Stuart Smith

Otto Skorzeny (eBook, PDF)

The Devil's Disciple

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

This first book to reassess the myth and the realities of Otto Skorzeny, Hitler's favourite commando.

SS-Obersturmbannführer 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.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK
• Seitenzahl: 336
• Erscheinungstermin: 20. September 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781472829474
• Artikelnr.: 54256665

Autorenporträt

Stuart Smith is a business journalist. He was a Major Open Scholar in Modern History at Wadham College, Oxford, 1973-76 and completed an MA in International Relations at Sussex University, 1978-9. For 20 years, until 2008, Stuart was editor of Marketing Week, a high-circulation business magazine. He lives in the UK.

Inhaltsangabe

AcknowledgmentsPrologueMaps1. The Knowledge of Pain2. Accidental Soldier3. Thugs in Field Grey4. The Liberator of Mussolini5. Special Ops and High-Value Targets6. Miracle Weapons7. The Stauffenberg Plot - July 19448. The Scherhorn Affair9. The SS Changes Tack10. Operation Panzerfaust: Budapest, October 194411. Everything on One Card: Operation Greif12. Operation Greif: Mission and Aftermath13. Implosion: The Schwedt Bridgehead14. Skorzeny's Last Stand15. Trial and Errors16. Escape from Darmstadt17. Apocalypse Soon: Preparing for World War III18. Neo-Nazis and Colonel Nasser: Skorzeny's Wilderness Years19. The Years of Plenty20. Ghosts of the Past: Skorzeny's Last YearsEpilogue: Man and MythGlossary Note on the Waffen-SSBibliographyNotesIndex