammunition, sixty-five hand grenades, and an assortment of other equipment.

Civil Affairs and CIC

In Sarreguemines on December 21, the sixth day of the attack, the combined efforts of Civil Affairs and 303rd CIC Detachment led to the capture of ninety-six deserters and the arrest of forty-six local Nazis and collaborators. A sound truck was sent about the city, broadcasting an appeal to citizens to turn in deserters and report mine locations. Some other CIC Detachments were not as fortunate in their relations with Civil Affairs. The problem of Civil Affairs lagging behind CIC units, which had begun in Sicily and by this time had become the rule rather than the exception, particularly plagued the 87th CIC Detachment. A recent arrival on the continent, the 87th CIC Detachment included in their first Counter Intelligence Report this statement: Despite the absence of Civil Affairs personnel in the area in which the detachment was operated, the civilian populace has remained under control. Many of the functions that would have been performed by Civil Affairs officials have of necessity been performed by CIC Detachment personnel. Each moment spent in the execution of the Civil Affairs’ mission by CIC meant a proportionate decrease in the accomplishment of CIC’s own task.

The Seventh Day – Deceivers Are Deceived

Just as the announced plan of deception, widely publicized by CIC, had US troops gazing warily at everything in olive drab, the same caution was exercised by German units who did not want to fire on their own men. The 1st Battalion of the German 183.Regiment, marching toward St Vith on December 22, shared this indecisive feeling. At a point where American forces ordinarily would have fired, five Sherman tanks in position along the side of the road remained silent. Breathing more easily in the belief that the tanks were manned by members of the Panzer-brigade 150, the German Battalion resumed marching. When the column was fully abreast of the tanks, the road suddenly rocked under the impact of the fire from the American armor. Fully half the battalion was killed or wounded, the remainder scattered in panic. The deceivers had become the deceived.

Not all CIC’s work, even during the Battle of the Bulge, was in catching spies; routine duties also had to be taken care of. Among them were exaggerated rumors of the German advance. As a result of backtracking one such rumor, the 205th CIC Detachment captured and arrested Thomas Kuck and Louis Maréchal who, having been released from the Malmedy Prison during the German advance to seek asylum in the rear areas, had become self-appointed commentators. CIC turned them over to the Belgian authorities for further investigation and disposition. In Huy (Belgium), CIC neatly side-stepped a request by the Front de l’Indépendence (FI) to be re-armed by advising them that it had no authority to grant such a request. Elsewhere, the 301st CIC Detachment arrested a German soldier in civilian clothes and sent him through regular Prisoner of War channels.

The Eighth Day – More Information Regarding Assassination Plot

The weather which had frozen Allied air power to the ground – the cloudy skies, snow-filled and cold – cleared suddenly on December 23, and new forms were seen in the sky as wave after wave of Allied aircraft added their weight to the battle. Frustrated in its tactical and long-range sabotage and espionage missions, the Panzer-Brigade 150 sent seven of its members in US uniform, on foot, behind American lines with the mission of locating a US artillery battery near Géromont (Malmedy). Through conversations with the gun crew, the seven were to secure information concerning the positions and intentions of the battery. The American artillerymen proved poor hosts and poorer quiz contestants. The seven spies, Leutnant Arno Krause (alias Calvert Joseph Kenzey), Machinenobermannt Horst Goelich (alias Calvert Walter Werge), Obergefreiter Rolf Meyer (alias 2/Lt Sammy Rosner), Unteroffizier Erhard Mieger (alias Calvert James Smith), Obergefreiter Robert Pollack (alias Lt Charles Hozmann), Leutnant zur Zee Günter Schilz (alias Cpl John Wezller), Obergefreiter Hans Dietrich Wittsack (alias Carvert Arthur Osanski) were arrested and taken to the 30th CIC Detachment. This detachment rushed the group to the 301st CIC Detachment with the same speed with which the alert soldiers of the 117th Infantry Regiment had delivered the captives to them. More information was gained concerning the Eisenhower assassination plot. Machinenobermaat Horst Goerlich said that he had heard SS-Obersturmbannführer Willy Hardieck discussing the plan which included the dropping of Fallschirmjäger near Paris to aid the expedition. This statement added impetus to the threat since unconfirmed reports of Fallschirmjäger dropping near Paris had been received three days before, on December 20, 1944.

Obergefreiter Rolf Benjamin Meyer (alias Lt Sammy Rosner), also substantiated previous versions of the plot, adding that the alleged assassins would have Nipolit, a plastic explosive, and specially manufactured poisoned ammunition. Goerlich, Meyer, and their five associates were executed in Henri-Chapelle (Belgium), on December 30, 1944, four days after their sentence by a US Military Commission. All seven had been members of the Einheit Stielau. Also on December 23, an Axis subject outside the Panzer-Brigade 150 revealed some knowledge on the Eisenhower mission. An Italian prisoner of war from the Penal Colony of the 1.SS-Panzer-Division (LSSAH) said that two German soldiers had told him of the plan. Except for the additional information that six trucks and British uniformed operatives would be used, his report was substantially the same as the others. Other intelligence agencies assisted in the development of information that would increase the probability of apprehending subsequent teams of these infiltration agents. Ordnance Intelligence, for example, determined that the money found on the captives was not counterfeit or else it was the best ever seen. They also added to the fund of information about the jeeps used by the Einheit Stielau, by checking the vehicles. Among other equipment, the jeeps had special built-in gasoline tanks.

The Tenth Day – Assassination Fears Wane

On Christmas Days, Patton’s units steadily closed the breach between themselves and the 101st Airborne Division, stubbornly defending Bastogne (Belgium). Most counterintelligence specialists were growing increasingly skeptical of the rear area threat of assassination, but counterintelligence measures designed to protect key Allied leaders remained in force. Even the Comùmander General the Twelve Army group was affected. As Gen Omar N. Bradley described it: fear full that a detachment of Skorzeny’s assassins might have penetrated the city of Luxembourg, Gen Edwin Luther Sibert (G2 12-AG), had trucked me under an elaborate security wrap. Sibert evacuated my C-47 from the Luxembourg Airport to a night fighter base at Etain. I instructed Maj Alvin E. Robinson to fly the plane from Etain and pick me up in Luxembourg, only two minutes’ flying time from the German Line. But, when Sibert got wind of these plans, he protested so strenuously that I abandoned the idea and we took off from Etain.

The Eleventh Day – High Water Mark

The high water mark was reached on December 26, when Gen Ernest N. Harmon’s 2nd Armored Division defeated its German counterpart, the 2.SS-Panzer-Division, and the German advance was halted. The enemy had reached a point seventeen miles from Dinant (Belgium). Now, Patton’s column had reached Bastogne and the enemy, facing possible disaster, slowly withdrew. By this time also the real threat of assassination had ended. To many CIC’s sensitivity to the possibility of such action had seemed overly zealous. Eisenhower, in his book Crusade in Europe, was critical of the Extraordinary Fears of the Security Corps. I was irritated he wrote, at the insistence of the Security Corps that I definitely circumscribe my freedom of movement, but I found that unless I conformed reasonably to their desires they merely used more men for protective measures. His naval aide, Commander Harry C. Butcher, titled the entry in his journal Saturday, December 23, 1944, Prisoner of Security Police and wrote as follows: There are all sorts of guards, some with machine guns, around the house, and he (Eisenhower) had to travel to and from the office led and at times followed by an armed guard in a jeep. He got some satisfaction yesterday in stepping out for a walk around the yard in deep snow, in the eyes of the security officers probably quite the most dangerous thing for him to do.

SS-Obersturmbannfürer Otto Skorzeny Denies the Plan

Otto Skorzeny, perhaps the only man who would know whether he had ever planned an attack on the Supreme Allied Commander, has never admitted to it. In his megalomaniacal account of his victories and defeats, ‘Skorzeny’s Secret Missions’, Skorzeny protested greatly against any claim of his participation in an assassination plot. He suggested that such an attempt, if successful, would have been a crime. Perhaps he protested too much.

Exit German Intelligence Service

The Panzer-Brigade 150 and the Einheit Stielau had attempted small commando-type infiltration, deceptive reconnaissance, and full-scale tactical warfare. At each turn, they had been beaten. Skorzeny, upon his capture, claimed only two successful missions for his Einheit Stielau but amended the number to four in his book. The four, he stated, offered such clear and precise reports that their veracity could not be suspects. He added that two or four more teams may have crossed the lines, two being captured. Skorzeny gives no account of the other two teams.

Reasons for Failure

The German deception had failed because roadblock personnel and rolling guards had used the information collected by CIC interrogators and disseminated it rapidly to aid in the identification of the infiltrating units. The following activities became almost routine: (1) With vehicles, attention was directed in the rear, especially for radios and sabotage equipment. (2) Helmets were checked for the presence of markings which, among the Allied forces, designated officers and non-officer personnel. The Germans had overlooked these design elements. (3) Passwords were demanded and those who did not know the word currently in effect were scrutinized quite carefully to make sure they were genuine American personnel. (4) Since the driver usually was the poorest linguist among the members of the Einheit Stielau teams, drivers of vehicles were questioned thoroughly. No one could answer for him. (5) Vehicle trip tickets were examined in rear areas. (6) Any soldier possessing US or British currency was suspect. (7) Identity documents were checked carefully. CIC had warned that the Germans would use their pay-books to identify themselves; all Germans in the Einheit Stielau carried AGO #65-4 identity cards although few authentic ones were in the theater, and few Germans had Dog Tags (since they were not issued and it required personal initiative to confiscate them from US prisoners of war.

Other Einheit Stielau Men Captured

Throughout records of the Ardennes Campaign, there were scattered references to other captures of teams of the Einheit Stielau. One report, for instance, mentioned the capture of a team when they took a vehicle to an Ordnance Maintenance Unit for repair. Other reports indicated heroism and alertness on the part of an individual soldier, who finding himself caught by two of the imposters, berated them in German for interfering with his mission and walked away, only to return with reinforcements that captured one German and killed the other. Though some of these reports were widespread, no unit or individual identification, no location, and no reports of interrogations are available which would serve to verify them.

During Operation Greif, several members of the Einheit Stielau (the commando unit tasked with infiltrating Allied lines in American uniforms) were captured and executed by US forces for violating the laws of war. Below is a list of known members who were apprehended, along with their capture dates, execution dates, and locations:​

Günther Billing (Oberfähnrich); Capture Date: December 18 at Aywaille, Belgium​
Trial Date: December 21, 1944, Execution Date: December 23, 1944​, Henri-Chapelle, Belgium
Wilhelm Schmidt (Obergefreiter); Capture Date: December 18, at Aywaille, Belgium​
Trial Date: December 21, 1944, Execution Date: December 23, 1944​, Henri-Chapelle, Belgium
Manfred Pernass (Unteroffizier); Capture Date: December 18, 1944; Aywaille, Belgium
Trial Date: December 21, 1944, Execution Date: December 23, 1944​, Henri-Chapelle, Belgium
Otto Struller (aka Capt Cecil A. Dyer or Richard Baumgardner); Capture Date: January 11, 1945, at Huy, Belgium
Execution Date: January 13, 1945, Henri-Chapelle, Belgium​
Guenther Schulz, Capture Date: May 1945​ in Germany
Execution Date: June 4, 1945, Near Braunschweig, Germany​
Three commandos: Trial Date: December 21, 1944, Execution Date: December 26, 1944
Seven commandos: Trial Date: December 26, 1944, Execution Date: December 30, 1944
Three commandos: Trial Date: December 27, 1944, Execution Date: January 13, 1945

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