Osprey Elite 11 : Ardennes 1944 Peiper & Skorzeny

From the time of the initial planning for 'Wacht am Rhein', the German counter-offensive in the Ardennes, Hitler had turned again and again to the importance of taking bridges across the Meuse before they could be demolished. He came up with the idea of assembling a special unit to try to capture them. His idea was that this special unit, wearing American uniforms and using American weapons and vehicles, would exploit the surprise and shock, created by the breakthrough, to move forward to the Meuse bridges as if they were retreating Americans. The leader of this force was to be Otto Skorzeny, famous for snatching Mussolini from the Gran Sasso d'Abruzzo a year earlier. This group, together with Kampfgruppe Peiper's 1 SS-Panzer Regiment, were to be the prime movers in the attack in the Ardennes. As the offensive was due to start at the beginning of December, this left Skorzeny barely five weeks in which to gather together and train a brand new formation for this special mission. Jean-Paul Pallud details their organisation and the fateful sequence of events in a text backed by a wealth of contemporary photographs and 12 full page colour plates by David Parker and Ron Volstad.

Contents

• Operation 'Greif'
• Panzerbrigade 150
• Kampfgruppe Peiper
• The Plates