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Otto Skorzeny,

also known as �Scarface�,

was Hitler's favorite man of action.

Benito Mussolini�s famous rescuer,

the SS Lieutenant Colonel was considered

�The most dangerous man in Europe."

A fugitive-turned-millionaire businessman in Spain

under the shadow of the Francoist regime,

the spy

New investigations reveal valuable information

on the activities of a man

whose life is still shrouded in mystery.

Who really was Otto Skorzeny?

What did he do in the 30 years after World War II,

living in Spain as a refugee?

The most dangerous man in Europe. Otto Skorzeny in Spain

In 2011, an important archive goes up for auction.

It�s the complete collection of private documentation

compiled by Otto Skorzeny and his wife Ilse Lutje over several decades.

An archive, hitherto unheard-of,

consisting of more than 2.000 documents

including agendas, passports,

correspondence,

8mm films

After Skorzeny�s death, his widow Ilse

bequeathed the entire collection to friends in Madrid,

the Pardo family.

The files are bequeathed in the late 90s.

My father has them and brings them home.

He distributes the collection into safe deposit boxes

and keeps it for almost 11 years.

My father was scared, he thought the Nazis might come

And I told him: �There are no Nazis left to come and hurt us,

and people have the right to know what is in the archive�.

There are many interesting documents in the collection.

There is the personal agenda,

many times I have wondered what sense there is in the agenda,

because that agenda is exclusively of Germans.

In a way it is like a recognition or a list of people

that he wants to have the reference as irreducible or faithful Nazis.

There is Leni Riefenstahl, Hanna Reitsch,

there is Hitler's personal aide,

the one who takes his body to be cremated,

Otto G�nsche,

the bunker secretaries.

I spent 11 full years continuously with the archive.

Then I tried to get

some Spanish, German, American institutions�

to acquire it.

It was quite frustrating because no one responded.

Otto Skorzeny's archive is finally put on sale.

An historian and USAF veteran, Mayor Ralph P. Ganis,

acquires most of the collection

and proceeds with his exhaustive investigation.

I found out about the Skorzeny papers in 2012,

I was actually doing general research on Skorzeny on the internet,

and I happened to notice that there was an auction of his papers,

so this caught my attention.

Since many books had been written about him,

all his wartime exploits

and not much was known about what he did after the war.

I thought if I could get the papers

I might be able to do the research

and then maybe do a book on his post war life.

July 1948.

The route that will take Skorzeny to Spain

begins in the German town of Darmstadt.

Held in an allied prison camp,

one morning he receives a very special visit.

Three gentlemen dressed in Allied uniforms

arrived at the Darmstadt prison

and said they had an order to transfer the prisoner Skorzeny,

and the prison warden handed him over to them

without asking for any documentation,

without making them sign anything, with no problems at all.

He acknowledges that they make it easy for him to leave,

and reading between the lines of his memoirs,

he implies that the Americans suggest Spain as a good destination.

In the spring of 1948 Skorzeny is free once again

and that summer Schacht, a friend of his, and Hitler's banker,

who later will have great influence in Otto�s life in Spain,

asks his niece Ilse to lodge him on a farm she had in Bavaria.

In the summer of �48 Otto hides in Ilse�s farm

and it seems love sparked between them,

an adulterous love because both were married,

but nevertheless an irresistible attraction.

Skorzeny needs a safe haven.

His choice is Spain,

a country ruled by dictatorship and allied

with Germany during World War II.

There are already 10 thousand Germans,

many of them refugees from the end of the war,

living in Spain.

Spain is a military dictatorship, of course,

by Francisco Franco and his generals.

Hundreds of Nazi refugees in Spain are required

for extradition by the Allied justice.

The various lists presented to Franco�s government

are repeatedly ignored.

They admire German military culture,

it is a little unfortunate that Germany has lost the war

but they still admire the people who had fought in

it and Otto Skorzeny is as far as they are concerned

a genuine military hero

and they welcome him with open arms.

Skorzeny enters Spain on January 12, 1951,

easily passing the Ir�n border using false documentation.

This false passport under the name of Rudolph Steinbauer

was issued by Jos� Spottorno, the Spanish ambassador in Paris.

That means that he was well-protected by Franco�s regime.

Skorzeny settles in Madrid.

One of his first contacts in the capital

is the well-known fascist writer and journalist

V�ctor de La Serna y Espina.

V�ctor de la Serna was the great introducer of the German colony in Madrid

and fundamentally of the Nazi refugees there at that time.

One must bear in mind that De la Serna

had been the director of the �Informaciones� newspaper

which was by far the most pro-Nazi of the regime's newspapers.

Thanks to de la Serna

Skorzeny quickly weaves a large network of contacts,

some of whom hold important positions in Franco�s regime.

He establishes contacts with the Army General Staff,

with Juan Vig�n, with General Munoz Grandes,

with General Mart�nez Campos,

with a series of individuals of the Spanish military world

who know of Otto Skorzeny�s legend

and who will open the doors to the future business

that he will have with Franco's regime.

To start these promising businesses,

Skorzeny opens an office on Montera Street in the center of Madrid,

where years later he will be interviewed by journalist David Solar.

I asked him about the scars, about the slit he had here, right?

Of course that will be one of your war wounds,

shrapnel or such, I said. No way!

This is the scar that the �machos� of the University

had to have in those days.

It cost me 14 duels with very sharp weapons to get this mark,

and I'm very proud of it.

At the end of the 1920s Otto Skorzeny

studied engineering at the Vienna Technical University,

where it was customary to practice sword duels known as "Mensur."

It had been a tradition in Germany since the 18th century

to have very conservative student associations,

who settled their differences with fencing duels,

and the scars left by the duels were like medals,

proving the duelists courage and bravery.

One of the key associates he has as a young man in college,

was a future leader in the Nazi party,

Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of Security for the Reich between 1943 and 1945.

Judged as a war criminal at the Nuremberg trials,

he will be sentenced to death and executed.

1933. Hitler's rise to power

Skorzeny quickly identifies himself with the National Socialist ideas,

joining the party in 1934.

Four years later he enthusiastically supports

the annexation of Austria into Germany.

1938. Annexation of Austria

1939, World War II begins,

Skorzeny immediately enlisted in to the army.

He initially wanted to be a pilot,

a Luftwaffe pilot, but he was too big, 1meter 90,

to get into the cockpit of a plane.

Then he joined the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler,

Hitler's Praetorians,

originally Adolf Hitler's defense unit, his bodyguards.

Skorzeny, married since 1938 to aspiring actress Emmy Linhart,

is mobilized on the same day as an important family event.

Waltraut Riess, Otto Skorzen�s daughter.

The day I was born, 21st of February 1940,

was the day my father was called to the front.

He only just had time to meet me,

but he came to visit us several times during the war.

In 1943 Skorzeny is wounded on the Russian front

and is transferred to Germany.

His role in the war suddenly changes

when his friend Ernst Kaltenbrunner

puts him in charge of a newly created special operations unit:

The 502nd SS Light Infantry Battalion.

The new command will change Skorzeny�s destiny forever.

In the mid-50s, Skorzeny moves freely around Spain

using his real identity.

Living in the exclusive neighborhood of El Viso,

he enjoys public notoriety:

he gives conferences, interviews

and is often seen at social events around Madrid.

He frequented the Estela Club, the Pasapogo, Moroco,

the Casablanca, all these places, at night.

At any party or event Skorzeny would be there,

the man who had rescued Mussolini from the Gran Sasso�

There was a group of people who reached the highest social circles,

they were like the �celebrities� of the time.

He enjoyed good food, good life, he liked to live well.

My father met Otto Skorzeny in Madrid,

and was very impressed by him.

My father was a young man who played rugby,

quite tall and strong,

and he told us that Skorzeny had grabbed him by the waist

and had lifted him in the air with his bare hands.

It was obvious that Skorzeny had tremendous strength.

He had been introduced to him by Clarita Stauffer,

who later was linked to the Odessa network

that helped Nazis to leave Germany to take them to Latin America.

Clara Stauffer, a woman of German origin

and a member of the Women's Section of the Falange, the Spanish Fascist party,

becomes the principal organizer of a major Nazi evasion network in Spain

after World War II.

An organization connected with the popularly known as �ratlines�.

Efraim Zuroff is the director

of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem.

He is considered the principal Nazi hunter alive today.

The �ratlines� were organized by the Austrian bishop Alois Hudal

who was in a seminar in Rome.

The routes went from German and Austria,

over the Alps in to Italy to Genoa

and there the people were offered a choice whether to go to South America.

They were given false names,

they were given passports, Nansen passports usually,

tickets and that�s basically how it worked.

Through these evasion networks, significant criminals

such as Josef Mengele, Klaus Barbie and Adolf Eichmann manage to escape.

Skorzeny was also in those organizations.

He is credited in particular with the theoretical creation of The Spider.

He was helping to get them out of the internment camps,

jails, to get them out of Germany, in a first stage.

And I asked him about Odessa

because a book about it had recently come to light,

and his answer was:

That�s just a story.

And then he said, well friends are friends,

but an escape network, that's just a story.

In March 1961, Romano Mussolini, son of the late Duce,

arrives in Madrid during a tour as a jazz musician.

Skorzeny meets him at the Castellana Hotel.

Romano Mussolini arrives in Madrid

and there is a meeting between the two,

and there is a photo in which Skorzeny

is showing him the watch his father had given him in commemoration

of the liberation of Benito Mussolini by Skorzeny.

July 1943.

The Allies take Sicily.

Rome is bombed.

Given the gravity of the situation,

the Great Fascist Council, the highest governing body in Italy,

decides to dismiss Mussolini.

The Duce is arrested and taken to a secret location.

Hitler finds out at 5 pm on July 25th.

�I don't know where he is, � Hitler said,

�but when I do my paratroopers will go to rescue him.

On July 26, the new special operations chief Otto Skorzeny

is summoned to the Wolf's Lair,

Hitler�s headquarters in East Prussia.

He told me that for him it was very surprising

and that the truth is that he entrusted me with the mission

and I left there reeling, and saying to myself

�Either I bring Mussolini in front of Hitler or I die trying,

I could not fail in my mission!�

The Germans discover that Mussolini is hiding

in a mountain top hotel at the Gran Sasso,

at a height of 2.200 meters.

Somewhere that can only reached by cable car.

The mission is launched on September 12th

under the name of "Operation Oak."

Ten gliders with German paratroopers launch

a surprise attack, landing at the Gran Sasso.

The operation takes no time at all, 10 or 15 minutes.

Mussolini comes out to the window when he sees the first gliders:

"Don't shoot, don't shoot."

The bewildered Italian garrison surrenders without resistance.

Skorzeny quickly climbs into Mussolini�s room.

He arrives and formally announces:

"Duce, the F�hrer has sent me to free you"

and Mussolini�s famous reply:

"I knew that my friend would not forsake me!"

After posing with a smile for posterity,

it becomes urgent to evacuate Mussolini from the hotel.

The plan is to transfer him in a two-seater Fieseler Fi 156 light aircraft.

The aircraft had to hold the pilot and Mussolini,

who was also hefty man,

Skorzeny was determined to accompany them,

to make sure that he delivered the rescue�s great icon

and that therefore he would be the protagonist of the story.

It�s a pathetic image,

a scared Mussolini boarding the plane saying

�couldn�t we go by land?�

Mussolini will later recount that this was

one of the scariest moments of his life.

I could not return to Berlin saying that I had rescued Mussolini

and that he had been killed in a plane crash.

Hitler would have told me: "then what are you doing here?"

So Skorzeny says: �no, no I would rather have my corpse taken to him�.

After �Operation Oak�, Skorzeny�s life will change.

On the 3rd of October he will be victoriously received

at the Berlin Sports Palace,

and a newsreel shows a proud Skorzeny greeted by the Nazi chiefs,

his men too, all those who have participated being also decorated.

From that moment

onwards Skorzeny becomes Mussolini�s only rescuer.

The Nazi propaganda apparatus bursts into action,

raising its new idol.

After the Stalingrad defeat

Germany needs an emotional impact,

a hero to believe in,

and for that it forgets the paratroopers

who played an essential role in the rescue.

Basically he has become the lion of Gran Sasso

he�s created his own legend�

Here is Skorzeny the master of bluff

Promoted to commander and awarded the Knight's Cross by Hitler himself,

Skorzeny undoubtedly enjoys his peak moment of glory.

Shortly afterwards, Mussolini will give him a watch engraved

with the date of the rescue as a sign of gratitude.

An object Skorzeny will carry with him for the rest of his life.

In the mid-50s Skorzeny is solely engaged in commercial activities,

an area in which he demonstrates great skill.

His marriage to Ilse Luthje in 1954 reinforces

his relationship with financier Hjalmar Schacht.

It was known that Ilse was not the niece,

nor directly family related to Hjamar Schacht,

but she called him "my uncle",

and their close relationship afforded her great protection on one side.

The great economist of Nazism,

he was the architect of the public support

that Hitler enjoyed for so many years in Germany.

Hjalmar Schacht. German financier, President of the Reichsbank

and Minister of Economy of the III Reich between 1934 and 1937.

The Nuremberg trials of 1946 will declare him innocent.

From 1945 Hjalmar Schacht becomes a kind of totem once again,

an economic figure of a new Germany

rising from the ashes of World War II.

He founded a bank, becomes an important businessman

and its called to have a significant responsibility

and influence in the coming years of Otto Skorzeny's life.

In a short time Skorzeny becomes the middleman

between the largest German companies,

Krupp, Messermitch, Thyssen� and the Spanish administration.

From that privileged position,

he plays an important role in the framework

of the Spanish-United States agreement signed in 1953,

an agreement that establishes the construction

of the U.S.A. military bases in Spain.

Then he immediately sees another opportunity

and goes below the surface of these deals

so he accomplishes that German companies linked to the Nazis

could make business in the construction of these bases,

Rota, Mor�n, Saragossa, etc. No?

Foreign press correspondents,

representatives of agencies and Spanish informants

find out on the field and through previous explanations

by the head of the North American mission General Kissner

the state in which the works of the Torrej�n de Ardoz air base

Skorzeny had contracts with the American government,

to the US Air Forces contract agencies,

and those documents are in his papers.

It�s seems paradoxical that a former member of the Waffen SS

goes on to become the great fixer for the German companies

to build the USA bases in Spain.

From then on, Skorzeny�s businesses diversify

and internationalize, growing exponentially.

Arms dealer, steel� All kinds of businesses,

Otto Skorzeny sold mink coats

and could be selling weapons to Greece.

He travelled the most during the first couple of years.

To Luanda, to Egypt, Argentina, Paraguay.

He had an import and export company,

but many things fall into that category.

It was said at the time that Spain

was selling weapons to South Africa

on the black market through Skorzeny.

I asked him: Are you selling weapons? And he said �no�.

If that was true or not is another story

Money flows in large quantities.

He had many bank accounts in many countries�

in the United States at the Chase Manhattan Bank,

in Panama, in Switzerland, in Germany at the Commerce Bank�

we discovered a book that Otto kept with the current accounts

between the 50�s and 60�s,

all the movements appear with all the people

with whom he earned money,

that is to say arms dealers, cattle, Nazis,

Spanish politicians, there was everything�

His frequent trips allow him to interact

with the great political figures of the time:

Gamal Abdel Nasser, Alfredo Stroessner, Juan Domingo Per�n

With Per�n he carries out important business in Argentina and Madrid.

Per�n set up a company called TERMU here in Madrid.

At Per�n's own home in Puerta de Hierro,

Skorzeny would suddenly arrive

with a series of artefacts in cases,

and they were modern weapons

that he had brought to hand over or show to Per�n,

so that he could give his approval

and together they talked over the functionality of the weapons.

**

Skorzeny�s proximity to Per�n spreads the rumor

of a possible love affair between Skorzeny and Eva Per�n,

something that has never been proven.

As he was so braggart and so show-off and he was so peculiar

he liked to brag that he had no choice but to sleep with Eva

because he was very worried about her unplanned trip to Geneva

as he was concerned of what she might be doing with the money

that the Nazis had deposited in Geneva�

It is worrying because, how would Eva Per�n have access

to the accounts the Nazis had in Geneva?

This leaves another unsolved mystery.

1944.

Mikl�s Horthy ruler of Hungary, an allied country of Germany,

plans to surrender to the Soviets

in the face of their steady progress in the East.

Hitler decides to put a stop to the plan

by entrusting a shock operation to whom,

after Mussolini�s successful rescue,

he considers his favorite action man:

Otto Skorzeny.

There�s admiration from both sides, that of Skorzeny for Hitler,

and, in some way thereafter, that of Hitler for Skorzeny.

Everyone realizes, in the SS as well,

that for any high-stakes special operation,

Hitler says: "Bring me Skorzeny."

Skorzeny acts fast in Hungary.

After kidnapping Admiral Horthy�s youngest son,

he takes the Buda Palace with his troops.

The regent is forced to resign.

With the resignation of Horthy

there is a change of government in favor of the Arrow Cross Party,

the Hungarian fascist party, an extremely radical party

whose rise to power in Hungary means

nothing less than the deportation to Auschwitz

of more than 200.000 Jews residents in Hungary,

particularly in the city of Budapest.

December 1944,

the war leans clearly in favor of the Allies.

In a final attempt to change the course of the conflict,

Germany launches a major offensive in the Ardennes.

Skorzeny is entrusted with a special mission:

to create a combat unit, an armored brigade,

the 150th,

made up of captured enemy tanks,

to make believe that his unit are USA soldiers.

The mission, codenamed Operation Greiff,

is to infiltrate the Allied lines in order to create maximum confusion.

They manage to divert a whole battalion

by changing road-crossing signals.

They created so much fear,

that to say German commandos behind our lines and Skorzeny

resulted in absolute chaos, it was blood chilling.

An American journalist claimed that there was an operation underway

organized by Hitler, to assassinate Eisenhower.

So I asked him: �well, and that was possible?� and he said:

"It would have been difficult but such an action

is always possible, but I was not ordered to do it.�

He was already so feared an so well known

that just the fact that his commandos

were involved in the attack

created a panic in the headquarters of General Eisenhower in Paris.

Eisenhower is held by his own troops in Paris

to ensure his own safety.

It is at that time that North Americans baptize Skorzeny

as "the most dangerous man in Europe."

It was a good idea, but in reality it didn�t help much.

From Skorzeny�s group around 20 were executed,

they were shot immediately, for wearing American uniforms

the war laws dictated that

it was an offense punishable with death.

December 23rd 1944. Skorzeny�s soldiers execution.

The Battle of the Bulge ends with another German defeat.

The end of the war is near.

Among the senior Nazi officials,

concern begins to spread about their uncertain future.

South America will become the main refuge

for the most high-profile Nazi criminals.

Strangely enough,

it is also one of Skorzeny's favorite travel destinations.

His frequent visits to the region

allow him to reunite with old fugitive comrades.

I think he knew where they all were.

Karl Heinz Mende, is Mengele.

He appears in the file as Karl Heinz Mende.

There is a document that shows that in early 1967

Skorzeny knew Klaus Barbie�s full address.

Klaus Barbie. Head of the Gestapo in France.

Responsible for the murder of thousands of Jews and members of the French Resistance.

Wanted for decades, he was tried in France in 1983

and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Skorzeny and Klaus Barbie�s friendship lasts for many years,

with frequent meetings in South America and in Spain.

There is a photo of them dressed as women,

it is truly amazing!

The photos prove it, that the level of confidence of the two was evident,

because a person does not photograph himself dressed as a woman�

two Nazis with everything that was supposed

to be their institution dressed as a woman,

one a wanted criminal and the other with Franco.

Another of Skorzeny�s sinister friendships in South America

is that with Adolf Eichmann.

Adolf Eichmann. Considered as one of the main architects

of the so-called "Final Solution",

he was one of the most wanted Nazi criminals.

Kidnapped by MOSSAD in Argentina,

he was tried and sentenced to death in Israel in 1961.

Skorzeny always denied any connection to him,

but it was Eichmann himself who confessed that they knew each other,

during his trial in Jerusalem.

I met Sassen without realizing it,

during Skorzeny�s visit to Buenos Aires.

The boom of Skorzeny�s businesses allows him

to acquire numerous real estate properties.

On the island of Mallorca

he proceeds to buy a house in a privileged place:

Es Morer Vermell, in the borough of Alcudia.

After renovations it will become his summer holiday home.

Spain was an exotic paradise for me.

The house in Mallorca was next to the sea

It was a very nice house and more than enough

for our needs but it was not luxurious.

When visiting my father in Mallorca,

we always went to swim in the sea.

Skorzeny's contact with the locals is minimal.

His attempt, together with a neighbor,

to privatize a part of the shore

angers the local population.

The Majorcan painter Jaume Poma,

a teenager at that time,

remembers those troubled moments.

We all came to swim here

and one day found some barriers here and over there.

They wanted to stop our access to the place

where we had learned to swim, and our parents before us,

and of course that threatened our roots and history here.

That evening I came to swim,

and I went around the rocks because we couldn�t get through the barrier.

I left my bicycle here and he suddenly he appeared out of nowhere

grabbed the bike and threw it into the sea, without saying a word.

I retrieved the bicycle and left, terrified,

because I was just a boy and he was a burly man.

Faced with this situation,

the Mallorcan neighbors began a series of protests.

They set the barriers on fire.

One night someone doused them with petrol and set them alight.

We did various things in protest...

Spring 1945.

The final days of the war.

After some defense operations around the Oder River,

Skorzeny decorates his men with medals

and moves to the alpine region of Berchtesgaden.

In this area, very close to Hitler's residence "The Eagle's Nest",

investigations show

that an important part of Nazi treasure was hidden.

Skorzeny doesn�t tell the whole truth in his memoirs,

he writes that he goes to the alpine refuge,

finds no one there and surrenders.

The documents in the collection do not say that,

nor do those of the CIA.

He disappears for 9 days, an important lapse of time,

because what he does is to organize himself,

where to hide the money,

the assets and then prepare the escape.

Did Otto Skorzeny have access to Nazi loot?

Well, the first thing to say

is that there were an awful lot of Nazi loot

which existed in the Alpenfestung at that time

and it was brought there indirectly by Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

And it is Skorzeny

who is responsible for managing those funds when Kaltenbrunner,

let�s say, disappears.

Hidden in the mountains, Skorzeny rethinks his future

and goes over his short-term options.

He is well-known to the Allies,

who make of him one of the most wanted Nazis.

Skorzeny was a very wanted man at the end of the war,

and the Allies were very eager to get their hands on him,

and they put together a number of �wanted� posters

with his picture and information about him,

his height, weight,

all of this and also the descript ion of some of his capabilities,

one even says �assassin�.

Finally Skorzeny decides to hand himself over to the Allied troops

on the same day of the German surrender on the 8th of May 1945.

Interned in different prison camps,

he is interrogated by the US military.

Did you take part in Mussolini�s liberation in 1943?

Yes. Mussolini had been captured

and I freed him.

In September 1943.

This is the beginning of a new chapter in Skorzeny�s life,

as a spy at the service of his former enemies.

The end of World War II and the very beginning of the Cold War

will result in strange alliances

that would have unimaginable a few months earlier.

Officially they were enemies

but they were also valuable pieces in the great silent battle

that was taking shape with the USSR.

And this largely explains what happened next with Skorzeny:

He was persecuted, put on trial, and held in a prisoner-of-war camp

but he never set foot in jail.

The Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA,

had a special interest in recruiting scientists,

military and intelligence personnel from the defeated Nazi ranks.

So general Donovan,

the head of the OSS at the end of the war,

was particularly interested in finding

and talking to Skorzeny,

because of his capabilities.

There are many indications and links

that suggest that Skorzeny

was recruited at some point by the OSS or the CIA itself.

He meets with several very high ranking members of American intelligence

and it is believed that at some point in time

they do approach him about doing work for the American government.

The North American interest in Skorzeny is made clear

in the two trials he faced in Dachau in 1947.

Surprisingly, various Allied officials testify in his defense.

British commander Yeo-Thomas,

a surviving war hero of the Buchenwald concentration camp,

is one of them.

It�s begs a question,

how could this man who was brutally tortured by the Gestapo,

come to the defense of an SS officer?

I believe Yeo Thomas was under orders

to help along several others during the trial of Skorzeny

to make sure he was declared innocent

and began his processing as an intelligence

and operations asset of the West.

Skorzeny is acquitted of all charges

and sent to the Darmstadt prison camp for a "denazification" process,

an order that he will dodge by escaping.

From that moment on

Skorzeny becomes an asset of the US secret services

with whom he will continue working from Spain.

The Western Allies wanted to build up Western Germany

as a bulwark against communism.

The problem was that so many Germans had participated in crimes,

so many people had been in the Nazi party or served the Nazis,

people who had high posts in the government,

in the judiciary, many judges were Nazis�

that�s the reality.

Politics, everything is politics, this is the problem.

Justice can�t exist where politics dominates.

After investigating an untouched part of the Skorzeny Papers,

Ralph Ganis formulates a surprising new hypothesis

on the relationship between Skorzeny and the CIA.

The documents clearly showed that the network Skorzeny is connected to

is the network that carried out the assassination of president Kennedy.

We do know that Skorzeny had connections

who were in the right place at the right time

during the Kennedy assassination

and immediately before hand, and he certainly

would have the capability to have put operatives in place.

The bottom line is the Skorzeny network is connected to the Kennedy assassination,

does this mean Skorzeny carried out the assassination?

No.

I think the answer does lie in the Skorzeny Papers themselves,

there are still so many handwritten notes,

business documents, financial transactions that have not been explored

and I think they are the stepping stone to figuring out

what these connections really were and how deeply involved he was.

The CIA will not be the only secret service for which Skorzeny will work.

In 1958, Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt,

launches a medium-distance rocket development program.

For this, it seeks the cooperation of Nazi scientists.

Skorzeny was the one who helped recruit German scientist and engineers

to come to Egypt and to set up,

established a program to build ballistic missiles

to destroy Israel.

Faced with the obvious threat, the Israeli government orders

its secret services to deactivate Nasser�s missile program.

In 1962, MOSSAD started an operation under the codename "Damocles."

Israel knows

that they can only reach the men at the Egyptian rearmament program,

who are Germans, through someone whom he Germans will absolutely trust.

And who better than Skorzeny, who had recruited them?

Israeli journalist Yossy Melman, expert in security and intelligence,

has investigated the connection between Skorzeny with MOSSAD.

I heard about Otto Skorzeny thirty years ago.

It stroke me that it was very cynical

how the Mossad could work with the Nazis,

so I began a slow research about it

to realize what exactly Skorzeny was doing.

One of the Mossad agents involved in the operation is Rafi Eitan.

Rafi Eitan, former MOSSAD agent and former Israeli government minister.

He took part in Adolf Eichmann�s kidnapping

in Argentina and recruited Otto Skorzeny.

I did interview Rafi Eitan,

he told me that in the early 60�s

he had made contact with Skorzeny in Madrid,

that he went with another officer of the Mossad

and that they poised as NATO officers

and that they went in and had a conversation with Skorzeny.

Mossad offered him,

guaranteed him freedom from persecution or prosecution

and in fact the Israel�s Prime Minister

had signed a document to that effect,

the Prime Minister at the time.

Given the recent arrest and execution of Adolf Eichmann in Israel,

Skorzeny chooses to assure its own personal safety

accepting the MOSSAD offer.

To carry out his research Yossi Melman

had access to a part of the MOSSAD archives in relation to Skorzeny.

They described how Skorzeny was recruited.

How he was brought to Israel for briefing,

training and instructions.

To put an end to the collaboration of the German scientists with the project,

MOSSAD does not hesitate to resort to violence with threats,

bomb letters, and even murder

and the suspicious disappearance of key figures.

Such is the case of scientist Heinz Krug.

Heinz Krug, space engineer.

He worked with Wernher Von Braun during World War II

in the construction of V2 rockets.

In 1962, he is one of the lead scientists

in the Egyptian rocket development program.

Krug was on the list of the Mossad,

as one of most dangerous, threatening,

key figures in the Egyptian armament project,

and the mission of Skorzeny

was to lure him to the meeting place.

Skorzeny was admired by Krug,

he was well known among the German scientists.

He was the most decorated soldier colonel in the SS and so on.

According to Melman�s findings

Skorzeny summons Heinz Krug on September 11th 1962

in a forest on the outskirts of Munich.

Upon arrival Krug is kidnapped by MOSSAD agents.

They interrogated him,

and I don�t know if they wanted to kill him or not.

They killed him and they panic

and they went to their Israeli friends and asked:

please help us to get rid of the body and he disappeared.

And the matter of fact is that his body has never been found.

The disappearance of Krug causes alarm among German scientists.

In early 1965, Egypt is forced to suspend the rocket program

after many of its researchers drop out of the project.

One of the questions that I had ask Rafi Eitan

is how should history remember Otto Skorzeny?

and his direct response to me was:

History should remember Otto Skorzeny as a man

who did a great service to the Israeli defense forces.

Despite his collaboration with Mossad

Skorzeny was always faithful to his National Socialist ideas.

He will never give away his fugitive Nazi comrades

or condemn the Holocaust, defending his actions at all times.

As he stated in this interview

done in front of his Mallorca house in 1973.

I accept the fact that, as is the obligation of every soldier,

I helped to prolong the war by carrying out orders.

It will be history that decides if I was right in doing that�

It may have not passed enough time for it.

But, of course, I do not personally regret it.

Would you do the same today?

I can assure you that today I would make exactly the same choices.

I think there is a kind of smoke screen

on which he created a self-tailored character for himself.

Great special operations, great romantic adventures and so on,

but he was in the midst of it all,

and he cannot say that he didn�t know the Jews were being exterminated,

he can�t say that he was unaware of the essential core

of the Third Reich ideology.

I would be amazed if he didn�t,

if Skorzeny did not know about the death camps.

He was well placed

and the people like him I�m sure knew.

A heavy smoker throughout his life,

Skorzeny falls ill with cancer by the mid-70s

and undergoes an operation in Germany.

I visited him

and smoked a cigarette in front of the open window

and he asked me if he could take a drag, meaning he was still hooked.

and this is the last time I saw him

because when the treatment was unsuccessful.

He insisted on returning to Madrid

and he died there shortly after.

Skorzeny dies at his home in El Viso on July 5, 1975.

Ilse is by his side until the end.

Among the condolences stand out those sent

by many of Franco�s chiefs.

Skorzeny�s cremation in the Almudena Cemetery, Madrid.

His funeral was absolutely extraordinary.

I mean one commentator has said

you�d probably had never seen so many Nazis salutes

since the end of the Second World War as at that funeral.

Of course Skorzeny betrayed the ethos of Nazi Germany

by working with the Mossad.

But Skorzeny was a gun for hire, he was a mercenary.

He was one-of-a-kind,

and it�s difficult to put a label on him but he was certainly a Nazi,

a fervent Nazi,

and was in touch with the worst of the worst, of course he was.

He is the type of person that anyone would have liked to meet.

A formidable and unwavering person. He�s a hero, absolutely.

Otto Skorzeny served a regime

that caused the mass murder of more people that any other regime

in the history of mankind.

So what do I think of him? I think he�s a piece of shit, you�ll excuse me.

We have the presence of mind to recognize that he is a myth,

a German hero,

because if we stick only to the facts, he is already a legendary character.

He was truly a Nazi.

Enlisting in the SS Adolf Hitler Leibstandarte, Hitler's friend,

we can�t have the slightest doubt what character he is,

he is an utter villain.

At his death Skorzeny leaves behind a significant estate.

He leaves a fortune of approximately 3 million dollars

deposited in accounts in different Swiss, German, Spanish,

and American banks. Many properties�

In his will Skorzeny names his wife Ilse as the sole beneficiary.

She was his confidante, his wife, the person he trusted the most.

After Skorzeny�s death, Ilse will keep her husband's important archives.

Shortly before her death, she gives it to the Pardo family.

Can the archives reveal more surprises? Of course.

The current owner may have information that could reveal yet another mystery.

We don't know all the true of the history of Otto Skorzeny.

The documents that I acquired I only exploited a part of that history.

There is more to be learned.

I grew up being Skorzeny's daughter.

It doesn't mean anything special to me.

I suspect that the myth of my father as this great hero

will be forgotten within two generations.

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