The five teams that successfully infiltrated the lines are credited with having accomplished a great deal within the first two days of the offensive. Teams from each of the commando groups gathered valuable intelligence, spread confusion, and disrupted command and control. Two teams were eventually compromised and captured, but in their own way, they were to add to the sense of panic and confusion behind the American lines.
One Recon Commando team succeeded in reaching their objective over 100 miles behind the lines. Following the tail of a withdrawing American convoy and passing through numerous checkpoints, this team entered Huy, Belgium, on the evening of December 16. There they conducted a successful recon of the bridge over the Meuse River, which was one of the primary Greif objectives for the Panzer-Brigade 150, as well as for the 1.SS-Panzer-Corps. The team conducted both mounted and dismounted recon of its target. Discovering the bridge guarded only by a sentry detachment, they radioed their reports back to the Stielau command post now near Losheimmergraben, Belgium. This team maintained surveillance of the bridge throughout the night and into December 17.
Fearing compromise as American searchlights had begun to sweep the banks of the river, the team requested permission to exfiltrate. Granted permission to withdraw on December 17 by the Stielau headquarters, the team successfully weaved their way through the columns of withdrawing American vehicles and re-entered German lines in the 5.Panzer-Army area. Along the way back they tore up telephone cables and removed unit signposts. After briefing 5.Panzer-Army personnel about their trip, the team members returned to the commando company and rendered a full report, which included in addition to information about the general enemy situation, convoy movements and artillery positions, and the location of a munitions depot near Huy.
While in Huy, this Recon Commando team claims to have misdirected an American armored column moving to the front. The team leader, Fritz Bussinger, while conducting a foot recon in the town of Huy, stated that the leader of the American column asked him for directions to the town of Marche. Advising them that the Germans had captured several roads in that area, Bussinger claims to have directed the convoy on a wide detour in the wrong direction. Skorzeny states in his autobiography that German signal intercept units monitored American transmissions indicating that this unit was misrouted out of the battle area for a period of time.
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Another of the Recon Commando teams is claimed by Skorzeny to have infiltrated the vicinity of Liège, Belgium, the site of another principal bridge target over the Meuse River. Also, still according to Skorzeny, this team reached the Meuse and discovered that the Allies had taken no special security measures at the Meuse bridges. Additionally, it reported on the general situation around Liège. Here the team observed the movement of American forces south from Liege into the battle area. They also confirmed that the Americans appeared to have evacuated their airfields east of the Meuse River. This is this team that, according to Skorzeny, located a large munitions depot near Liège (in fact the huge 1st Army Ammunition Depot alongside the Railroad tracks Liège – Aachen and located in Soumagne).
It was quite likely this team also miss-routed a regiment of the 84th Infantry Division as it moved southward to reinforce the front. Wearing Military Police insignia, Wilhelm Giel, the team leader, directed one American infantry regiment down the wrong road, thereby delaying its arrival at the battle area. American accounts reinforce this claim. On its way back to German lines, in addition to gaining information about enemy movements and defenses, this team slowed down long enough to lay mines, drop trees across roads, and emplace dummy minefield markings in order to slow the movement of American reinforcements. The Lead Commando teams were equally active.
On December 16, one team is reputed to have encountered an American force of two companies defending the crossroads town of Poteaux, Belgium. Accosted by an American officer wanting information about the situation forward, the team leader presented a story indicating that the town was already bypassed on both flanks and isolated by the Krauts. Fearing encirclement, the American force withdrew to the west, abandoning the village. This event can not be confirmed by American sources, but accounts of American activity there indicate the only presence of the 18th Cavalry Squadron from December 18 onward.
It is certain that one team actually did miss-route an American infantry regiment moving to the front. Posing as American Military Police at the Mont Rigi road junction, along the N-27 highway from Liège, this team changed the road signs and miss-directed traffic for a period of several hours on December 17. As the 16th Infantry Regiment (1st Infantry Division), was moving in convoy to bolster the front in the south, the commandos misdirected the entire regiment to Malmedy, rather than its planned destination of Waimes. As a result, the regiment was delayed in reaching its new defensive positions for that day. Later, when real American MPs appeared to sort out the confusion, they detected the commandos at the road junction. The commando team beat a hasty withdrawal, and as their jeep disappeared from the area, it was reported that one of the MPs was still standing on the jeep’s front bumper, clinging to the wire cutters, from where he had been directing traffic!
One unidentified team located a gasoline dump, which was reported to the 1.SS-Panzer-Corps headquarters by Skorzeny for possible use by the German armor. Kampfgruppe Peiper did refuel from a captured American fuel dump at Bullingen on December 17, but there is no confirmation that this was the dump that the commando team is claimed to have located. At least one of the Demolition Commando teams appears to have conducted several significant sabotage activities. The team is reported to have discovered an ammunition dump, and blown up a large part of it on the evening of December 16. Additionally, the team cut a large telephone cable at several points. This cable is reputed to have been the link between the US 1-A Headquarters in Spa, Belgium, and the 12-AG in Namur and was out of service for several hours, disrupting communications between Gen Hodges and Gen Bradley during a critical time of the opening battle. This team may also have directly assisted the advance of Kampfgruppe Peiper. During the evening of December 17, elements of the 5th Belgian Fusiliers Battalion and members of the 291st Engineer Battalion observed strange American soldiers preparing to blow up the bridge over the Amblève River at Stavelot, Belgium. Although a collection of engineers from the 202d Engineer Combat Battalion had actually prepared the bridge for demolition, they did so with numerous stragglers in their midst.
A pair of soldiers spotted by the Belgians near the bridge was considered suspicious but were never challenged. It is unconfirmed by Skorzeny if these were commandos from this team neutralizing the prepared demolitions on the bridge. However it is a fact that when Peiper’s tanks began to approach the bridge a day later, the explosives charges failed to go off when the Americans attempted to blow up the span, and this bridge was captured intact. This action allowed Peiper’s forces to quickly seize Stavelot and continue to proceed with their advance westward.
It appears that this Demolition Commando team was the only element of the Einheit Stielau to sustain a combat fatality during Operation Greif. While attempting to re-enter German lines on December 18, the team ran into an American unit moving to counterattack Kampfgruppe Peiper. In the attempt to race past the Americans in their jeep, the team came under heavy fire and an officer on the team was fatally shot. The remaining three team members continued on and were eventually able to link up with Peiper’s forces near Wanne, Belgium, on Christmas Eve.
Some other teams were not as fortunate. The Lead Commando team supporting the 1.SS-Panzer-Division successfully infiltrated American lines on December 17, and by noon-time penetrated forty kilometers to the village of Stoumont, Belgium. Stopped by an MP checkpoint in the village, the team was queried to give the password for the day. They were unable to do this and were promptly detained. At first Pfc Lawrence, Pfc Sensenbach, and Pfc van der Werth seemed unremarkable. However, a quick examination of their jeep soon proved that these three were no ordinary GIs. Wads of counterfeit money, explosives, and a German automatic in the jeep prompted a more detailed search of the trio. Their German Army pay books, which they carried on their person, identified them as Oberfahnrich Billing, Gefreiter Schmidt, and Unteroffizer Pernass. The team was arrested and sent to Aywaille for interrogation.
It appears that this team was primarily responsible for creating the spy scare within the American army. During interrogation, the team members revealed their mission of Recon and detailed the attempts to reach the Meuse River bridges. They confirmed that additional teams were already behind the American lines. Pressed for every bit of information they held, they soon blurted out the various wild rumors that had circulated throughout Grafenwoehr during their training. Unsure of the missions of all the elements under Greif the commandos may have believed some of the rumors to be true. The Allies believed one of them too. This team told their captors that part of Skorzeny’s mission was to infiltrate Paris and capture Gen Eisenhower. The news of this plot, as well as the fact that numerous German spy teams were operating behind American lines, spread like wildfire throughout the Allied camp. It was not long before Allied security was tightened in a way that no one traveling the snowy roads of Belgium was above suspicion.
The third Recon Commando team did not fare well either. Although penetrating the American lines and infiltrating close to its target; the bridge over the Meuse River between Huy and Namur, the team was halted at an American checkpoint short of the bridge. Unable to produce a valid trip ticket, the Military Police arrested the four-man team. A quick search revealed they were wearing German uniforms beneath their American battle dress, and their jeep was laden with German weapons and explosives. The team leader, Lt Gunther Schultz, was to talk freely to his captors. The rumors of Grafenwoehr were again to come into play with amazing effects. The news of the capture of this team was to also spread quickly, and it rapidly fueled the spy mania that had begun to grip the American rear areas.
One Recon Commando team and one Demolition Commando team are unaccounted for in records and accounts of Greif’s opening days, and they appear to have not accomplished any part of their missions. It is probable that these are the two teams that Otto Skorzeny referred to whose courage and resolution had left them. Although dispatched through the American lines they seem to have been inactive in comparison to the exploits of the other teams. They succeeded in re-entering German lines and eventually linked up with the rest of the Commando company. However, it appears that one of these teams had entered the town of Malmedy on December 17. The team leader, an elderly naval officer, Corvette Capt von Behr, apparently had not intended to get into the American lines, but had become lost and passed through Malmédy by mistake. He did not observe any significant defensive preparations in the town.
Von Behr’s subsequent oral report to Skorzeny on December 19, after the team re-entered German lines, was to have deadly repercussions for the fate of 150.Panzer-Brigade. Skorzeny, still at Schmittheim with the 1.SS-Panzer-Corps Hqs, never received any of these reports directly by radio, as the weather and terrain disrupted effective, long-range communications. He was to learn of much of this information only after the exfiltration and link-up of the teams, such as the report of von Behr.
After December 18, no more commando teams were sent behind American lines as part of Operation Greif. As the opportunity to employ the Panzer-Brigade 150 began to wane with the stiffening of the American defense, Skorzeny regarded the special task of the commando company at an end. After Operation Greif was over, the 6.Panzer-Army still employed several teams to conduct similar clandestine missions on a local basis from December 19 onward in support of the continued German offensive.
The Einheit Stielau was to continue local reconnaissance operations even into January 1945, long after the demise of Wacht Am Rhein, but not under Skorzeny’s command. Skorzeny, however, did not consider these activities a part of Operation Greif. A number of small units spontaneously employed Recon teams consisting of ordinary German soldiers in recently captured uniforms and vehicles. Also, many a German soldier equipped himself with some recently liberated, and warm, American clothing to supplement his kit.
Although having nothing to do with Greif, to the Allies, this must-have appeared as a part of a continued German plan. The Einheit Stielau remained at the front until it was eventually withdrawn and disbanded at the end of January 1945. Several of its captured soldiers were executed by the Americans as spies, as a result of wearing American uniforms. Unteroffizier Manfred Pernass, Oberfähnrich Günther Billing, and Gefreiter Wilhelm Schmidt were captured in Aywaille, interrogated, tried, found guilty and executed on December 23. Being the first of the Einheit Stielau, these men were followed by Lt Karlheinz Weisenfeld; Feldwebel* Manfred Bronny; Stabsgefreiter Hans Reich; tried and executed on December 26 1944. Lt Arno Krause; Lt zur See Günther Schilz; Unteroffizier Erhard Miegel; Obermaschinenmaat Horst Görlich; Obergefreiter Rorbert Pollack; Obergefreiter Benjamin* Meyer; Obergefreiter Hans Dietrich Wittsack; tried and executed on December 30. Gefreiter Otto Struller was tried and executed on January 13, 1945 (at Huy). Lt Günther Schulz was tried and executed on June 14, 1945, in Denstorf (near Braunschweig).
