Otto Sko­rzeny

Part 1a 42:37 | Part 1b 43:31 | Part 1c 43:33 | Part 1d 43:33
Part 1e 42:20 | Part 1f 32:20 | Part 1g 36:04 | Part 1h 14:36
(Recorded July 8, 1986)

Although much has been writ­ten and said about “inter­na­tional ter­ror­ism” dur­ing the past sev­eral decades, rel­a­tively lit­tle has been said about one of the most promi­nent fig­ures in the devel­op­ment of the method­ol­ogy and orga­ni­za­tional onto­ge­n­e­sis of ter­ror­ism. For­mer SS offi­cer Otto Sko­rzeny had much to do with orig­i­nat­ing the key strate­gic fea­tures of ter­ror­ism, as prac­ticed by many post-war ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions, and also had oper­a­tional con­nec­tions to many of them.

In charge of com­mando oper­a­tions for the Third Reich and one of Hitler’s per­sonal favorites, Sko­rzeny under­stood that highly vis­i­ble and psy­cho­log­i­cally sig­nif­i­cant oper­a­tions by rel­a­tively small units could (under cer­tain cir­cum­stances) achieve the same strate­gic goals as large-scale mil­i­tary under­tak­ings. AFA-22 dis­cusses Skorzeny’s World War II oper­a­tions and his post-war career. As one of the lead­ers of ODESSA (the post-war SS orga­ni­za­tion), Sko­rzeny not only worked for the Rein­hard Gehlen spy out­fit, but the CIA as well.

His work for intel­li­gence ser­vices placed him in a posi­tion to work with, and spon­sor, some of the sem­i­nal ter­ror­ist ele­ments of the cen­tury. A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the pro­gram deals with the Olympics mas­sacre of 1972 and the involve­ment of ele­ments of West­ern intel­li­gence ser­vices with the per­pe­tra­tors of that crime.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Skorzeny’s kid­nap­ping of the son of Hun­gar­ian dic­ta­tor Hor­thy dur­ing World War II; the role of the Hor­thy kid­nap­ping in main­tain­ing Hun­gar­ian alle­giance to Nazi Ger­many; the oper­a­tions of Haj Amin Al-Husseini on behalf of the Third Reich (Hus­seini was a major in the SS and the first leader of the Pales­tin­ian National Move­ment); Husseini’s rela­tion­ship to Has­san Salameh (the father of Olympics mas­sacre mas­ter­mind Ali Has­san Salameh); Has­san Salameh’s oper­a­tions on behalf of Nazi Ger­many; Ali Has­sam Salameh’s con­nec­tions to the CIA; the con­nec­tions of Salameh and Car­los the Jackal to the post-war Skorzeny/ODESSA milieu; the BND/Gehlen affil­i­a­tion of Olympics Secu­rity Chief Hans Lange­mann; Langemann’s work spon­sor­ing “left­ist” ter­ror­ist groups in the Fed­eral Repub­lic of Ger­many (under­taken in com­bi­na­tion with Hans Koll­mar, the head of the BKA, Germany’s equiv­a­lent of the FBI); Skorzeny’s train­ing of the first Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ist cadre while work­ing in Egypt for the CIA and Gehlen orga­ni­za­tion; Skorzeny’s con­nec­tions to PLO leader Yasser Arafat; Skorzeny’s involve­ment with the Borgh­ese coup attempt of 1970 in Italy (see RFA-19); Skorzeny’s con­nec­tions to the P-2 milieu and its involve­ment with the “Rose of the Winds” coup plot of 1973 (see RFA-19); Skorzeny’s World War II work with Prince Borgh­ese in the devel­op­ment of sui­cide com­man­dos; Khadafy’s appar­ent spon­sor­ship of sui­cide ter­ror­ist units; Skorzeny’s role in help­ing to develop the Libyan secret ser­vice uti­lized by Khadafy.