Secret "Vulture": an initially failed sabotage operation invented by Hitler
During World War II, Adolf Hitler's crazy imagination gave rise to many frankly strange operations that cost the Wehrmacht serious losses. One of them is a secret operation developed personally by the leader of the Third Reich in December 1944 and called “Grif”.
The essence of the latter was that a huge army of German saboteurs (2700 people), dressed in captured American uniforms and equipped with equipment captured from the Allies, was supposed to quietly join the ranks of the enemy and become the “final chord” of the Ardennes operation, allowing the Germans to defeat the Anglo-American troops in Belgium.
Otto Skorzeny was appointed responsible for organizing and conducting the maneuver, who by that time had already managed to distinguish himself with a number of perfectly executed special operations, including the rescue of the Italian fascist leader Mussolini.
Actually, the fact that Operation Grif would fail could have been understood even at the stage of its preparation. The fact is that in order to introduce German saboteurs into the ranks of American troops, it was necessary for the Nazis to speak excellent English with the appropriate slang and intonation.
So, in the Wehrmacht there were only 10 such “polyglots”. The remaining 2690 people spoke English at school level, not to mention a strong accent and a complete absence of intonation characteristic of the British and Americans.
However, that's not all. The saboteurs also had problems with equipment. Trophy American tanks The Wehrmacht didn't have enough. Therefore, German “Panthers” had to be disguised as them.
Meanwhile, no one dared to contradict Hitler, and the secret operation “Grif” was carried out. Naturally, she failed.
In addition to poor preparation, the Germans were also completely unlucky. One of the officers who spoke perfect English was blown up by a mine on the very first day. Later, another “polyglot” with a detailed plan for Operation Vulture was caught by the American military police.
At the same time, despite the failure, the German saboteurs still managed to mischief the Americans, damaging telephone cables and causing confusion with tasks in individual units.
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