It started with material problems. Despite the pledge from Jodl, Skorzeny was aware that the collection of a large quantity of captured American equipment would be no simple task, if for no other reason than the front-line units holding and using the needed tanks or jeeps would be unwilling to freely give them up. As a result, he wrote to the CoS OB West, General d. Kavallerie Siegfried Westphal, on November 2, 1944, requested assistance in gathering the required equipment for the operation. Thus was born Rabenhugel.
RABENHUGEL
Rabenhugel was the code name for the requisition and collection of the American equipment and uniforms for Operation Greif. Rabenhugel was conducted on the Western Front in November 1944.
As part of the operation, the OB West Oberquartiermeister, Oberst i.G. Friedrich-Wilhelm John, was tasked to locate 15 tanks, 20 armored cars, 20 SP guns, 100 jeeps, 120 trucks, 40 motorcycles, and thousands of uniforms. These would be used by the Greif forces to replicate both small and large size American forces to conduct their penetrations to their targets.
Rabenhugel, however, did not meet with much success. Despite the promises of support and Hitler’s outbursts of fury against various gentlemen in the quartermaster department, Skorzeny came nowhere near to obtaining the equipment needed for his operation. On November 21, he sent a message to OB West complaining about the lack of necessary equipment for Greif. At that time, Skorzeny had at his disposal fewer than 34 jeeps, 15 trucks, one armored car, and two half-tracks.
An official full report was sent to OB West on November 24 by SS-Obersturmbannführer Stromer, one of Skorzeny’s staff officers. It outlined the problems encountered in fitting the unit with equipment and stated that the planned target date for completing the organization of the Greif force, November 25, could not be met. Counting both American equipment and substituted German vehicles, for example, only 57 of 150 jeeps and 74 of 198 trucks were on hand at the Greif training site at Grafenwoehr. Five tanks, all German, in addition to the armored vehicles mentioned in Skoneny’s earlier message, were the only combat vehicles for the entire Panzer-Brigade 150. Two American M-4 Sherman tanks were turned over to Skorzeny. But, like most of the captured vehicles at Grafenwoehr, they were in poor running shape, both had soon broken down and proved un-serviceable.
Several German tanks, assault guns, armored cars, and armored personnel carriers were received instead of the anticipated American vehicles. Skorzeny was forced to improvise to overcome the lack of vehicles.
(Above) Operation Greif, 3 Tanks (After the Battle). (Left) (Code C5) (Fake Markings Baker 81-TB, 5-AD) On Jan 15, 1945, this Panzer-Brigade 150 Sturmgeschutz III Ausf. G, (Kampfgruppe Y) was abandoned along N-32 at Géromont. Men of the 291-ECB are removing booby traps from it.
(Center) (Code B10) (Fake Markings Baker 10-TB, 5-AD) Mark V Panther, Leutant Gerstenschlager. Because the Panther had no cupola, Gerstenschlager was hit in the head when he peered out to orientate himself. Then the Panther came under heavy US artillery fire. The driver tried to escape but drove the Panther into the Café Du Rocher de Falize (La Falize). (Right) Mark V Panther (Coded B4) (Fake Markings Baker 10-TB, 5-AD) Leutant Peter Mandt which was knocked out by the mine in front of the railway overpass on Route de Falize. (Note) Tanks were marked 10-AD.
Substitute Mark V Panther tanks were visually modified to resemble the American M-10 tank destroyers by cutting down their barrels and welding steel plates to their turrets and hulls. The remaining German assault guns, armored personnel carriers, and trucks were painted olive drab and adorned with painted white stars. (Later, Skorzeny would state all I can say is that they could only deceive very young American troops, seeing them at night, from very far away)
Ultimately, Skorzeny’s Panzer-Brigade 150 would consist of 5 German Mark V Panther, 5 Stug III assault guns, 6 armored scout cars, and 6 armored personnel carriers. Added to this were 4 American M-8 scout cars and 5 half-tracks. The Commando Company fared much better and had almost two dozen jeeps at its disposal. Only 50% of the required American small arms were ever assembled, and owing to the destruction of a munitions train, they were without any quantity of ammunition. German weapons again filled the void. There were only enough American arms and ammunition to equip the Commando Company.
The situation in regards to uniforms was not better. Skorzeny stated the case very clearly himself: the most fantastic position of all was in respect of clothing, to which, of course, we had to attach the utmost importance. We started by receiving a consignment of miscellaneous articles, which upon closer examination turned out to be British uniforms. Then we were sent lots of overcoats, which were useless because we knew that US Soldiers only wore so-called field jackets in the line. When the head of the prisoner of war section sent us a supply of these jackets, they had to be sent back because all the jackets were marked with triangles peculiar to prisoners.
It was an eloquent comment on the way business was handled that the commander of the brigade – myself – got nothing but an American army pullover in my size. It was all far from ideal and much less than what was hoped for in the initial planning. The shortage of equipment was paralleled by shortages of personnel. The original table of organization for Operation Greif proposed a force of 3300 men. By D-Day, closer to 2500 men filled the ranks of the new Panzer-Brigade 150 and it is just a commando company. Similar to the problem of procuring sufficient quantities of American equipment for the force, finding adequate numbers of capable American speakers was also quite a challenge.
Skorzeny realized early in his planning that he could never hope to get sufficient numbers of English speakers to man his entire force. More important perhaps, he also realized that with only four weeks of preparation time, he could not mold them into a cohesive, self-contained, and compact formation, but rather would require a few regular units to give them stiffening. Upon his request to OKW, Skorzeny’s original force of his SS-Jagdverband, and the 600.SS-Fallschirmjäger-Battalion was increased with two Luftwaffe parachute battalions, one Wehrmacht tank company, and one communication company. Additionally, Skorzeny knew that to lead his ad hoc formation he would need battalion commanders with front-line experience. He requested and was granted, three such officers:
SS-Obersturmbannführer Willy Hardieck
Obersleutnant Hermann Wolf
Hauptman Walter Scherff.
Skorzeny was to say of his three battle group commanders: of the three allocated, Hardieck was a splendid officer, but never led this sort of operation before. The same could be said of Wolf and Scherff but the enthusiasm with which they entered into their new duties made me certain that somehow, everything would be all right. I did not forget that I had no previous experience of leading an attack in borrowed plumage. The situation with the English-speaking volunteers for the mission paralleled that of the Rabenhugel failure with the material. For a force originally envisioned to masquerade as the equivalent of an American regiment numbering in the thousands, fewer than 150 competent English speakers were ultimately obtained. While it was probably unrealistic to expect such a large number of English speakers, the results still fell short of expectations.
Skorzeny described the situation with these volunteers as follows: when the first hundred volunteers reported at Friedenthal a week later, the future of Greif looked blacker than ever. We employed several language experts who divided them into categories, according to their knowledge of English. After a couple of weeks, the result was terrifying. Category one, comprising men speaking perfectly and with some notion of American slang was ten strong, and most of them were sailors, who at so figured largely in category two. The latter comprised men speaking perfectly, but with no knowledge of American slang. There were thirty to forty of them. The third category consisted of between 120 and 150 men who spoke English fairly well and the fourth, about 200 strong, of those who had learned a little English at school. The rest could just about say yes. In practice, it meant that we might just as well mingle with the fleeing Americans and pretend to be too flurried and overcome to speak.
Of the 600 volunteers who arrived in Friedenthal, Skorzeny picked 150 of the best for the Commando Company. Some of the remainders were to go directly to the Panzer Brigade, while many of the poorer speakers who possessed no critical or special combat skills were destined to remain at Grafenwoehr during the operation both for security considerations and for use as some type of last-ditch reserve. Most of the men selected were sailors that had served in the American merchant marine before the war, while some were German-Americans who had lived in the United States. Most lacked any real combat training, and none had anything approaching special operations experience.
Gert Mennigke of the Panzer-Späh-Company (Gen Ernst Günther Baade’s 90.Panzer-Grenadier-Division), reported on his commitment to the Einheit Musculus (Oberst Friedrich Musculus) as follows: as our unit left Italy for Germany in the fall of 1944, we were located at the Truppenübungsplatz Wildflecken (Armored Training Camp south of Fulda). We had, of course, no idea what was ahead of us. In Wildflecken an SS-Untersturmfuehrer took the unit over because our former Company leader allegedly did not muster the right spirit for future missions. A couple of days later, orders arrived that our vehicles and equipment would be delivered immediately. We departed then to Grafenwoehr where we arrived on November 11. On arrival, we noticed that almost every kind of soldier available in our army was present, Waffen-SS, Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe Fallschirmjäger. Something annoying, they were all wearing a Ritter Kreuz (Knight Cross).
Some days later, highly decorated people, including Corvette Captain Philip v. Behr and SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny started speeches in the Mess. They hinted at the difficult situation of the Reich and asked for 40 volunteers for an operation that was about the salvation of the motherland. It didn’t take a long time to assemble the group of 40 sorted men, myself included. Good English language skills being the main request we learned that we would be undergoing special training as American soldiers in the coming weeks.
During the first days of the training, we were ordered to say and repeat daily: ‘Do not wear a wedding ring’, ‘Never speak German’, ‘Lightly wounded keeps fighting’, ‘Heavily wounded ZEV’ (ZEV = self-annihilation), etc. In addition to the American uniform, we got some US lighters that contained a Poison (Hydrocyanic Acid) capsule instead of the reserve tank. Since our American/English language skills were not so perfect, a speaker who owned a Cannery Company in the United States was added to the group. He would take over every conversation with the Americans during the mission.
There was a lack of material in every corner and end. Light Armored Cars, Tanks, Jeeps, and even basic infantry combat gears were missing. Since we only had an M-8 Greyhound Armored Car which had been captured in Arnhem, Holland, and main battle tanks were insufficient, the workshops worked day and night to rebuild German vehicles for their future American combat vehicles look. They all got a new US Olive Green coat and several white stars as well as division designations etc.
Our Mark V Panthers received a gun extension made of the metal sheet while large metallic panels were added to look similar to the Sherman. The secret was the major word during our preparation. One of my comrades from Kiel (Germany) had been found guilty of treason. He had written a letter to his wife about the probable assignment and had plugged the letter to be picked up by the postal service in a nearby village. Unfortunately, he was arrested and trailed and the sentence that felt in no time was ‘death by shooting’. When they came to pick him up for the execution, it wasn’t any longer possible; he had hanged himself at the window latch of his cell.
After a couple of weeks, we entrucked again. I took over an SPW with Tatra diesel, 220 hp. The armament was a short 75-MM cannon and an MG-42. The trip went via Würzburg, Frankfurt, Lorsbach to Wahn (Koln). It was strictly forbidden to move further than 5 meters from the wagon. As camouflage, we carried the Jump Jacket of the paratroopers (Knochensack) and we called ourselves 1.Battalion 13.Fallschirmjäger Regiment.
Altogether, we were about 2000 men and we were then divided into 3 combat groups: Kampfgruppe X, Kampfgruppe Y, and Kampfgruppe Z. We, had two SPW, and were attached to Oberlleutnant Wolf, Kampfgruppe Y. Wolf was a great guy. We learned from him, after unloading in Münstereifel, the nature of our real mission. He said that some 200 km behind the front line, we should take over a bridge crossing the Meuse River, save it from being blown up and keep it until the arrival of the Panzer Spearhead of the 6.Panzer-Army. It was now clear to us that the mission was an Himmelfahrtskommando (Suicide Mission) but we had decided to take this over and there was no way to get us out of the project. I finally got the last American artifacts to accomplish the mission, paybook, dog tags, etc. I was now a real American soldier and my name was Pfc Voyle D. Buclow from Bloomington, Indiana.
As leaked, Skorzeny did not agree with the preparation of the company. The time was too short to ensure the training of the individual Groups. In addition, the opposing radio stations already sent in November messages, according to which on a southwest German Training Camp an English-speaking Kampfgruppe be set up. The adversaries certainly did not lose sight of us and the betrayal in the Wehrmacht command staff was – as became known after the war – extremely large. The actual core of the special unit was no more than 150 men, to which we also belonged. Other Groups were trained for explosive attacks on the enemy’s rears. Field Gears were filled with Donarit explosives, shoe soles, and coats with explosives. Should we be sent out we will have pipelines to blown up during, street signs to readjust, and so on. Some groups – i.e. Corvette Captain Philip v. Behr, managed to break through the front and bring from Bastogne and Malmedy valuable recon results. But most of the troops were in constant waiting.
The total force ultimately available to Skorzeny for his Panzer-Brigade 150 was as follows:
Brigade HQs consisting of the Brigade Staff and a signal company, (based upon Panzer-Brigade 108 elements);
3 small combat staffs, one per battle group, (drawn from Panzer-Brigade 10 and 13);
2 Army Signal Companies;
2 Luftwaffe Fallschirmjäger Battalions;
1 company of the Jagdverbande Mitte;
2 companies from SS-Fallschirmjäger-Battalion 600;
2 tank companies, (elements drawn from 11.Pzr-Regt and the 655.Jagdpanzer-Bn);
2 Panzer-Germandier-Companies;
2 Heavy Mortars Companies;
2 Anti Tank Companies;
1 Pioneer Company;
3 Ordnance Vehicle Repair Companies;
1 Special Commando Company.
The overall capability of this force was something much less than originally envisioned prior to Rabenhugel. It consisted of the equivalent of an infantry regiment augmented with some tanks, rather than a full-blown panzer brigade. However, it might still be of sufficient strength to seize a lightly defended target in a surprise attack, and hold it until linked up with header forces. If employed on a conventional mission as a whole force, it might be counted on to put up one credible fight, despite the lack of tactical unity and cohesion.
