AI overview
Otto Skorzeny was an Austrian military officer who served in Nazi Germany's elite Waffen-SS during World War II, becoming famous for leading high-risk commando operations including the daring 1943 rescue of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. His career exemplifies the complex history of Nazi military organizations and remains studied as part of World War II history, though his postwar activities and alleged involvement in covert operations remain subjects of historical debate.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Born
- 1908-06-12
- Died
- 1975-07-07
- Works
- 15
Top works
- Opérations secrètes
- Misiones secretas
- Special Mission
- Hitler's Commando
- For Germany
via Open Library + Wikidata
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 81
- Total plays
- 147
<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/otto+skorzeny">Read more on Last.fm</a>
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
Article
Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German SS-Obersturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including the removal from power of Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy and the Gran Sasso raid that rescued Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny led Operation Greif in which German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines wearing their enemies' uniforms. As a result, he was charged in 1947 at the Dachau Military Tribunal with breaching the 1907 Hague Convention, but was acquitted.
Skorzeny escaped from an internment camp in 1948, hiding out on a Bavarian farm as well as in Salzburg and Paris before eventually settling in Francoist Spain. In 1953, he served as a military advisor to the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was allegedly an advisor to Argentinian president Juan Perón. He died of lung cancer on 5 July 1975 in Madrid at the age of 67.