Otto Skorzeny | |
|---|---|
 Skorzeny in 1943 | |
| Birth name | Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny |
| Born | (1908-06-12)12 June 1908 |
| Died | 5 July 1975(1975-07-05) (aged 67) |
| Allegiance |  Germany (1932–1945) Spain (1950–1975) Argentina[Note 1] Egypt[Note 2] Israel[Note 3] |
| Branch |  Schutzstaffel Mossad[Note 3] |
| Rank | SS-Standartenführer of the Reserves |
| Commands | |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves |
| Other work | Civil engineer[1] |
Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German SS-Standartenführer in theWaffen-SS duringWorld War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including theremoval from power ofHungarian RegentMiklós Horthy and theGran Sasso raid that rescuedBenito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny ledOperation Greif in which German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines wearing their enemies' uniforms. As a result, he was charged in 1947 at theDachau Military Tribunal with breaching the1907 Hague Convention, but was acquitted.
Skorzeny escaped from an internment camp in 1948, hiding out on a Bavarian farm as well as inSalzburg andParis before eventually settling inSpain. In 1953, he served as a military advisor to the Egyptian presidentGamal Abdel Nasser. He was allegedly an advisor to Argentinian presidentJuan Perón.[2][3] . He died oflung cancer on 5 July 1975 inMadrid at the age of 67.
Otto Skorzeny was born inVienna into a middle-classAustrian family which had a long history of military service. His surname is ofPolish origin, and Skorzeny's distant ancestors came fromSkorzęcin in theGreater Poland region, eventually immigrating toEast Prussia.[4]
In addition to his native German, he spoke excellent French and was proficient in English. In his teens, Skorzeny once complained to his father about the austere lifestyle the family was enduring; his father replied, "There is no harm in doing without things. It might even be good for you not to get used to a soft life."[5]
He was a notedfencer as a member of a German-nationalBurschenschaft while studying at theTechnical University of Vienna. He engaged in fifteen personal combats. The tenth resulted in a wound that left a dramaticduelling scar—known inacademic fencing as aSchmiss (German for "smite" or "hit")—on his cheek.[6]
In May 1932, Skorzeny joined theAustrian Nazi organization and soon became a member of the Austrian branch of the NaziSturmabteilung (SA) in February 1934. Acharismatic figure, Skorzeny played a minor role in theAnschluss on 12 March 1938 when, according to his own account, he saved the Austrian PresidentWilhelm Miklas from being shot by Austrian Nazis.[7]
After the 1939Invasion of Poland, Skorzeny, then working as acivil engineer, volunteered for service in the German Air Force (theLuftwaffe), but was turned down because he was considered too tall at 1.94 metres (6 ft 4 in) and too old (31 years in 1939) for aircrew training.[8] He then joined the Waffen-SS, training with Hitler's bodyguard regiment, theLeibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH).[9]
Skorzeny took part in the invasion of theSoviet Union with theSS Division Das Reich and subsequently fought in several battles on theEastern Front. In October 1941, he was in charge of a "technical section" of German forces during theBattle of Moscow. His mission was to seize important buildings of theCommunist Party, including theNKVD headquarters atLubyanka, and the central telegraph office and other high priority facilities, before they could be destroyed. He was also ordered to capture the sluices of theMoscow-Volga Canal because Hitler wanted to turn Moscow into a hugeartificial lake by opening them.[10] The missions were cancelled since German forces had failed to capture the Soviet capital.[11]
In January 1942, Skorzeny was hit in the back of the head by shrapnel; he was evacuated to the rear for treatment. He had previously been awarded theIron Cross, Second Class while fighting in the Yelnya bridgehead. Recuperating from his injuries he was given a staff role inBerlin, where he developed his ideas on unconventional commando warfare.[8]
Strategically and tactically, Skorzeny's proposals were to develop units specialized in such warfare[how?], including partisan-like fighting deep behind enemy lines, fighting in enemy uniform, sabotage attacks, etc.[clarification needed][citation needed] In April 1943 Skorzeny's name was put forward byErnst Kaltenbrunner, the new head of theReich Security Main Office (RSHA), and Skorzeny met withWalter Schellenberg, head of Amt VI, Ausland-SD (the SS foreign intelligence service department of the RSHA); Schellenberg charged Skorzeny with command of the schools organized to train operatives in sabotage, espionage, and paramilitary techniques.[citation needed] Skorzeny was appointed commander of the recently createdWaffen SSSonderverband z.b.V. Friedenthal stationed near Berlin (the unit was later renamedSS Jagdverband 502, and in November 1944 again to SS Combat Unit "Centre", expanding ultimately to five battalions).[12][additional citation(s) needed]
The unit's first mission wasOperation François in mid-1943. Skorzeny sent a group by parachute into Iran to make contact with the dissident mountain tribes to encourage them to sabotage Allied shipments to the Soviet Union via theTrans-Iranian Railway. However, commitment among the rebel tribes was suspect, and Operation François was deemed a failure.[13]
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On thenight between 24 and 25 July 1943, a few weeks after theAllied invasion of Sicily andbombing of Rome, the ItalianGrand Council of Fascism voted amotion of no confidence (Ordine del GiornoGrandi) againstBenito Mussolini. On the same day,the king replaced him with MarshalPietro Badoglio[14] and had him arrested.[15]
Hitler ordered military operations to liberate Mussolini, and, as was his common procedure, he issued similar orders to competing organisations within the German military. So he ordered Skorzeny to track Mussolini, and simultaneously ordered the paratroop GeneralKurt Student to execute the liberation.[citation needed]
Mussolini was being transported around Italy by his captors (first toPonza, then toLa Maddalena, both small islands in theTyrrhenian Sea).[citation needed] Intercepting a coded Italian radio message, Skorzeny used the reconnaissance provided by SS-ObersturmbannführerHerbert Kappler's network of agents and informants (helped with counterfeit Britishbank notes with a face value of £100,000, forged underOperation Bernhard). It was determined that Mussolini was being imprisoned at Campo Imperatore Hotel, a ski resort atCampo Imperatore in Italy's Gran Sasso massif, high in the Apennine Mountains.[citation needed]
On 12 September 1943, Skorzeny and 16 SS troopers joined theFallschirmjäger to rescue Mussolini in a high-risk glider mission. TenDFS 230 gliders, each carrying nine soldiers and a pilot, towed byHenschel Hs 126 planes started between 13:05 and 13:10 from thePratica di Mare Air Base near Rome. The leader of the airborne operation, paratrooper-Oberleutnant Georg Freiherr von Berlepsch, entered the first glider, Skorzeny and his SS troopers sat in the fourth and fifth glider. To gain height before crossing the close byAlban Hills the leading three glider-towing plane units flew an additional loop. All following units considered this manoeuvre unnecessary and preferred not to endanger the given time of arrival at the target. This led to the situation that Skorzeny's two units arrived first over the target.[16][additional citation(s) needed] Meanwhile, the valley station of the funicular railway leading to the Campo Imperatore was captured at 14:00 in a ground attack by two paratrooper companies led by MajorOtto-Harald Mors, who was commander-in-chief of the whole raid. They also cut all telephone lines. At 14:05 the airborne commandos landed their ten DFS 230 gliders on the mountain near the hotel; only one crashed, causing injuries.[citation needed] TheFallschirmjäger and Skorzeny's special troopers overwhelmed Mussolini's captors (200 well-equippedCarabinieri guards) without a single shot being fired; this was also due to the fact that GeneralFernando Soleti of thePolizia dell' Africa Italiana, who flew in with Skorzeny, told them to stand down.[citation needed] Skorzeny attacked the radio operator and his equipment and stormed into the hotel, being followed by his SS troopers and the paratroopers. Ten minutes after the beginning of the raid, Mussolini left the hotel, accompanied by the German soldiers. At 14:45, Major Mors accessed the Hotel via the funicular railway and introduced himself to Mussolini.[citation needed]
Subsequently, Mussolini was to be flown out by aFieseler Fi 156STOL plane. Although under the given circumstances the small plane was overloaded, Skorzeny insisted on accompanying Mussolini, thus endangering the success of the mission. After an extremely dangerous but successful lift-off, they flew to Pratica di Mare. There they continued immediately, flying in aHeinkel He 111 to Vienna, where Mussolini stayed overnight at theHotel Imperial. The next day he was flown toMunich and on 14 September he met Hitler at theWolf's LairFührer Headquarters near Rastenburg.[17][additional citation(s) needed]
The landing at Campo Imperatore was in fact led by First Lieutenant Georg Freiherr von Berlepsch, commanded by Major Otto-Harald Mors and under orders from General Kurt Student, allFallschirmjäger (German air force paratroop) officers; but Skorzeny stewarded the Italian leader right in front of the cameras.[citation needed] After a pro-SS propaganda coup at the behest ofReichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler and propaganda ministerJoseph Goebbels, Skorzeny and his special forces (SS-Sonderverband z. b. V. "Friedenthal") of theWaffen-SS were granted the majority of the credit for the operation.[citation needed]
"Operation Long Jump" was the allegedcode name given to a plot to assassinate the "Big Three" (Joseph Stalin,Winston Churchill, andFranklin Roosevelt) at the 1943Tehran Conference.[18] Hitler supposedly gave the command of the operation to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of theRSHA, who, in turn, ceded the mission to Skorzeny. Knowledge of the whole scheme was presented to the Western Allies by Stalin's NKVD at the Tehran Conference. The Soviets said they had learned about its existence from counter-espionage activities againstGerman intelligence. Their agents had found out the Nazis knew the time and place of this meeting because they had cracked a US naval code. According to the NKVD, the assassination plot was foiled after they identified the German spies in Iran forcing Skorzeny to call off the mission due to inadequate intelligence.[19]
Following Tehran, the story was treated with incredulity by the British and Americans who dismissed it as Soviet propaganda.[19] Skorzeny supported this view by stating in his post-war memoirs that no such operation ever existed.[20] He said the story about the plans being leaked to Soviet spyNikolai Kuznetsov by an SS-Sturmbannführer named Hans Ulrich von Ortel was a Soviet invention; Hans Ulrich von Ortel never existed.[21][22] Skorzeny claimed his name was used only to add credibility to the story because the NKVD knew his record as an SS commando would make the existence of such an operation more plausible.[23]
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In early 1944,Sonderverband z.b.V. Friedenthal was re-designated SS-Jäger-Bataillon 502 with Skorzeny staying on as commander. They were assigned toOperation Rösselsprung, known subsequently as theRaid on Drvar.Rösselsprung was a commando operation meant to capture theYugoslav commander-in-chief, MarshalJosip Broz Tito, who had also recently been recognized by the Allies as theYugoslav prime minister. Marshal Tito led theYugoslav Partisan resistance army from his headquarters near theBosnian town ofDrvar, in the centre of a large area held by the Partisans.[24]
Hitler knew Tito was receiving Allied support and was aware that either British or American troops might land inDalmatia along theAdriatic coastline with support from the Partisans. Killing or capturing Tito would not only hinder this, it would give a badly needed boost to the morale of Axis forces engaged inoccupied Yugoslavia. Skorzeny was involved in planningRösselsprung and was intended to command it. However, he argued against implementation after he visitedZagreb and discovered that the operation had been compromised through the carelessness of German agents in the Nazi-affiliatedIndependent State of Croatia in occupied Yugoslav territory.
Rösselsprung was put into action nonetheless, but it was a complete disaster. The first wave of paratroopers, following heavy bombardment by the Luftwaffe, jumped between Tito's hideout in a cave and the town of Drvar; they landed on open ground and many were promptly shot by members of theTito Escort Battalion, a unit numbering fewer than a hundred soldiers. The second wave of paratroopers missed their target and landed several miles out of town. Tito was long gone before paratroopers reached the cave; a trail at the back of the cave led to the railway tracks where Tito boarded a train that took him safely toJajce. In the meantime, the Partisan 1st Brigade, from the 6thLika Partisan Division, arrived after a twelve-mile (nineteen-kilometre) forced march and attacked the Waffen-SS paratroopers, inflicting heavy casualties.
In October 1944, Hitler sent Skorzeny to Hungary after receiving word that theRegent of Hungary, AdmiralMiklós Horthy, was secretly negotiating with theRed Army. The surrender of Hungary would have cut off the million German troops still fighting in theBalkans.
Skorzeny, in a daring "snatch" codenamedOperation Panzerfaust (known asOperation Eisenfaust in Germany), kidnapped Horthy's sonMiklós Horthy Jr. and forced his father to resign ashead of state. A pro-Nazi government under dictatorFerenc Szálasi was then installed in Hungary. In April 1945, after German and Hungarian forces were driven out of Hungary, Szálasi and hisArrow Cross Party-based forces continued the fight inAustria andSlovakia. The success of the operation earned Skorzeny promotion toObersturmbannführer.[25]
As part of the German Ardennes offensive in late 1944 (Battle of the Bulge), Skorzeny's English-speaking troops were charged with infiltrating American lines disguised in American uniforms in order to produce confusion to support the German attack. For the campaign, Skorzeny was the commander of a composite unit, the150th SS Panzer Brigade. As planned by Skorzeny,Operation Greif involved about two dozen German soldiers, most of them in captured American Jeeps and disguised in American uniforms, who would penetrate American lines in the early hours of the Battle of the Bulge to cause disorder and confusion.[26] Skorzeny was well aware that under theHague Convention of 1907, any of his men captured while wearing American uniforms would be executed asspies and this possibility caused much discussion with GeneraloberstAlfred Jodl and Field MarshalGerd von Rundstedt.[27]
A handful of his men were captured and spread a rumour that Skorzeny personally was leading a raid on Paris to kill or capture GeneralEisenhower, who was not amused by having to spend Christmas 1944 isolated for security reasons. Eisenhower retaliated by ordering an all-outmanhunt for Skorzeny, with "Wanted" posters distributed throughout Allied-controlled territories featuring a detailed description and a photograph.[28] In all, twenty-three of Skorzeny's men were captured behind American lines and sixteen were executed as spies for contravening therules of war by wearing enemy uniforms.[29][30]
Skorzeny spent February 1945 as an acting major general commanding about 5,000 troops, only some of which were his SS commandos and paratroopers, during thedefense of the Schwedt Bridgehead on the River Oder.[31] On 17 March, he received orders tosabotagethe last remaining intact bridge across the Rhine at Remagen following itscapture by the Allies, but the bridge collapsed that same day, and the naval demolitions squad that had been preparing its destruction insteadunsuccessfully attacked a nearby Allied pontoon bridge between Kripp and Linz.[32] Hitler awarded him one of Germany's highest military honours, theOak Leaves to the Knight's Cross.[33]
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Skorzeny was interned for two years before being tried as awar criminal at theDachau trials in 1947 for allegedly violating thelaws of war during the Battle of the Bulge. He and nine officers of the Panzerbrigade 150 were tried before an Americanmilitary tribunal in Dachau on 18 August 1947. They faced charges of improper use of American military insignia, theft of American uniforms, and theft ofRed Cross parcels from American POWs.[citation needed] The trial lasted over three weeks. The charge of stealingRed Cross parcels was dropped for lack of evidence. Skorzeny admitted to ordering his men to wear American uniforms, but his defence argued that as long as enemy uniforms were discarded before combat started, such a tactic was a legitimateruse de guerre.[citation needed]
On the final day of the trial, 9 September,F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, a former BritishSOE agent, testified in defence of Skorzeny and his operatives wearing American uniforms behind enemy lines, claiming that the Western Allies had actively contemplated carrying out exactly the same kind of "false flag" operations; the Tribunal subsequently acquitted the ten defendants. The Tribunal drew a distinction between using enemy uniforms during combat and for other purposes including deception and were unable to prove that Skorzeny had given any orders to actually fight in American uniforms.[30][34]
Skorzeny was detained in an internment camp atDarmstadt awaiting the decision of adenazification court.[35] On 27 July 1948, he escaped from the camp with the help of three former SS officers dressed in American military police uniforms who entered the camp and claimed that they had been ordered to take Skorzeny to Nuremberg for a legal hearing. Skorzeny afterwards maintained that American authorities had aided his escape and had supplied the uniforms.[36]
Skorzeny hid out at a farm in Bavaria which had been rented by Countess Ilse Lüthje, the niece ofHjalmar Schacht (Hitler's former finance minister), for around 18 months, during which time he was in contact withReinhard Gehlen, and together withHartmann Lauterbacher (former deputy head of theHitler Youth) recruited for theGehlen Organization.[37] Skorzeny was photographed at a café on theChamps Elysées in Paris on 13 February 1950. The photo appeared in the French press the next day, causing him to move toSalzburg, where he met up with German veterans and also filed for divorce so that he could marry Lüthje.[38]
Shortly afterwards, with the help of aNansen passport issued by the Spanish government, he moved toMadrid, where he set up a small engineering business.[39] In April 1950, the publication of Skorzeny's memoirs by the French newspaperLe Figaro caused 1,500 communists to riot outside the journal's headquarters.[40]
In 1952, when Egypt was taken over by GeneralMohammed Naguib, Skorzeny was sent toEgypt the following year by former GeneralReinhard Gehlen (who was now working indirectly for theCIA) to act as Naguib's military adviser. Skorzeny recruited a staff made up of former SS and Wehrmacht officers to train the Egyptian army. Among these officers were former Wehrmacht generalsWilhelm Fahrmbacher andOskar Munzel; the head of theGestapo Department for Jewish Affairs in occupied PolandLeopold Gleim; and Joachim Daemling, former chief of the Gestapo in Düsseldorf. In addition to training the army, Skorzeny also trained Arab volunteers in commando tactics for possible use against British troops stationed in the Suez Canal zone. Several Palestinian refugees also received commando training, and Skorzeny planned their raids into Israel via the Gaza Strip in 1953–1954. One of these Palestinians wasYasser Arafat. He stayed on to serve as an adviser to Egyptian PresidentGamal Abdel Nasser.[timeframe?][41][page needed][42][Note 4]
According to some authors, he traveled between Spain and Argentina, where he acted as an advisor to PresidentJuan Perón[2][3] and as a bodyguard forEva Perón,[42][3] while fostering an ambition for the "Fourth Reich" to be centred in Latin America.[44][45][46]
The Israeli security and intelligence magazineMatara published an article in 1989 claiming that Skorzeny had been recruited byMossad in 1963 to obtain information on German scientists who were working on an Egyptian project to develop rockets to be used against Israel. Reporting on theMatara story, the major Israeli daily newspaperYedioth Ahronot said that it had confirmed the story from their own senior Mossad source.[citation needed] Former Mossad headIsser Harel confirmed the story that former Nazis were recruited to provide intelligence on Arab countries.[47]
Ian Black andBenny Morris wrote in 1991 that Skorzeny may not have known for whom he was working,[48] but in 2010,Tom Segev published in his biography ofSimon Wiesenthal that Skorzeny had offered to help only if Wiesenthal removed him from his list of wanted war criminals.[49] Wiesenthal refused, but Skorzeny finally agreed to help anyway.[49] Segev gave as his main source the senior Mossad agent Rafi Meidan to whom Segev attributes the primary role in the recruitment of Skorzeny.[49]
Further details of the story were published byYossi Melman andDan Raviv in 2016.[2] According to their information, a Mossad team had started to develop a plan to kill Skorzeny, but chief Isser Harel decided to attempt to recruit him instead, as a man on the inside would greatly enhance their ability to target Nazis who were providing military assistance to Egypt.[2] He allegedly was recruited and conducted operations for Mossad from 1964, working withAvraham Ahituv andRafi Eitan.[50]
Other unnamed sources[2] asserted that Skorzeny was recruited after Mossad visited his home in Spain, where he expected that he would be assassinated. After undergoing instruction and training in Mossad's facilities in Israel, the rumoured work for Mossad includedassassinating German rocket scientist Heinz Krug who was working for the Egyptian government and posting a letter bomb which killed five Egyptians at the Egyptian military rocket siteFactory 333. He also allegedly supplied the names and addresses of German scientists working for Egypt and the names of European front companies supplying military hardware to Egypt.[2]
No confirmed source can explain Skorzeny's motives for working with Israel, but he may have craved adventure and intrigue and feared assassination by Mossad.[2] An article featured inDer Spiegel on 22 January 2018 raised doubts as to the involvement of Skorzeny in Krug's death, stating that Mossad boss Isser Harel ordered the murder.[51]
Like thousands of other former Nazis, Skorzeny was declaredentnazifiziert (denazified)in absentia in 1952 by aWest German government arbitration board, which meant that he could now travel from Spain into other Western countries, on a special Nansen passport for stateless persons[why?] with which he visitedIreland in 1957 and 1958. In late 1958, he qualified for an Austrian passport and in 1959, he purchased Martinstown House (53°06′27″N6°49′18″W / 53.10743°N 6.8218°W /53.10743; -6.8218 (Martinstown House)), a 165-acre (67 ha) farm nearThe Curragh inCounty Kildare, Ireland. Although Skorzeny could not be refused entry without due cause, he was refused a residency visa by the Irish government and had to limit his stays to six weeks at a time, and he was monitored byG2. He rarely visited after 1963 and sold Martinstown House in 1971. At 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) and weighing 110 kilograms (240 lb), along with his scar, he was easily recognizable and caused speculation among the English and Irish press as to why he was in Ireland. One Kildare resident recalled Skorzeny as someone who "wasn't particularly friendly and [who] didn't really mix with local people".[3][52] Skorzeny also owned property onMajorca.[53]
In the 1960s, Skorzeny set up thePaladin Group, which he envisioned as "an international directorship of strategic assault personnel [that would] straddle the watershed between paramilitary operations carried out by troops in uniform and the political warfare which is conducted by civilian agents". Based nearAlicante, Spain, the Paladin Group specialized in arming and training guerrillas. Some of its operatives were recruited by the Spanish Interior Ministry to wage a clandestine war against the separatist groupETA.[54] Skorzeny was a founder and an advisor to the leadership of the Spanish neo-Nazi groupCEDADE, established in 1966.[55]
On Feb 24, 1975, as he left the studios of French television in Paris, he was whipped by a former officer of the French Army, who was unarmed but threatened to kill him on the spot. The killing was prevented, however, by French police. The story appeared onLe Monde two days later.[56]
It was rumoured[by whom?] that under the cover names Robert Steinbacher and Otto Steinbauer and supported by either Nazi funds or (according to some sources) by Austrian intelligence, Skorzeny set up a secret organization namedDie Spinne (English: "The Spider"), which helped as many as 600 former SS men escape from Germany to Spain, Argentina, and from there to other countries.[Note 5][58]
In his clandestine post-war life, Skorzeny was known to have used numerous aliases according to foreign intelligence agencies.
As early as 1951, the United States foreign service was briefed of his whereabouts in Spain, under the assumed name of Rolf Steinbauer.[59]
A full decade later, the CIA was aware of other aliases used by Skorzeny during his life as an emigre: Rolf Steiner and Otto Steinbauer.[60]
In 1970, a cancerous tumour was discovered on Skorzeny's spine. Two tumours were later removed while he was staying at a hospital inHamburg, leaving him temporarily paralyzed. Skorzeny died oflung cancer on 5 July 1975 in Madrid. He was 67 years old.[61] Skorzeny never denouncedNazism.[3]
He was given aCatholic funeral in Madrid on 7 August 1975. His body was then cremated and his ashes were later taken to Vienna to be interred in the Skorzeny family plot atDöblinger Friedhof.[62] His funerals in Madrid and Vienna were attended by former SS colleagues who gave theNazi salute,[2][63] and also sang some of Hitler's favourite songs.[2][64]
Like many other prominent World War II figures, Skorzeny has been portrayed in several works of fiction, such as theWorldwar tetralogy byHarry Turtledove[65][66] and1945 byNewt Gingrich andWilliam R. Forstchen.[67][68] InThe Eagle has Landed byJack Higgins, Skorzeny's rescue of Mussolini inspires a plan to kidnapWinston Churchill.[69]
Skorzeny was portrayed in the television drama seriesMussolini: The Untold Story andMussolini and I,[70] and the drama filmWalking with the Enemy (2014).[71] The Spanish drama-seriesJaguar is inspired by Skorzeny.[72][73]
Skorzeny was promoted as follows:[78]
| 1 May 1940: | SS-Unterscharführer |
| 1 September 1940: | SS-Oberscharführer |
| 30 January 1941: | SS-Untersturmführer of theReserves[79][80] |
| 20 April 1941: | SS-Obersturmführer of the Reserves[79][80] |
| 20 April 1943: | SS-Hauptsturmführer of the Reserves[81] |
| 12 September 1943: | SS-Sturmbannführer of the Reserves[82] |
| 16 October 1944: | SS-Obersturmbannführer of the Reserves, effective as of 16 October 1944[75] |
| 20 April 1945: | SS-Standartenführer of the Reserves[83][84] |
Declassified under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.
