They Dared Return: The True Story of Jewish Spies Behind the Lines in Nazi Germany, Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Rangers Who Accomplished D-Days Toughest Mission and Led the Way Across Europe. In an amazing turnabout, Mayer received an opportunity for revenge. The team found a German POW named Franz Weber. After tramping through chest-deep snow, the men literally sledded down the side of the glacier in a Santa Claus-like sleigh. OK However, Tarantino based his film on an actual operation codenamed, Greenup. He was a German Jew whose family emigrated from their home on the Western edge of the Black Forest in 1938 to make a new life in the United States. 1" in 2003, there were seven long years without a single new Quentin Tarantino film. In April, Mayers superiors needed info on an underground factory that made jet engines. Greenup also discovered Hitlers location, as well as that of Mussolini. Join SOFREP for insider access and analysis. Imagine a Jew helpingNazissurrender peacefully to the Allies. Patrick K. ODonnell is a bestselling author and combat historian who has conducted over 5,000 oral history interviews with heroes like Frederick Mayer. Log In. The interrogation was watched by a third man, who eventually took Mayer to the house of Franz Hofer, the local Gauleiter [Nazi Party boss]. Hes already seen the movie. An Olympian, six-time consecutive World Speed Skiing Champion - Franz Weber is also a former world record-holder and still holds the North American record, at 129.303 mph/208.092 kph which he set in 1983 in Silverton, Colorado. Without making specific promises, he offered salvation. Mayers incredible story provided the basis for my book They Dared Return: The True Story of Jewish Spies Behind the Lines in Nazi Germany. He married Anna Maria Kohl in 1525, in Netstal, Glarus, Switzerland. The Allied victory against the Axis was a long journeyone that actually took much longer than the war itself. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 8 daughters. On May 7, an invitation-only screening of the film will open the GI Film Festival with a Congressional Reception at the U.S. Capitol Building to honor the veterans of the mission, including Mayer. But they all wanted some payback for the German government that forced so much suffering on them. Eventually, the man who fingered Mayer was brought in and he knew the ruse was up. Franz Weber. In a scene that could have been ripped from the movie Where Eagles Dare, the team, clad in white ski parkas, parachuted onto the side of a 9,000-foot glacier. There were some contributions from historians, mainly to set things in context, and some re-enactments in the absence of archival footage, but the story was told largely in Mayer and Wijnbergs own words. They jumped in on February 26, 1945. Colombo, V; Correro, M R; Riener, R; Weber, Franz E; Gallo, L M (2011). High winds buffeted the plane making them lose 6000 feet of altitude in just 18 seconds. When Fridolin Weber was born in 1526, in Beglingen, Glarus, Switzerland, his father, Georg Weber, was 20 and his mother, Anna Maria Kohl, was 21. Matull gave fake information on Mayer, claiming he was an important general of the American Army. Do you want to create your own battlefield tour to sights of wars from the past? The top and bottom have been folded over and stitched together. Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945. The wrong tug on their chutes or a miscalculation of the pilot by mere seconds could have sent the men to their deaths. Despite being intensely tortured, Mayer never mentioned this to his partners. ORCID record for Franz Weber. The 'Good War' Myth of World War Two. By now, those of you have seen Tarantinos film should be thinking Inglourious Basterds. Mayer, Wijnberg, and Weber are the real thing, the actual basterds, and indeed, Mayer himself is once supposed to have said that the three of them just wanted to kill Nazis.. Then he posed as a French electrician to infiltrate a Messerschmitt factory. He found and recruited deserter-volunteer, Franz Weber. 84-88 In 1998, he won the National SG Masters Championships, and his Masters record includes winning all but two of the more than Matull immediately went into a story that Mayer was a VIP in the American Army and if he was shot that the Americans would be looking to try whoever ordered that as a war criminal. But he wasnt so honored. Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st Class Infantry Assault Badge Close Combat Clasp Panzer Badge "25" s/d "100" on 20 September 1944 as Obergefreiter in the 4./Panzer Regiment 35 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 28 October 1944 as Obergefreiter in the 8./Jger-Regiment 28 An Olympian, six-time consecutive World Speed Skiing Champion and former world record-holder, Franz Weber still holds the North American record, at 129.303 mph/208.092 kph which he set in 1983 in Silverton, Colorado. Now, though Hofer had the connections and supplies to resist an invasion by the Allies, its known that it was thanks to his conversations with Mayer that he decided to surrender. He has written eight books, including his most recent (insrt embedded link to Amazon) Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Rangers Who Accomplished D-Days Toughest Mission and Led the Way Across Europe. Do you have more information about this person? Or are you interested in war medals . They didn't end up killing Hitler, but they were able to negotiate the surrender of the German Army in Austria. The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. Headquartered in Reno, Nevada, Franz Weber, Inc. is a sports management and consulting company founded in 1984 by Franz Weber and his wife Janett. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade Oak Leaves was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. There was also Franz Weber a Catholic Austrian Wehrmacht officer and POW, who felt loyal to Austria, not to Nazi Germany. Their mission: to compile reports on German rail traffic over the Brenner Pass between Italy and Austria. Matull insisted that only someone as important as Franz Hofer (the local administrator) could get away with interrogating Mayer. : an American History (Eric Foner) Business Law: Text and Cases (Kenneth W. Clarkson; Roger LeRoy Miller; Frank B. A blooper reel included on the "Inglourious Basterds" DVD and Blu-ray releases showcases one of the ways Tarantino and his actors made sure to keep their hard-working editor in high spirits: whenever they knew a shot had to be cut, someone would interrupt it to say "Hello, Sally!" We use our own and third-party cookies to personalize and improve the use and experience of our users on our website. It brought profound and permanent social, governmental and cultural changes in the United States, and has had a great impact on how Americans regard themselves and . Wijnberg died shortly afterwards. Wijnberg was sent by his parents, along with his twin brother, from the Netherlands in 1939to live with his fathers business partner in the USA in 1939. A Nazi SS general responsible for deporting tens of thousands of Jews to death camps worked for West German intelligence after World War . Service on a half-dozen fronts, including the bloody struggle against Marshal Tito's partisans in occupied Yugoslavia, has opened Weber's eyes. A native Austrian, Weber fought on the Eastern Front but was convinced that Austria needed to be free of Hitler and the Nazis. The pilot John Billings volunteered, and it nearly ended in disaster. 3, No. According to The Washington Post, Tarantino thought Christoph Waltz couldn't perform the scene convincingly enough and choked actress Diane Kruger himself. THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING VETERAN JOURNALISM - JOIN SOFREP+ , Last week we posted a story on the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and how after 73 years they were finally recognized as a group and were honored with a Congressional Gold Medal. Top Image:L-R Franz Weber, Hans Wijnberg, and Fred Mayer courtesy of theUS National Archives. As a result, the crew and the three OSS agentsWalter Hass, a refugee from Nazi Germany, Frederick Mayer, a German Jew whose father moved the family to the US before the war, and Franz Weber, who was born and raised in Austria, became a German officer but eventually came to disagree with Hitler's movementworked together closely for five . One of the OSS men chosen for this mission was Frederick Mayer. When he is not skiing, Weber's schedule is filled with promotional and personal appearances for sponsors, celebrity sports events, speaking engagements and charity events. Ittrained them for operations behind enemy lines. ADVERTISING. It was hard to find a pilot to volunteer to fly in the difficult winter conditions over the glacier, but eventually, Billings stepped up, saying,If they are crazy enough to jump there, I will be crazy enough to take them there.. It was a good documentary. Data gleaned from these reports helped US intelligence officers explode the myth that the Germans were concentrating men and weapons in the south for the Alpine redoubt. Despite being captured by the Gestapo and nearly tortured to death, Mayer was able to make contact with a number of local officials, including Franz Hofer, the Nazi Gauleiter(district leader) of Tyrol. Download the TracesOfWar app directly on, Australia (1901-present, Federal Monarchy), Belgium (1830-present, Constitutional Monarchy), Canada (1931-present, Constitutional Monarchy), Soviet Union (1922-1991, People's Republic), FELLGIEBEL, W.P., Elite of theThird Reich, Helion & Company Limited, Solihull, 2003, HU, JRGEN & SONDERMANN, HEINZ-WERNER, Ritterkreuztrger im Mannschaftsstand 1941-1945, VDM Heinz Nickel, Zweibrcken, 2009, Privacy statement, cookies, disclaimer and copyright. For three days and nights, Mayer was savagely beaten, but he kept up his cover speaking only in French. He also determined the times for troop and ammunition trains heading thru the Brenner Pass and called in airstrikes. His mother, however, demanded that the family flee to the U.S. Young Fitz (Mayers nickname) was captivated by cowboy stories of the American West, and so looked forward to the journey. Franz Weber (30 November 1921 - 28 July 2014 in Mnchen) was a German Obergefreiter in the Wehrmacht during World War II. . You think they're gonna be one way and then they're not at all.". Those who survived the initial onslaught and did not manage to flee, had to eke out a living on a battleground ravaged by incessant bombardment and street fighting. Shes Not Madeleine: Scotland Yard Refutes Julias Allegations of Being Madeleine McCann. People named Franz Weber. But Tarantino smartly decided that the multilingual role was best suited for a native German speaker and ultimately cast Christoph Waltz in the part that would eventually win him an Oscar. Read Next: OSS Finally Recognized More Than 70 Years Later By Congress. Posing as a recovering German officer, Mayer befriended an Engineer Officer who worked on the Fuhrer Bunker in Berlin. He dominated the sport of speed skiing from 1980 to 1985, winning over eighty percent of the races he entered. In 1945, after capture and torture by the Gestapo, he was responsible for accepting the surrender of a large German force. I made the argument for the medal in my book They Dared Return, and now Sen. John Rockefeller is championing the cause. Privacy statement, cookies, disclaimer and copyright, On a journey of discovery to historical sites? son. Heinrich Weber (1799-1848) married Susanna Fritz (1807-aft 1861) a. Franz Weber (this Franz Weber) b. Anna Maria Miller c. Elizabeth Herrman Provided by Trecil. Matull then said that a person as high ranking as Mayer should be interrogated by a person of equal importance, namely the Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, Franz Hofer. The documentary ended with Fred Mayer talking to Hans Wijnberg via Skype. Mayer was assigned to the German Operational Group before heading out. His website is http://www.patrickkodonnell.com/. Meyer is on record of saying he just "wanted to kill Nazis," an attitude paralleling that of the Basterds. His work was to get as much information as possible from the Germans, from plans for troop displacement, to attacks, and where they stored supplies, so him and his partners could sabotage them. When US troops approached Innsbruck he met them and informed them that the city was willing to surrender. Sally Menke edited every one of QuentinTarantino's movies from "Reservoir Dogs" in 1992 all the way up until "Inglourious Basterds" in 2009. It featured a few re-enactments, but most of the story was told by the two Jewish refugees, Hans Wijnbergand Fred Mayer, with the widow and son of Franz Weber, the Wehrmacht officer, also contributing. . Tarantino takes all of his characters very seriously, even the most minor ones, and expects the actors he casts to prepare for their roles with similar seriousness. The Real Inglorious Bastards. Operation Greif was a special false flag operation commanded by Waffen SS commando, SS Obersturmbannfhrer, Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge, Skorzeny died age 67, on 05-07-1975, The . The three were to be dropped by parachuted near Innsbruck in February 1945. After unexpectedly arriving at the OSS post, the men sat and languished for months, waiting for a mission. Not wanting to mess with a Wehrmacht officer, the inspector moved on. A pilot called Billings volunteered to drop them on a glacier. They all spoke German, and many were Jewish refugees who wanted vengeance for their families suffering. Hofer got Mayer to help him arrange the surrender. World War II was not only the greatest military conflict in history, it was also America's most important twentieth-century war. Do you want to create your own battlefield tour to sights of wars from the past? The other objective was to identify rail traffic travelling from Innsbruck to Italy through the Brenner Pass. And 15 Other Iconic Lines From Tarantino's Films, The Real-Life Django Who Rebelled Against Slavery And No One Talks About Enough, 10 Lessons We Learned From The Bad-Ass Women In Tarantino's Universe, Olympe de Gouges, the Precursor of Feminism that Was Persecuted During the French Revolution. Later, Mayer changed his disguise and donned the clothing of a French electrician. A native Austrian, Weber fought on the Eastern Front but was convinced that Austria needed to be free of Hitler and the Nazis. Then good fortune stepped in. U.S. Military. They made their way to Webers family and then Mayer actually stayed in the Officers barracks in Innsbruck for several weeks, gleaming as much intelligence as he could and then relaying it to Wynberg (the radio operator) who would then relay it to OSS HQs. We invite you to share some of Franz Webers career. The team needed somebody with local knowledge, and Franz Weber, an anti-Nazi local who had deserted from the German Army to the Allies, volunteered to join it. Starring Brad Pitt, Mlanie Laurent, and Christoph Waltz, in this uchronic story, a group of soldiers manages to kill the most important characters of the Nazi party, including its leader, Adolf Hitler. Operation Greenups purpose was intelligence gathering. That didnt stop the intrepid OGs. Few films could get away with an ending where a character turns to the camera and says, "This might just be my masterpiece," but "Inglourious Basterds" might trulybe QuentinTarantino's masterpiece. 1 was here. They were joined byFranz Weber, an ex-Wehrmacht officer turned freedom fighter comparable to the Basterds' Hugo Stiglitz. So Matull hadnt entirely lied. The Swiss environmentalist Franz Weber has died at the age of 91. Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting. Each of them spoke at least two European languages, with Mayer speaking German, French, and Spanish. He called in air strikes, destroying dozens of them. I was really training for it.". By this time Hofer, like many Nazis, realised that the war was lost and was interested only in surrendering to the Western Allies rather than the Soviets. In 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of the United States Army trained three soldiers: Frederick Mayer, Hans Wynberg, and Franz Webe. TracesOfWar.com tells you more! In March 1945 these three men nearly died being inserting into Nazi controlled Austria as they ended up parachuting onto a . Over 40.000 pages on the officers, the boats, technology and the Allied efforts to counter the U-boat threat. There was only one problemthey got dropped off at the wrong port. And that was after they had tortured him. Their task was to penetrate one of the most secured areas of the Third Reich, an area of Austria near Innsbruck, where Nazis reportedly had been fortifying and massing vast quantities of troops and supplies. Franz Weller (5 December 1901 - 14 August 1994) was a highly decorated Oberst in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Undeterred by the units previous record, Mayer and his friends approached the units commander, Lt. Alfred Ulmer, and begged to sign up. There was also Franz Weber - a Catholic Austrian Wehrmacht officer and POW, who felt loyal to . Just dont hurt my family., Mayer was disgusted, What the hell do you think we are? He died on August 10, 1962 in West Berlin, West Germany. Mayer parachuted onto an Alpine glacier, infiltrated enemy lines, and posed as a German officer to ascertain crucial intelligence. They were joined by Franz Weber, an ex-Wehrmacht officer turned freedom fighter comparable to the Basterds' Hugo Stiglitz. There was also the issue of competition: other great directors were also doing World War II epics in the late '90s, notably Steven Spielberg with "Saving Private Ryan" and Terrence Malick with "The Thin Red Line." Tune in for a conversation about the men of X Troop, who were the realInglorious Basterds: a secret commando unit of young Jewish refugees who were trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat to deliver decisive blows against the Nazis. His undercover work led to valuable intelligence and a network of informants that helped identify the location and dimensions of Hitlers Fhrerbunker in Berlin, the condition of Nazi war plants and movement of enemy freight and troops through the Brenner Pass. All Rights Reserved.



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