Shortly after the outbreak of World War 2,
Jewish refugees Frederick Mayer and Hans Wijnberg enlisted in the American
Office of Strategic Services to have the chance for some payback against the Nazis.
With the help of Wehrmacht defector Lieutenant Franz Weber, the three-man team parachuted
behind enemy lines into the Austrian province of Tyrol in February of 1945.
The perilous operation was codenamed Greenup, and the objective was to gather intelligence about
the operational state of German railroads and military resistance to get an idea of Germany’s
plans during the last stretch of the war. It was a gruesome and violent story right
out of the movies, and Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino knew that, eventually bringing a version
of their story to the big screen and thus earning the nickname of ‘The Real Inglourious Basterds.”
Escaping from Germany At the end of World War 1, the United Kingdom,
France, Italy, and the United States, ordered Germany to dissolve its Empire, surrender all its
colonies and military equipment, and recognize that it had provoked the onslaught of the war.
Furthermore, with the Treaty of Versailles, the victors imposed severe limitations on
Germany's economic growth after declaring that the nation had to pay exorbitant war reparations
that made sure the country would never become a threat ever again.
This led to tremendous widespread resentment against the victors and the country’s own
army and government for their failure to fight for a more fair resolution.
The discontent then concentrated on the Jewish population, whom many blamed for Germany's defeat.
According to the National Socialists, led by a young and charismatic Adolf Hitler, the Jewish
bankers had failed to support the war effort when the German Empire needed them the most. For the
Motherland to be unified as one, the Jewish, alongside Christianity, had to be eliminated.
By the time the Fuhrer and his party rose to power in 1933,
the Jews were forbidden from occupying public jobs and were later restricted from other activities.
As the limitations tightened, hundreds began to flee Germany to find a better life.
Such was the case of Frederick Mayer, who was born in Freiburg im Breisgau to a Jewish family.
Mayer’s father had served in the Imperial Army during World War 1
and had seen action at the gruesome Battle of Verdun. His personal bravery
on the battlefield even earned him the Iron Cross Second Class. Still,
the honor was of little use in postwar Germany, and especially after Hitler’s rise to power.
Mayer’s mother eventually convinced her husband to emigrate to the United States
before the situation got worse, and the family arrived in New York City in 1938,
one year before the world conflict broke out in September 1939 after the invasion of Poland.
Eager for Payback In New York, young Frederick
worked a dozen different jobs before he punched one of his bosses after he insulted his faith.
Then, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, Mayer attempted to join the US
Army to get some payback against the German regime that had forced him into exile. Unfortunately,
as a Jew of German blood, Mayer was considered an enemy alien by the armed forces.
Before being kicked out from the Army, the Office of Strategic Services or OSS,
the direct precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency,
took Mayer in for other operations where his skills would be of better use.
During interviews later in his life, Mayer often said that he joined the Army because: (QUOTE)
“It felt like I had my chance to do what I set out to do: kill Nazis.”
It is said that during one exercise, when he captured an enemy brigadier who said Mayer
did not play by the book, he replied: (QUOTE) “War is not fair. The rules of war are to win."
Mayer was then incorporated into the Operational Groups of the OSS,
and more specifically, Operational Group Germany,
because of his knowledge of European culture and his fluency in German, French, and Spanish.
That’s where he met his right-hand man, Hans Wijnberg, another Jewish refugee from Amsterdam
that moved to the US before the war erupted. Wijnberg was fluent in German, Dutch, and English,
and they became close friends and quickly learned the basics of guerrilla warfare,
hand-to-hand combat, knife fighting, parachuting, demolition, and other lethal abilities.
With other three Jewish men from their German unit, Mayer and Wijnberg were later
sent to North Africa and Italy, where they quickly became bored and felt the war would
end before they could see some real action. The regional OSS headquarters were located
at Bari in Italy. Eager for combat, Operational Group Germany stole a Jeep and raced for Bari
to have a conversation with the head of Special Intelligence, Lieutenant Alfred Ulmer.
Mayer and Wijnberg then asked for a real mission, no matter where or how difficult it would be.
In response, Ulmer warned them that most OSS missions ended in failure,
and there was a chance of getting shot or tortured by the Gestapo without any rescue attempt.
Mayer simply replied: (QUOTE) “This is more our war than yours. We want in.”
Behind Enemy Lines
The newly assigned mission was called Operation Greenup, and the objectives were simple,
at least on paper. The team would parachute behind enemy lines into the Austrian province of Tyrol
in February of 1945 and compile reports on German traffic over the Brenner pass between
Austria and Italy. The information would help the Allied forces decide which other
bridges or depots had to be destroyed. The Allied air forces had extensively
bombed most of the German towns, villages, and cities in the country during February 22 and 23
as part of Operation Clarion. And although they destroyed thousands of bridges, highways,
railyards, and railroads, the Wehrmacht still managed to continue transporting heavy equipment.
Mayer and Wijnberg would help solve the problem once and for all and also monitor
Heer movement in the region, writing reports of the enemy combat capacity.
The team would be joined by Franz Weber, an Austrian Catholic Wehrmacht lieutenant
that had defected from the Army and was willing to help end the war at all costs.
Few top officers had faith in the operation, but they still gave it the green light.
The problem now was finding a pilot who was crazy enough to drive his aircraft into a region
infested with anti-air defenses and Luftwaffe aircraft. It all looked like a one-way journey,
at least for the pilot who had to drop the operators and turn
back as fast as possible to reach friendly lines. The Royal Air Force rejected the dangerous Greenup
mission, but brave Lieutenant John Billings from the US Army Air Forces was in for the ride.
The pilot was part of the 885th Bombardment Squadron, which was tasked with hazardous
and almost suicidal low-altitude operations to support spies and other operators across Europe.
An Eventful Operation On February 26, 1945, Lieutenant
Billings led his all-black B24 Liberator through the Alpine peaks into a frozen lake perched at
about 10,000 feet in a valley that emptied on the Brenner Pass, near Austria and Italy.
Besides the high wind conditions and troublesome landing zone, the region was extremely hot,
surrounded by a ring of German anti-aircraft guns. Billings had to fly as low as he could, almost at
canopy level, to avoid radar detection. The B24 then dropped 6,000 feet in less than 20 seconds,
and Billings radioed the OSS operators to parachute at 300 feet above the frozen lake.
The three men then headed into Innsbruck to begin their operation,
and Mayer and Wijnberg stayed at Weber’s home. Afterward, Mayer infiltrated the officer’s
barracks as an officer and gathered as much intelligence as he could before
relaying it to Wijnberg, who sent it back to the OSS headquarters.
Weber also befriended a Heer engineer who worked on the Fuhrer's bunker in Berlin and managed to
obtain additional intelligence. This included details such as when trains carrying troops
and ammunition would head for the Brenner Pass so that the Allies could bomb them from above.
But Mayer’s luck eventually ran out, and he was captured by the GESTAPO and labeled a spy.
He was then beaten and tortured to speak the truth, but he did not falter.
However, the tables turned when the Germans captured another American. When this soldier
was asked if he knew Mayer, he said that Mayer was a top Army officer and could only be
interrogated by an officer of his same rank. Knowing that the war was coming to an end,
the Germans agreed and took Mayer to Franz Hofer, the Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg.
Hofer negotiated with Mayer. He wanted to surrender to the Americans, not the Soviets.
If Mayer agreed, the German Ambassador to Italy, Rudolph Rahn, would send a message
to the OSS headquarters telling them that their agent was OK. In exchange, Mayer would work with
him to arrange a formal surrender. Mayer agreed without hesitation.
When on May 3, 1945, an American column from the 103rd Division approached Innsbruck,
a car with a white sheet attached to a pole approached them at tremendous speeds.
A badly beaten fellow then stepped out and told Major Bland West
that he was going to take him to Hofer to accept the formal surrender of Innsbruck.
The event was carried out peacefully, and thanks to one German Jewish OSS, thousands of German and
American lives were saved by surrendering the city without a single bullet shot.
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