OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck

by Gerald Schwab

Overview

This book tells the history of one of the most successful OSS operations of World War II. Three OSS agents—two young immigrants, one from Germany, the other from Holland, and a former Austrian Wehrmacht officer—in the midst of winter make a night jump into the Austrian Alps, landing hip-deep in snow at 10,000 feet. William Casey—then an OSS official and later head of the CIA—called it by far the most successful of the operations mounted from the OSS base at Bari. Thanks to this intrepid threesome, rail and road communications between the Italian front and Germany were seriously hampered and the city of Innsbruck in the heart of the Nazi's vaunted stronghold called the National Redoubt, fell to American troops without a shot being fired.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275954703
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/28/1996
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

GERALD SCHWAB was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States with his family in 1940. After military service in Italy with the 10th Mountain Division and in Austria with a military intelligence unit, he served as translator-interpreter with the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, followed by a career in the Department of State and the UN's International Labor Organization until his retirement.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
The Jump
Fred
Hans
Franz
The Making of Secret Agents
The 885th
Getting Started
The Descent
Settling In
Herr Leutnant Mayer
Some Problems
Real Problems
"Max"/Hermann M.
Valhalla Crumbles
Goetterdaemmerung
Epilogue
Appendix A: Operation GREENUP Cables
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

A detailed study of a US intelligence operation behind the lines during World War II, based on in-depth interviews with the three operatives and the plane crew 45 years later, and the once secret OSS files in the National Archives or obtained from the CIA. Includes many of the actual messages sent in and out of Austria. Also discusses the experience of some of their fellow spies. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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