Otto Skorzeny

"My knowledge of pain, learned with the sabre, taught me not to be afraid. And just as in dueling when you must concentrate on your enemy's cheek, so, too, in war. You cannot waste time on feinting and sidestepping. You must decide on your target and go in."

- Otto Skorzeny

Otto Skorzeny was a commando and military instructor for the German armed forces during World War II.

Early on in the war, he fought on the Eastern front and was wounded; while recovering, he was assigned a staff role and set about developing commando tactics. His first mission was in Iran, but Skorzeny gained notoriety for Operation Oak, where he rescued Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from imprisonment in a ski resort in the mountains.

He also successfully kidnapped the son of Hungarian leader Miklós Horthy in an effort to coerce Horthy to capitulate. Perhaps most famously, Skorzeny masterminded Operation Greif, during the Battle of the Bulge, where he led English-speaking German soldiers, dressed in Allied uniforms and armed with Allied weaponry, behind American lines in an attempt to incite disorder and confusion.

After the war, Skorzeny was acquitted at his trial for war crimes and went on to serve in various advisory, intelligence, and special forces roles for the Egyptian and Argentinian governments, as well as for Israel's Mossad. On July 5, 1975, Skorzeny died due to multiple tumors in his spine.

Battle vs. Aldo Raine (by El Alamein)
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