The Second Day – CIC Work Increases
By the afternoon of December 17, 1944, the enemy had committed fourteen divisions into battle, half of then Panzers. US units from the reserve areas and the Third Army maneuvered to stem the drive and to bolster weakened forces. The main thrust of the German drive, on the northern flank, was blocked by the First Army. The attack on the center of the line was more successful, and, the enemy had inflicted heavy losses on the 28th Infantry Division and the 106th Infantry Division by the end of the second day. The tempo of counterintelligence work increased. For the first time in the European conflict, CIC was carrying out the mission in the withdrawal situation. The 82nd CIC summed up its counterintelligence tasks as follows in its Monthly Intelligence Report: the detachment resumed work in the combat area … the enemy push … created again major civilian problem … CIC Agents were attached to regiments and established at strategic road control points … Initially, the organized evacuation of civilians could not be undertaken because of the fluid front … Enemy use of American uniforms, vehicles and other equipment resulted in redoubled security efforts, including the interrogation of … all men in American uniforms who could not produce positive identification … The questioning of civilians fleeing the front lines resulted in the collection, of positive intelligence which was passed to G2
The Third Day – First Einheit Stielau Men Captured
The third day, December 18, 1944, was highlighted for CIC by the first capture of members of Skorzeny’s US uniformed and equipment Einheit Stielau. Three men in an American jeep, detained by a Military Policeman at Aywaille when they were unable to give the password, turned out to be Unteroffizier Manfred Pernass (Driver), Obergefreiter Wilhelm Schmidt, and Officer Candidate Gunther Billing. Interrogation revealed that they had been operating in the First Army area for just thirty minutes, having crossed the front lines at Stoumont. These men were dressed in the costume of the Panzer-Brigade 150 (US Army uniforms). They were without field jackets and leggings, and only one wore the regulation belt. Their military-type identification papers were fairly complete, yet they had personal documents. They carried German sold-buchs (Pay Books). Each had a US M-1911-A1 .45-caliber-pistol, and their jeep’s equipment included two portable radios, two MP-3008 Neumünsters .cal 9-MM (German made Sten Gun), a German .cal 9-MM Walther P-38 and six German M-39 Egg-shaped hand grenades. In addition to US K-rations and ammunition.
Further querying at the First Army Interrogation Center, to which the group was rushed by Agents of the 301st CIC Detachment, produced information concerning the strength of the German Intelligence Service in uniform. The prisoners estimated the strength of the brigade to be 700 to 1000. Subsequent reports, however, indicate that 3000 to 3300 men, with a combat strength of 2400 would be a more accurate estimate of the Skorzeny Panzer-Brigade. The captives said that there were 150 linguists in the brigade, whose specific mission was to spearhead the German armored attack and cause confusion among the retreating American troops.
The Einheit Stielau (CO Oberleutnant Lothar Stielau), as they described it, was not closely knit group. It consisted of jeep teams of three or four Germans disguised as American officers and enlisted men. In addition to those who worked in conjunction with the armored units, other teams were specialists in demolitions in communications or sabotage. Still, other teams had long-range reconnaissance and sabotage missions.
While SS-Obersturmbannführer Willi Hardieck was the nominal leader of the brigade, the prisoners named SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny as the true leader of the operation. Later reports indicate that SS-Obersturmbannführer Hardieck was killed on the first day of the battle and Skorzeny assumed nominal as well as actual leadership of the Panzer-Brigade 150. Their account training and outfitting showed they had undergone intensive preparation for their task, one which the German Intelligence Service considered of the utmost importance to the success of the entire counteroffensive. Of the three, Officer Candidate Billing was the most disaffected. He said I did not have another choice. I had to obey orders or they would have shot me. Unteroffizier Pernass, the driver of the jeep and the poorest linguist, claimed I could have avoided our capture by the MP’s but I wanted to sabotage our mission because I want the Americans to conquer. Most laconic and most honest was Obergefreiter Schmidt’s statement, I admit that what I did was unfair. The three were tried before a Military Court and found guilty. They were executed on December 23, 1944, at the rear of the Belgian Army barrack in Henri-Chapelle.
The news of the capture of the first team from the Einheit Stielau was publicized widely. Any slight irregularity became a reason for suspicion. The 301st CIC, which officially had arrested the Billing’s team, rounded up three Belgians who owned articles of US military clothing and a German soldier who claimed to be a deserter. All four were considered potential enemy agents until later investigations proved that none were of counterintelligence interest.
CIC, of course, could not be concerned if four or, as happened at CIC Frontier Control Station N°5 near Wintringen, forty-eight persons were inconvenienced by detention until they were cleared ultimately of counterintelligence suspicions.
The Fourth Day – Assignation Plot Revealed
On 2310, December 19, 1944, an American Jeep was stopped at a control point near a large bridge over the Meuse River. A Military Policeman from the 769th MP Battalion, in the presence of Agents from the 301st CIC Detachment, challenged the occupants and asked for the password. Stamp replied the officer seated to the right of the driver. Although the correct answer had been supplied, the MP continued to investigate the authenticity of the passengers. He asked for the vehicle’s trip ticket. Several were offered, all blank. Warily, he watched the passengers while he and the CIC Agents searched the vehicle. Their curiosity reaped dividends. German weapons and explosives were discovered, and the CIC arrested the four occupants, all members of the Einheit Stielau. They were searched immediately. Beneath their jackets, they wore a swastika armband – their method of identifying themselves to their German cohorts. The vehicle’s markings, although correct, were freshly painted and roughly done. The name of the team leader was Leutnant Günther Schulz. His co-riders included Leutnant Karl Heinz Weisenfeld, Stabsgefreiter Hans Reich and Feldwebel Manfred Bronny. The four were taken to the First Army Interrogation Center where CIC Agents and other interrogation specialists questioned them further.
Shulz proved a talkative fellow. He declared that the main effort of the German drive toward the Meuse River between Namur and Liège and that US troops could expect the dropping of a Fallschirmjaeger Regiment at a critical time, in Liège, when SS columns were advancing on that city. Approximately seventy tanks, some captured American models as well as German tanks camouflaged to resemble US armor, had the mission, according to Schulz, of exploiting a break-through, moving night, going into the woods during the day while English-speaking soldiers reconnoitered American positions for an attack the following afternoon. While outlining the objectives and the tactic of the Einheit Stielau, Schulz made a startling statement. The prisoner said he had learned from the late SS-Obersturmbannführer Willy Hardieck that at an official meeting in early December, Skorzeny had been given the mission of entering the SHAEF headquarters in Peris to assassinate the Supreme Allied Commander, Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower, and other high ranking officials. Schulz said Skorzeny was to pass-through France with fifty to sixty men, most of them attired in US uniforms. Some, however, would be in German uniforms, pretending to be captured, high-ranking German officers. Schulz named those who would be in the party and said that the group would rendezvous at the Café de la Paix or at the Café de l’Epée in Paris, where collaborators would join them and supply pertinent information.
Skorzeny – A Synopsis
To those who had heard the name Skorzeny before – and by December 1944, everyone in counterintelligence must have – this fantastically bold plan seemed wholly believable. For every war plant destroyed by the resistance groups in France and Denmark, Skorzeny’s saboteurs had destroyed one factory devoted to the production of civilian commodities in those countries. He had engineered the rescue of Mussolini and the kidnapping of Admiral Horthy of Hungary. His success (of which there were few) and his blunderings (of which there were many) were all spectacular. The tall scar-faced Austrian had risen quickly among Nazi leaders until, by December 1944, he could bypass SS-Brigadeführer u. Generalmajor der Polizei Walter Friedrich Schellenberger and report only to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler or SS-Obergruppenführer Heinz Kaltenbrunner, head of the Reich Office of State Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt – RHSA), Skorzeny was believed capable of any action, no matter how unethical, and counterintelligence experts looked upon the allegations of Leutnant Günther Schulz as highly credible.
Schulz information was passed on immediately, with the warning that the assassination party may carry concealed capsules of acid to facilitate interrogation’s escape and that they may be in staff cars, civilian cars, Command and Reconnaissance cars, as well as jeeps.
Paris Dons the CI Cloak
Reports from the front lines to SHAEF Headquarters in Paris traveled fast; probably because reports produced such instantaneous repercussions as the news of an impending attempt on the lives of high Allied military commanders. Forty-three roadblocks were set up to obstruct mobile traffic. Innumerable checkpoints and identity check raids made the civilian population wary and limited their movement to necessities. The alleged meeting-places of the assassins, the Café de la Paix and the Café de l’Epée, were placed under continuous surveillance by CIC Agents. For some time, Lt Col Baldwin B. Smith, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the Supreme Allied Commander, impersonated Gen Eisenhower, riding from the General’s residence in Saint-Germain to SHAEF Headquarters in Paris each morning and returning each evening. From this time on until the reduction of the Bulge, one of CIC’s major worries was that an assassination attempt would be made. There was never any reason to believe that the plan was not an enemy capability, and CIC continued to gather additional information on the plot from captured agents.
Hitlerjugend – Problem Children
With the arrest of line crosser Albrecht Heck and Karl Limburg by 2nd CIC Detachment, also on the fourth day, the problem of Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) previously only suspected, became a real one. These youths related much about this fanatical para-military organization of adolescents and pre-adolescents. Both boys were from Butgenbach, members of the Hitlerjugend movement for several years. Through one Walter Dennis, Stammführer of Malmedy for several years, they said they had received instructions to throw nails upon the highway to harass Allied motor traffic; to save small arms ammunition and keep the supplies in hiding until they could attack American soldiers; to gather and forward information about American troops and equipment. Stammführer Dennis, the boys said, gave his orders to the Scharführer in Butgenbach to pass on to certain trusted members of his Schar. Information was to be returned through the same persons if possible. Counterintelligence investigators wondered whether Dennis received orders from a higher authority? Further, whether he had any system of communication with the Germans and how widespread would be the use of the Hitlerjugend organization. The 2nd CIC Deztachment had trapped in its travel control net two youngs and had uncovered the first positive indication that subversive activities are encouraged by the Hitlerjugend, and that the former organizational structure is being employed in part to give leadership to these activities.
The First Army still held the northern flank of the salient, but the German drive through the center of the forest persisted. Civilians from the forward areas were on the roads and in the woods, evacuating the battle zones. As they moved rearward, civilians in that area became apprehensive about the German advance. In Sourbrodt, Belgium, members of the 1st CIC Detachment were 24-hour duty checking identifications of all persons entering the region. Agents attended a conference with Civil Affairs and Military Government representatives, at which the Chief of the Belgian Gendarmerie in the area, Eugène Bourron, reported that several civilians, fearing an advance by the enemy into their local, were preparing to evacuate. Bourton was instructed by CIC to calm down the people and order them to remain. The fears of the civilians were based on the belief that the Germans, remembering the activities of the resistance groups during their retreat in August and September, would impose drastic measures of revenge on the territories they re-conquered. All CIC units remained alert to various types of security threats, turning over petty violators to local authorities.
The Fifth Day – Einheit Stielau Increases Activities
Little changed in the tactical situation on the fifth day except that the VII Corps of the First Army had been regrouped and was capable of counterattacking. At noons, on December 20, however, the First and Ninth Armies came under the control of the British 21st Army Group, headed by Montgomery, and offensive plans were postponed. ADSEC Com Z CIC personnel, whose control line had been disrupted on the first day of the German counteroffensive, had been regrouped, stationed at control points, and assigned to roving patrols. As of noon of December 20, the ADSEC teams in the First Army area had become part of the British 21st Army Group. This did not hamper CIC operations in progress. It worked well for ADSEC for, in addition to forty-five Military Intelligence Interpreter personnel from the Twelfth Army Group, these Agents were permitted control of seven British Field Security Sections.
The main task of the Meuse River Control Line included: screening refugees and permitting none but ‘frontaliers’ (peoples whose home is along the border) to cross the river, halting all civilian traffic crossing the river, with a few vital exceptions; complete checking of identifications of all civilians and military personnel; suspension of ferry and boat service; maintenance of 24-hour security posts by CIC, Military Police, and tactical troops; and questioning suspects and persons of questionable identity at small interrogation centers at each bridge posts.
Twelfth Army Group had received numerous reports by this time of suspicious telephone calls which possibly were made over tapped lines by enemy personnel. As a result, all communication at Liège and Namur was suspended at the request of ADSEC, the Allied Censorship Group, and the SHAEF mission to Belgium. Reports of Fallschirmjaeger invasions were investigated with negative results. Guards were doubled at vital installations as a sabotage precaution. Security control of civilians after the beginning of the German push was difficult due to the increasing droves of refugees who had come westward from Luxembourg and eastern Belgium. These refugees were held along the Meuse River line until screened, then sent southward out of the tactical zone to avoid jamming military roads. CIC, together with Military Police and Civil Affairs personnel, handled the situation as it developed. Many persons foreign to the tactical area who were found in these refugees streams, required special interrogation. For example, according to an ADSEC report, displaced Polish nationals arriving at the Civil Affairs Displaced Persons Camps in the Namur, were screened by the Namur CIC Detachment. During the screening, three German soldiers and one German national were discovered, arrested, and sent to a prisoner of war enclosure.
In addition to their security control and screening duties at the Meuse River Control Line, ADSEC CIC personnel later operated a travel control line that extended from Huy, on the eastern bank of the Meuse, to Tienen, which guarded the approach to Brussels, the Belgian capital, and Antwerp, the seaport. This travel control line was approximately perpendicular to the Meuse River at the middle of the Namur-Liège baseline. CIC supervised Belgian police and Military Police who were making identity spot checks on the highways, in cafes, and in hotels. This travel control line added several miles to the depth of the Meuse River Control Line.
