Description

SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Otto Skorzeny became a legend in his own time. Hitler s favourite commando acquired a reputation as a man of daring, renowned for his audacious 1943 mission to extricate Mussolini from a mountain-top prison. Skorzeny s influence on special operations doctrine was far-reaching and long-lasting – in 2011, when US Navy SEALs infiltrated Pakistan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden, the operational planning was influenced by Skorzeny s legacy. Yet he was also an egoist who stole other men s credit (including for the seminal rescue of Mussolini), brave and resourceful but also an unrepentant Nazi and a self-aggrandizing hogger of the limelight.

Stuart Smith draws on years of in-depth research to uncover the truth about Skorzeny s career and complex personality. From his background as a student radical in Vienna, to his bloody service with the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front, his surprise rebirth as a commando, and his intriguing post-war career and mysterious fortune, this book tells Otto Skorzeny s story in full – warts and all – for the first time.