Killing Patton The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General by Bill O'Reilly Read Free Book Online Page A

plans.
    General Burgdorf tells the driver to go for a walk. Rommel never even gets out of the car. He is handed the suicide pill.
    Fifteen minutes later, as predicted, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is dead.
    The official cause of death is not the cyanide that he was forced to swallow, turning his mucous a dark brown as his body lost its ability to breathe. Instead, the good people of Nazi Germany will be saddened to read that Rommel endured “death as a result of a heart attack suffered while in service of the Reich in the west.”
    *   *   *
    One week later, on October 21, SS officer Otto Skorzeny snaps to attention in Adolf Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair bunker. At six foot four, the legendary commando stands a half foot taller than the Führer. His enormous hands dwarf Hitler’s as he accepts the jewelry case containing his newest in a long line of decorations, the vaunted German Cross in Gold.

Otto Skorzeny
    British Intelligence considers Skorzeny the most dangerous man in Europe. He is thick across the chest like a heavyweight fighter, and the epaulets on his powerful shoulders display the rank of Sturmbannführer—or, in the American equivalence, major. He sports a stylish mustache that lends him a passing resemblance to the swashbuckling American movie star Errol Flynn. And while Hitler’s face is lined only by weariness, a scar creases Skorzeny’s left cheek from ear to mouth, a memento from a saber duel he fought for the love of a ballerina back in his college days.
    But as esteemed as the Cross in Gold might be—and to be sure, it is one of Germany’s highest honors, awarded only to men exhibiting repeated bravery in battle—Hitler and Skorzeny both know that the strapping warrior is deserving of so much more. If Erwin Rommel was once Hitler’s favorite general, then the “Long Jumper,” as Skorzeny is nicknamed, is Hitler’s favorite commando. Time and again, the gruff Austrian has shown his loyalty to the Führer by accepting missions that other men would have refused on the grounds that they were impossible or suicidal. Most famously, it was Skorzeny and his crack team of SS troopers who discovered where the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was being held prisoner by partisan forces loyal to the Allies in the summer and fall of 1943. After months of deceit and intrigue as Mussolini was ferried from hiding place to hiding place, Skorzeny learned that the Fascist leader was being held at the Campo Imperatore Hotel, high atop the tallest peak in the central Italian Apennine Mountains. Gran Sasso, as the rugged and rocky summit is known, was accessible only by a single cable car.
    Skorzeny was undeterred. He devised an ingenious plan that involved landing his commando team atop the peak in a glider. Not only did Skorzeny and his men rescue Mussolini, but they did so without firing a single shot.
    And just last week, the great Skorzeny trumped even that bold raid.
    Six days ago, anticipating that the Hungarian government would switch its allegiance to Germany’s enemy Russia, Hitler ordered Skorzeny to make sure this betrayal did not occur. In less than twenty-four hours, “Operation Mickey Mouse” 1 netted the son of Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy. The thirty-seven-year-old was lured into a trap, beaten unconscious, rolled up in a carpet, and smuggled through the city streets to the airport, where he was flown to Vienna and placed under Gestapo detention.
    There was no request for monetary ransom. Instead, Skorzeny demanded Hungary’s enduring loyalty. When that pledge didn’t materialize, he sent shock troops into the heart of Budapest to take control of the city. An armistice was soon secured, and Miklós hoped his son would be returned to him unharmed. This was not to be. Even now, as Skorzeny and Hitler exchange pleasantries, Miklós Horthy Jr. is on his way to the Dachau concentration camp, a prison from which few men, women, or children ever come back.
    In the Wolf’s Lair, Skorzeny and