500th SS Parachute Battalion

The raid included a daring military-based assault on the Campo Imperatore Hotel at Gran Sasso and managed to rescue Mussolini, only firing a single shot.

In November 1943, the battalion began its training in the spa Mataruška Banja, close to Kraljevo, Serbia, with the Luftwaffe Fallschirmschule number 3.

[2] The 500th was led by Hauptsturmführer Kurt Rybka during its daring but unsuccessful parachute and glider-borne assault on Tito's headquarters outside Drvar on 25 May 1944.

They were then transferred to Gotenhafen (Gdynia), West Prussia to take part in the planned occupation of the Finnish-controlled Åland Islands in the Baltic Sea, but this was cancelled.

The paras were finally relieved in late October and flown to Deutsch-Wagram, Austria where they were incorporated into/ renumbered the SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 600 after a week's rest.

These para-trained commandos of II./KG 200 remain a little-known arm of Germany's World War II parachute forces and were listed on II./KG 200's ORBAT (Order of Battle) as the 3rd Staffel.

Two companies of the newly forming SS-Fallschirmjäger-Btl 600 were then attached to Otto Skorzeny's Panzerbrigade 150 in December 1944 for the Ardennes offensive.