OTTO SKORZENY'S UNIFORM AND OTHER NONSENSE

The well-known New York auctioneers Mohawk Arms recently offered a cap and tunic ensemble that allegedly belonged to the legendary World War Two German special forces commander Otto Skorzeny, with a starting price of $40,000.

The auction catalog stated: “A-19 Rare offering of the uniform of Waffen-SS Oberststurmbannfuhrer [sic] Otto Skorzeny, the "rescuer of Benito Mussolini". . [sic] Included are: (1) Fine green wool, four-pocket, silver wire piped open-collar tunic. Silver bullion "SS" runes and SS-Sturmbannfuhrer rank (four pips) collar tabs. (One "pull" in middle of rank tab, indicating an earlier rank which was upgraded with Skorzeny's promotion.) Twisted silver bullion cord on white/black underlay, slip-on shoulder boards. Thread loops for four badges and a ribbon bar. Quality high relief silver bullion arm eagle. "Slit" under bottom left pocket flap to accommodate a dagger hanger. Green silk lining with striped sleeve linings. "Alexander Sohn - Wien…" tailor's label. Owner's pocket label named to "Stbf. O. Skorzeny, X.43". (Tunic pocket has an unopened box of German wartime "MILDE SORTE" cigarettes). With walking-out dress fine gray wool trousers - piped in white. Both tunic and trousers in excellent condition. For display purposes, a pair of fine black patent leather period dress "saloon boots" have been added. With original soles and heels. (Dress "saloon boots" were a favorite of Austrian officers during the imperial, WWI and Third-Reich Periods.) (2) Waffen-SS officer's black grained leather belt and buckle. Tan leatherette lining. Two matching black leather "slides". Round aluminum buckle bearing a relief down-swept winged eagle/swastika and legend with "Meine Ehre Heisst Treue". Inner belt tongue shows some use, but overall in very good to excellent condition. (3) High peaked quality Waffen-SS officer's cap. Black band with white piping. Silver bullion cap cord and a "polished" black vulcan visor. Tan leather sweatband and gold silk lining show some wear. Eagle logo/"Extra Klasse" marked moisture shield - with owner's label "O. Skorzeny -…1943 - No. 260. II". Close examination shows some minute fine surface matting (hardly noticeable) - would still rate excellent. The above uniform was part of the Otto Skorzeny Collection listed and sold as item A-18 in Mohawk Arms Auction 60 on November 21-22, 2008. Also with a matted and framed postwar 7" x 5" color photo of Skorzeny and "cut" signature. Oak frame measures 15 3/8" x 12 ¼". SS-Hstufhr. Otto Skorzeny earned a place in history for leading a group of SS commandos in a daring glider raid to free Mussolini from captivity on a mountaintop near Rome, Italy. A rare historical uniform.”

Wartime photographs of Skorzeny show in wearing tunics cut in both the high and open collar style. The above portrait, taken at Hitler’s headquarters the day after the Gran Sasso rescue mission on September 12 1943, show SS-Hauptsturmführer Skorzeny in a standard issue high collar officer’s tunic.  

Bob Coleman, a noted collector of Nazi militaria and a moderator on the War Relics internet forum, wrote in November 2008 about the previous sale through Mohawk Arms of this tunic and cap: “A wonderful, original grouping of Otto Skorzeny material was sold today at auction by Mohawk Arms. I first saw this grouping, which was sold by his daughter, in 1970 at a Ohio Valley Military Collectors Society Show.

“The grouping included a gray open collar tunic, an officer's visor cap, an officer's belt and buckle, an engraved German Cross in Gold, his preliminary document for the Ritterkreuz, an officer's cap for the Vienna Studentenbund along with a leatter [sic] to Skorzeny referencing the cap, a presentation bronze eagle on marble pedistal [sic] given to Skorzeny frorn [sic] the Studentenbund for his rescue of Il Duce and numerous other documents.

“What I found amusing was an underground movement of disparity of these items is to be found on other forums. Numerous on line "experts" panned these items although they never examined them. As I mentioned, I had an opportunity to study these items 38 years ago. They were sold directly to a collector by Skorzeny's duaghter. [sic] She sold them only after Skorzeny suffered a stroke. I have since learned that other items exist in Austrian collections with the same provenance from Skorzeny's daughter. Even with the internet chatter on the collection, it sold for $66,000”.

The collector who bought this grouping for $66,000 put the tunic and cap up for sale in Mohawk Arms’ June 2011 sale, together with a pair of white-piped pants that do not appear to have been part of the grouping when it was sold in 1970 and then 2008. The tailor’s label in the tunic gives the date of manufacture as October 1943. Skorzeny was given a home leave after the Gran Sasso operation so perhaps he commissioned the Viennese tailor Alexander Sohn to make him a smart new uniform while he was visiting his family and friends. The reference to the altered rank tab is convincing; Waffen-SS officers often had difficulty sourcing regulation insignia, frequently in short supply, so it is believable that the newly-promoted SS-Sturmbannführer und Ritterkreuztrager might have given Herr Sohn a set of tabs from his time as, for the sake of discussion, an SS-Untersturmführer. The rank tab would have just required an extra pip and a bit of careful repositioning of the existing three pips, with no need to unpick the tresse.

Here is a photograph of SS-Stubaf und RKT Skorzeny at the central railway station in Vienna in October 1943 before returning to duty. He is dressed in what appears to he a brand-new open collar-style tunic with brand-new regulation collar tabs. His visor cap looks new and  the crown appears to be match the shade and color of the tunic. His epaulettes are of the sew-in rather than slip-on type and are clearly Heer pattern as they lack the black underlay of the Waffen-SS regulation epaulettes. However, this tunic and this cap are clearly not the same as the ones sold several times by Mohawk Arms.

In another famous photograph of Otto Skorzeny, taken just after the successful conclusion of Operation Panzerfaust in Budapest in October 1944 as he crossed the palace yard with Walter Girg and Adrian von Folkersam, Skorzeny is wearing an open collar tunic. This is not a high collar field tunic with the collar pressed flat. Nor is the tunic Skorzeny was wearing at the railway station a year before. His SS-Stubaf epaulettes are the slip-on type. Some observers have suggested that this is the tunic said to have been sold by Skorzeny’s daughter in Ohio in 1970 and more recently by Mohawk Arms in 2008 and 2011. However, this tunic has pleated external hip pockets and is noticeably shorter than the tunic offered through Mohawk Arms.

This still from a color newsreel shot at the same time shows Skorzeny emerging from the palace a few moments before the famous photograph taken in the yard. Adrian von Folkersam can be seen just behind Skorzeny. It is quite clear that this tunic is completely different than the one worn in the October 1943 photograph and completely different than the tunic sold by Mohawk Arms. The auction catalog text refers to “fine green wool” whereas the tunic they sold is more of a gray than green hue and more like the tunics worn by Sicherheitsdienst and Polizei officers. Folkersam’s tunic is green, far more so than that of his commanding officer but, even so, Skorzeny’s tunic is not grey or even grey-green. It is green. Apart from the obvious differences in the cut of the lapels, the length and the style of the pockets, this tunic also bears Skorzeny’s Das Reich cuff title whereas the tunic alleged to have belonged to Skorzeny shows no evidence of any cuff title or any means of attachment of a cuff title, even temporary.

When sold in 2008, the alleged Skorzeny grouping included an engraved German Cross in Gold. Of course, it cannot have been the same “engraved” German Cross in Gold involved in a part-exchange deal between Otto Skorzeny and  American collector William McClure as pictured above. The decoration is shown with five letters from Skorzeny to McClure on the former’s Madrid letterhead and dating from January to July 1973, three years after Skorzeny’s daughter is said to have sold the grouping containing the tunic and cap, together with another engraved German Cross in Gold.

On January 25 1973, Skorzeny tells Mr McClure: “...a new original German Cross in Gold is very very rare to find and it costs in Germany between DM 2.800 and DM 3.500...this is really too much money for you...” On February 12 1973, Skorzeny writes: “I received the German cross, exactly the same, in Hitler’s headquarters in double, i.e. two pieces. I kept one, and this is the one which is completely new, and the other one I have been wearing during the war...this German cross in gold was awarded to me for my Budapest action and with the date 16th October 1944. But I certainly will not mention, that I sold it to you...”  Otto certainly earned the German Cross in Gold for Operation Panzerfaust, as this write-up from his personnel file shows.

Otto reassures McClure on April 26 1973: “...this medal is my second authentic exemplar...which I send you in exchange for other war documents I received from you...” McClure questions the date stamped into the reverse of the German Cross and Otto comes back on May 17 1973 with: “I am really astonished to hear from you that the inscription of the year on the medal is wrong. I received this medal with the inscription about two months after having received the first medal, and I put this medal away immediately, and it was kept for me by an old aunt in Austria till I fetched it, about 10 years ago...somebody in the Headquarters made a mistake...”

McClure is wavering so Otto reassures him on July 7 1973: “Concerning the experts for medals there are certainly some who understand a lot and other who understand much less. I am certain the qualities of German medals during World War II have changed. I caught my German Cross in gold only end of October 1944 and the second duplicate perhaps December 1944. I can only assure you that the medal I sent you is an original one...”. But wait a minute! On February 12 1973, Otto told McClure that he got this German Cross at the same time as the one awarded to him by Hitler in October 1944.

  

If there was indeed a mistake in the Führerhauptquartier, it was not that the motor pool mechanic entrusted with stamping the reverse of the German Cross in Gold with Skorzeny’s name and the date of the award got the date wrong. It was that they slipped up in providing evidence that the Nazis were capable of time travel. The Führer managed to give Skorzeny a decoration consisting of a 1957 pattern German Cross in Gold made by Steinhauer & Lück, who were not authorized to produce this award during the Second World War, fitted with a nice-looking swastika.

The Skorzeny family seem to have made an industry of gulling American collectors. How many tunics did Otto have during World War Two, when cloth and materials were tightly rationed? Most Waffen-SS officers were lucky if they had two tunics, one for the field and one for parade or walking-out. Many just had one. Otto was a rich boy and was even richer after the war so maybe he had dozens of tunics. Just as he had dozens of German Crosses. And a time machine. One thing is sure, though: he was one of the most-photographed and filmed of the late war German military celebrities but not a single photograph shows him wearing this tunic or a visor cap with such a low crown.

The collector who paid $66,000 in 2008 for the Skorzeny grouping seems nevertheless to have decided to keep the engraved German Cross in Gold and the preliminary Knight’s Cross document with a very questionable Schmundt signature, as well as some other objects, including the Viennese Studentenbund cap and the Studentenbund’s magnificent gift to their former member marking his rescue of Benito Mussolini. The Schmundt signature? Oh yes, it was upside-down. 

 

This lavish gift consists of a large bronze eagle mounted on a bronze base with a dedication in Fraktur text. Otto Skorzeny was an honorary official of the Vienna HSDStB. But did Skorzeny’s youthful fans at the Vienna branch of the NSDStB knew that bronze was a restricted resource by that stage of the war and that Martin Bormann had issued a decree on January 3 1941 on behalf of the Führer banning the use of Fraktur for the following reasons: “It is false to regard or describe the so-called Gothic typeface as a German typeface. In reality the so-called Gothic typeface consists of Schwabacher-Jewish letters. Just as they later came to own the newspapers, the Jews living in Germany also owned the printing presses when the printing of books was introduced and thus came about the strong influx into Germany of Schwabacher-Jewish letters.” 


The Viennese Studentenbund was a National Socialist Party organization. As such, they should also have picked up on the misspelling of the rank abbreviation: SS-Stuf. The normal abbreviation was SS-Stubaf or SS-Stbf, SS-Stuf being meaningless in terms of SS-Sturmbannführer. Perhaps the dedication was done by the same craftsman who produced the SA-Feldherrnhalle presentation dagger given to Hermann Göring by Viktor Lütze in 1937, or so whoever salted that particular auction would like some fool to believe.

In the above still taken from a newsreel shot on the Oder Front in in the Schwedt Bridgehead February 1945, Skorzeny, promoted SS-Obersturmbannführer in December 1944, is wearing a high collar field tunic. 

This photograph of SS-Obersturmbannführer und Eichenlaubtrager Skorzeny, taken just after his surrender in May 1945 shows that the tunic he wore into captivity was indeed the one he wore in Budapest in October 1945: note the high position of his arm eagle. 

Skorzeny in captivity a few months later. Is that the outline of a packet of Milde Sorte cigarettes in his righthand breast pocket? Perhaps, but this appears to be the same tunic Skorzeny was wearing in Budapest in October 1944. It must be remembered that materials like cloth were strictly rationed in wartime Germany and the Occupied Territories and that Waffen-SS officers, as the dwindling numbers who are still with us, were lucky if they could acquire a spare tunic for walking out purposes. Most of them had to make do with just one tunic. 

According to photographic evidence, Skorzeny certainly had three tunics from late 1943 through the Spring of 1945: the regulation high collar tunic and two low collar designs. He may have had a second high collar tunic. Neither of the low collar tunics shown in the photographs and films of "Scarface" resemble the tunic that has changed hands for tens of thousands of dollars. Nor is there any photograph showing Otto Skorzeny wearing a cap resembling the one sold with the alleged Skorzeny grouping.

How many gullible collectors did Otto turn over after the war? We shall probably never know but the tradition continues, with the German dealer André Huesken offering this ensemble for around $120,000 at the time of the 2008 Mohawk Arms sale of the Skorzeny grouping. However, Skorzeny's Pilot-Observer Badge with Diamonds will be the subject of a future article.

Wilbur C Stump