Operation Greif
Skorzeny's post-war trial set a precedent clarifying article 4 of the Geneva Convention: as the German soldiers removed the Allied uniforms before engaging in combat, they were not to be considered francs-tireurs.
[2]Skorzeny was well aware that under the Hague Convention of 1907, any of his men captured while wearing U.S. uniforms could be executed as spies and this possibility caused much discussion with Generaloberst Jodl and Field Marshal von Rundstedt.
[3] The timing of the Ardennes Offensive meant that Skorzeny had only five or six weeks to recruit and train a brand new unit for what Hitler named Operation Greif.
[4] The new brigade needed U.S. Army vehicles, weapons and uniforms; OB West was asked to find 15 tanks, 20 armored cars, 20 self-propelled guns, 100 jeeps, 40 motorcycles, 120 trucks, and British and U.S. Army uniforms all to be delivered to the brigade's training camp which had been set up at Grafenwöhr in eastern Bavaria.
Faced with these setbacks, Skorzeny scaled down Panzer Brigade 150 from three battalions to two and assembled the 150 best English speakers into a commando unit named Einheit Stielau.
Panzerbrigade 150 was to attempt to capture at least two of the bridges over the Meuse river at Amay, Huy, and Andenne before they could be destroyed, the troops to begin their operation when the Panzer advance reached the High Fens, between the Ardennes and the Eifel highlands.
However, when the 1st SS Panzer Division failed to reach the start point within two days, Skorzeny realized that Operation Greif's initial aims were now doomed.
This practice resulted in U.S. brigadier general Bruce Clarke being held at gunpoint for some time after he incorrectly said the Chicago Cubs were in the American League[7][8][9][10] and a captain spending a week in detention after he was caught wearing German boots.
Fussell suggests that a German preparing the disguises of the commandos could not resist correcting the spelling on their false cards to read "identification".
It was not an uncommon practice at the time to send camouflaged reconnaissance units behind enemy lines, but because of the impact of Operation Greif, every occurrence of this was attributed to Skorzeny's men.
Comprising Unteroffizier Manfred Pernass, Oberfähnrich Günther Billing, and Gefreiter Wilhelm Schmidt, they were captured when they failed to give the correct password.
The team's leader of Operation Greif, Günther Schulz, was tried by a military commission sometime in May 1945 and executed near the German city of Braunschweig on 14 June.
He and nine officers of the Panzerbrigade 150 were charged with improperly using U.S. uniforms "by entering into combat disguised therewith and treacherously firing upon and killing members of the armed forces of the United States".
They were also charged with participation in wrongfully obtaining U.S. uniforms and Red Cross parcels consigned to U.S. prisoners of war from a prisoner-of-war camp.
Acquitting all defendants, the military tribunal drew a distinction between using enemy uniforms during combat and for other purposes including deception; it could not be shown that Skorzeny had actually given any orders to fight in U.S.
[18] Skorzeny said that he was told by German legal experts that as long as he did not order his men to fight in combat while wearing U.S. uniforms, such a tactic was a legitimate ruse of war.
[19] A surprise defense witness was F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas, a former Allied SOE agent, who testified that he and his operatives wore German uniforms behind enemy lines.
