Fred Mayer (spy)

Friedrich "Fred" Mayer (born October 28, 1921 in Freiburg im Breisgau ; † April 15, 2016 in Charles Town , Jefferson County , West Virginia ) was a German-American spy and an agent for the US secret service OSS during World War II . As a member of Operation Greenup , he prevented Innsbruck from being destroyed in 1945 .

Life

Youth and Flight

Friedrich Mayer was born in 1921 to a Jewish family in Freiburg and attended the Rotteck-Gymnasium there. His father Heinrich Mayer served in the German army during World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, for bravery in the Battle of Verdun . He hoped his war award would protect the family, but Mayer's mother insisted on leaving Germany. The family fled to the United States in 1938. After graduating from high school, Fred Mayer worked as a diesel mechanic at Ford.

Military training

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mayer volunteered for the military, but he found the service boring and monotonous. Due to his good language skills, his background and his willingness to take on high-risk assignments, he was quickly noticed and offered training at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS had emerged from the OCI shortly before and was an intelligence service that was responsible for espionage and sabotage abroad. The OSS agents were of different origins, but the common will to defeat National Socialist Germany united them and represented a special motivation. The one-year training of an OSS agent consisted mainly of the methods of guerrilla warfare such as knife fighting, hand-to-hand combat, parachuting, Dealing with explosives, Morse code, opening locks and handling small arms. The chances of survival of the OSS agents used were rated as low.

Operation Greenup

At the time of the Allied landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, Mayer was stationed in North Africa. The 'bureaucratic swamp' initially prevented the deployment of the OSS agent, whereupon Mayer applied for a transfer to the military reconnaissance service. So Mayer got to the headquarters of the Military Reconnaissance Service in Bari , Italy, from where secret operations in southern Europe and the Alpine region were planned. Operation Greenup was launched there. According to Pirkner, Dyno Löwenstein , the son of Kurt Löwenstein , was the "idea generator and inventor of the operation".

aims

The objectives of Operation Greenup can be divided into two directions. On the one hand, the railway traffic over the Brenner Pass , which was the main supply artery of the German troops in Italy, was to be observed, as the railway line had previously been bombed repeatedly in vain and the supply did not come to a standstill. On the other hand, information about the actual strength of the " Alpine fortress " should be collected and passed on to the Americans.

Other members

In addition to Mayer, Operation Greenup also included Hans Wijnberg , another OSS agent, and Franz Weber , a deserted Wehrmacht officer with the rank of lieutenant.

Hans Wijnberg

→ Main article : Hans Wijnberg

Hans Wijnberg was born in Amsterdam in 1922. In 1939, his father sent him and his twin brother to America, where they lived with a business partner and continued their education at Brooklyn Technical High School. In 1943 Wijnberg joined the US Army. At the same time, his father, mother and younger brother were captured by the SS and taken to Auschwitz. They did not survive the Holocaust.

Wijnberg was also recruited by the OSS. During their training, Mayer and Wijnberg became close friends. At the time of the American landing in Normandy, they were serving together in North Africa. The transfer of Mayer to the military reconnaissance service also included Wijnberg.

Franz Weber

→ Main article : Franz Weber (politician, 1920)

Franz Weber was born in 1920 in Oberperfuss near Innsbruck. Weber had eight siblings and grew up in a strictly Catholic family. He attended a local elementary school for five years and was then accepted into the Paulinum Episcopal Gymnasium in Schwaz at the age of 12. When German troops marched into Austria in March 1938, Weber linked hopes that the political and economic situation would improve. An initial disappointment was when the Nazi state took over the grammar school. The new director suggested that Weber and a few other students join the SS voluntarily . To escape this, he reported for service in the Wehrmacht and was finally assigned to the 133rd Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht , which was stationed in Poland at the time and was preparing for battles with the Soviet Union. Like many Wehrmacht soldiers, Weber visited the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw that had been established by the Germans. He saw the misery of the Jewish population and the dead lying on the sidewalks. Weber began to have doubts about the Nazi regime. He took part in the attack on the Soviet Union in the 45th Infantry Division. In August he was called to the 8th Infantry Officer Course at the Potsdam Military School. As a result, he was quickly promoted to Sergeant and Lieutenant of the Reserve and received the Iron Cross 2nd class. In the summer of 1942 he was wounded as a company commander in fighting in the Soviet Union. After his recovery Weber came to Croatia with the 187th Reserve Division. The division's task was to secure railway lines and combat partisan resistance. The 187th Reserve Division also took brutal action against villages and civilians who were suspected of supporting the partisan resistance. Weber repelled the radicalism of fighting partisans with the burning of villages and executions of civilians and partisans. At the same time, he was impressed by the relentless resistance of the population. In the early summer of 1944, Weber was transferred to Italy with the 42nd Hunter Division. The final decisive factor in preparing for his desertion was the intensified National Socialist indoctrination of the Wehrmacht after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler. On September 21, 1944, he defected to the Americans near Viareggio near La Spezia. The desertion was a big step for him. Since he recognized his complicity in the serious crimes of the National Socialists, he declared himself ready to allied interrogation officers to make an active contribution to the fight against the Nazi regime.

procedure

Operation Greenup comprised the three men Mayer, Wijnberg and Weber, with Mayer taking on the leadership role and Wijnberg acting as a radio operator. Weber was recruited because he knew the region very well and had many personal connections. Together they decided to parachute near Innsbruck. Since all flat areas were occupied by the military, Mayer proposed jumping off and landing over a small lake between two glaciers that had frozen over in February. The approach was considered extremely difficult, but eventually a pilot named Billings volunteered: "If you are crazy enough to jump off there, I'll be crazy enough to take you there." From there they wanted to go to Oberperfuss, Weber's hometown. punch through. This place should be the base for operations around Innsbruck, the official seat of Gauleiter Franz Hofer .

The operation started on February 26, 1945. The weather conditions at that time were very bad, which made the jump extremely risky. Nevertheless, the three men decided to jump off in the dark. Unfortunately, they landed on the crest of the 3000 meter high glacier and not on the lake. There they found the dropped containers, but the container with the skis could not be found, so they had to tackle the descent in the deep snow on foot. During the descent, the agents discovered a mountain farming settlement, pretended to be lost German mountain hunters and borrowed a sledge with which they continued the descent.

When the three men reached Oberperfuss, Weber contacted his fiancée. Her mother, a strict Nazi opponent, agreed to house and hide Mayer and Weber with her. Hans Wijnberg was hidden in the roof of the house of a farmer friend. From there he set up a radio link to the headquarters in Bari. Weber's three sisters also played an important role in the further course of the operation. Luise Weber, local nurse, provided Mayer with the perfect camouflage: she stole the uniform of a deceased officer from the hospital, which allowed Mayer to slip into the role of an officer on convalescence leave. Luise Weber also forged the necessary papers. Finally Mayer was able to billet in the regional officers' mess and gained access to secret information that he had passed on to Wijnberg via Eva Weber. These contained extensive information on the activities of German troops on the border with Italy, in particular train timetables, news about weapons transports and technical details.

After three months, when he received a special order from Bari, Mayer decided to change his camouflage. He obtained papers that identified him as a French electrician named Frederick Mayer, who was fleeing from the advancing Soviet troops. This gave him access to the jet aircraft factory. His job was to check how many modern jet jets the Germans had, as they were far superior to the American air force. Mayer found out that production had stopped because Allied bombs had interrupted the supply and reported this to Bari. In a conversation with the station master, he also learned when 26 wagons loaded with important war material (tanks, ammunition, etc.) would leave Innsbruck station for Italy. The entire cargo could then be destroyed by an Allied air raid.

Capture and Torture

In mid-March 1945, the Innsbruck Gestapo smuggled an undercover agent into resistance circles in Innsbruck with whom Fred Mayer was cooperating. Based on the information provided by the undercover agent, on April 18 the Gestapo began a wave of arrests of opponents of the regime who were severely ill-treated in the Gestapo office. On April 20, Mayer was also arrested and severely tortured. Mayer only spoke French and tried to convince the Gestapo that he was who he claimed to be. The Gestapo was particularly interested in his radio operator, but Mayer did not reveal him even under torture. A German noticed that Mayer had been circumcised, but the rest of the interrogators refused to believe that a Jew would return to Europe as an Allied agent. After a confrontation, Mayer partially gave up his resistance and admitted to being an American. At the same time, Hermann Matull , another American agent, was interrogated by the Gestapo. This testified that Mayer was a high-ranking US officer. The present NSDAP district leader of Innsbruck, Max Primbs, had the interrogation interrupted and informed Gauleiter Franz Hofer of the presence of Mayer.

Innsbruck surrendered

Gauleiter Franz Hofer (photo: 1939) had Innsbruck capitulate on Mayer's advice in order to save it from destruction.

In view of the negotiations between SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff and the representative of the OSS in Switzerland, Alan Dulles, about the premature surrender of Army Group C in Italy (Operation Sunrise), Hofer also looked for a way to negotiate with the Americans. For this reason he ordered Mayer to be brought to him. There he was introduced to Hofer's wife and the German ambassador to Italy, Rudolf Rahn . Rahn promised to go to Bern to send a message to the OSS officer there. Mayer managed to report his condition to the OSS without revealing Wijnberg. Mayer took the opportunity and offered Hofer to surrender, to declare Innsbruck an open city and in return to be treated as a prisoner of war.

On May 2, the surrender of Army Group C in Italy took effect. On the afternoon of May 3, 1945, as the 103rd US Infantry Division of the US 7th Army was approaching Innsbruck, the soldiers saw a car with a white flag flying on it. A young man jumped out of the car, posing as Lt. Mayer of the OSS and declared that he would take the commander with him so that he could receive Innsbruck's surrender. Innsbruck capitulated, became an open city and thus escaped any destruction. Resistance groups in Innsbruck also made a significant contribution to putting Hofer under pressure and occupied the barracks, the country house and the radio station in Innsbruck on May 3rd. Former director of the CIA William J. Casey described Operation Greenup as "by far the most successful OSS operation conducted from Bari."

Further career

Mayer did not return to Germany after the Second World War, but lived in New York until 1949. That year he took on a position as an engineer at the US broadcaster Voice of America, for which he worked in the Philippines, Morocco, Germany, Liberia and Thailand until his retirement. He was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Purple Heart by the United States government . The state of Tyrol awarded him the Tyrolean Eagle Order.

Operation Greenup served as a template for the Hollywood film Inglourious Basterds . There was also a television movie that aired on History Television. Under the film title The Real Inglorious Bastards , a discussion between Mayer and Wijnberg is shown, in which they describe what they experienced. Wijnberg died one day after the admission. At the Yorkton Film Festival 2013 the film won in the category "Historical Documentation".

On April 25, 2013, Senator Jay Rockefeller (West Virginia) wrote a letter to the President asking Obama to consider further recognitions for Mayer's heroic service to the country. On November 3, 2013, Mayer took part in a Rockefeller-led program. When honoring US veterans at Parkersburg High School, he was presented with a letter from Obama in which he recognized his achievements. Rockefeller later tweeted that he was working to get Mayer to receive the Medal of Honor .

Honor

In January 2020, the mayor of his native Freiburg, Martin Horn, announced the intention to name a street after him.

Publications

• Fred Meyer: Moment of Truth, Guideposts, 2010

literature

• Tom Moon: This Grim and Savage Game: OSS and the Beginning of US Covert Operations. Da Capo Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-306-80956-9 .
• Patrick K. O'Donnell: They Dared Return: The True Story of Jewish Spies Behind the Lines in Nazi Germany. Da Capo Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-306-81800-4 .
• Gerald Schwab: OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck. Praeger Publishers, 1996, ISBN 978-0-275-95470-3 .
• Peter Pirker : code name Brooklyn. Jewish agents in enemy territory. Operation Greenup 1945. Tyrolia, Innsbruck 2019, ISBN 978-3-7022-3756-1 .

Web links

• Fred Mayer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Operation Greenup in Tyrol
• Fred Mayer in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• ZDF-History: Inglourious Basterds - The real story

Individual evidence

1. ^ Daniel Desrochers: WV Veteran known before spying in Germany in WWII dies. (No longer available online.) In: wvgazettemail.com. Gazette-Mail, April 15, 2016, archived from the original on April 16, 2016 ; accessed on April 16, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Gerald Schwaab: OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck. P. 18.
3. ↑ Gerald Schwaab: OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck. P. 29.
4. ↑ Gerald Schwaab: OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck. P. 37.
5. ↑ Peter Pirker: Codename Brooklyn , pp. 12-13
6. ↑ Gerald Schwaab: OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck. P. 23.
7. ↑ Peter Pirker: Code name Brooklyn. Jewish agents in enemy territory. Operation Greenup . Innsbruck 2019, ISBN 978-3-7022-3756-1 , pp. 140-145 .
8. ↑ Peter Pirker: Code name Brooklyn . S. 151 .
9. ↑ Gerald Schwaab: OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck. P. 85.
10. ↑ Gerald Schwaab: OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck. Pp. 88/89.
11. ↑ Gerald Schwaab: OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck. P. 92.
12. ↑ Peter Pirker: Code name Brooklyn . S. 256-257 .
13. ↑ Peter Pirker: Code name Brooklyn . S. 268-270 .
14. ↑ ^{a b} Joachim Röderer: Freiburg names the street after the Jewish resistance fighter Fred Mayer. Badische Zeitung, January 27, 2020, accessed on January 28, 2020 .