Scotsman.com News - International - Revealed: Nazi plot to kidnap Ike
ON THE eve of their mission, the German soldiers were handed cigarette lighters full of potassium cyanide and told to kill themselves rather than be captured.
The squad was about to embark on one of the most audacious missions of the Second World War, remarkable details of which have now been revealed by the only known survivor.
Operation Griffin was nothing less than an attempt to snatch US General Dwight D Eisenhower from under the noses of thousands of Allied troops over whom he was supreme commander.
The members of the 10-strong team were disguised as Americans and given lessons in how to look, talk, eat and generally behave like GIs so they could trick their way into Eisenhower’s presence.
German planners hoped the kidnap would plunge the enemy into disarray and boost their chances of succeeding in the Ardennes offensive, Hitler’s desperate last gamble to repel the Allies in the west.
But the abduction plan proved as ill-conceived as Ardennes itself: the kidnap squad were indeed mistaken for Americans, but they were shot at by the Luftwaffe before they reached their target.
Fritz Christ, now 81, baled out of the captured American lorry in which he and his comrades were travelling seconds before it burst into flames. The retired lawyer from Mannheim, the son of a railway worker, does not believe anyone else got out alive.
Now, almost 60 years, later Christ has told his remarkable story for the first time.
ON THE eve of their mission, the German soldiers were handed cigarette lighters full of potassium cyanide and told to kill themselves rather than be captured.
The squad was about to embark on one of the most audacious missions of the Second World War, remarkable details of which have now been revealed by the only known survivor.
Operation Griffin was nothing less than an attempt to snatch US General Dwight D Eisenhower from under the noses of thousands of Allied troops over whom he was supreme commander.
The members of the 10-strong team were disguised as Americans and given lessons in how to look, talk, eat and generally behave like GIs so they could trick their way into Eisenhower’s presence.
German planners hoped the kidnap would plunge the enemy into disarray and boost their chances of succeeding in the Ardennes offensive, Hitler’s desperate last gamble to repel the Allies in the west.
But the abduction plan proved as ill-conceived as Ardennes itself: the kidnap squad were indeed mistaken for Americans, but they were shot at by the Luftwaffe before they reached their target.
Fritz Christ, now 81, baled out of the captured American lorry in which he and his comrades were travelling seconds before it burst into flames. The retired lawyer from Mannheim, the son of a railway worker, does not believe anyone else got out alive.
Now, almost 60 years, later Christ has told his remarkable story for the first time.
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