Churchill's Revenge Squads

[truthteller]

I have read accounts about Winston Churchill's revenge squads after WW II ended. Churchill organized a secret group of commandos to hunt down low ranking Nazi war criminals too petty for the Nuremberg trials. The orders were to find them and summarily execute them after some appropriate torture. Often the bodies of these murderers were hurled onto the front steps of their homes or into the center of town.

Several hundred war criminals were dealt with in this manner. Because of Churchill's backing they were able to go into POW camps and remove their targets for a quick killing. The accounts I read said that the whole thing was done on Churchill's authority. I do not believe that any official records were kept about these "death squads."

I used to be able to find some memoirs about this affair on the Internet, but recent searches do not find the files I saw earlier.

Does anyone know where information about Churchill's secret war can be found?

[Karl]

well, it is a well known fact that they successfully tracked and hunted the entire pack down but the (all desired) successful pre-mature attempts to end all biological life of said group is still a disputed controversy.

[David Thompson]

Let's see some sourced proof before we get into a discussion. The story appears to be another version of the "Jewish Avengers" tale, with a Winston Churchill twist to appeal to gullible readers -- the kind who might be unaware that Churchill held no position in the UK government from Jul 1945 until 1951.

[Marcus]

Here is a previous thread on a similar topic: Holocaust Avengers - http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=1163

/Marcus

[truthteller]

Let's see some sourced proof before we get into a discussion. The story appears to be another version of the "Jewish Avengers" tale, with a Winston Churchill twist to appeal to gullible readers -- the kind who might be unaware that Churchill held no position in the UK government from Jul 1945 until 1951.

Don't know about twisted tales. The account I read was written by one of the participants. Churchill thought that every Nazi should be summarily executed a point of agreement shared with the Russians.

I specifically recall that these revengers had the power to remove POWs from camps without any repercussions when they vanished. One soldier involved said that they had papers authorizing complete power over any POW they wanted to kill. They just pointed the war criminal out and the felon was put in their vehicle and taken away with no questions asked. Kinda like Gestapo "night and fog" tactics where people "disappeared." No appeal, no trial and no delay.

Don't bother looking for official verifications. This was "definitely off the books." From what I've read about Churchill, revenge squads sound right up his alley. I think it happened and if we can find the memoirs of some of these commandos, we'll see that this is an historical fact.

[David Thompson]

allssmustdie -- You wrote:

The account I read was written by one of the participants.

and

Don't bother looking for official verifications.

and

I think it happened and if we can find the memoirs of some of these commandos, we'll see that this is an historical fact.

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http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53962

[Patzinak]

[…] Churchill thought that every Nazi should be summarily executed a point of agreement shared with the Russians. […]

Could you please provide support for this statement?

--Patzinak

[redcoat]

Don't know about twisted tales. The account I read was written by one of the participants. Churchill thought that every Nazi should be summarily executed a point of agreement shared with the Russians.

No.
At the conferance at Teheran in 1943, Stalin joked at dinner that Churchill was soft on Germany and that it may be necessary to execute 50,000 German officers; Churchill replied that he would never agree to such "barbarous acts" but FDR joked that perhaps 49,000 would do.

[truthteller]

[…] Churchill thought that every Nazi should be summarily executed a point of agreement shared with the Russians. […]

Could you please provide support for this statement?

--Patzinak

Let's qualify Churchill's wish for summary executions to WAR CRIMINALS. Then there is evidence to support my assertions. Incidentally, I've seen this material several times before. I'm surprised that this matter hasn't been gone over on this forum before.

As I said earlier the "hit squad" had enough high powered backing to take prisoners out of POW camps and kill them with immunity. To me that means that Churchill ordered the killings just like Mason says. Everything I can remember reading about Churchill indicates a very deep abiding hatred for Nazis, especially those who murdered his agents.



Here's an excerpt from Peter Mason:

The Sunday Times, London, Dec. 28, 1997

British Hit Squad 'executed' Nazis

by Nicholas Hellen, Media Correspondent

BRITISH SOLDIERS WERE secretly assigned to hunt and kill Nazi criminals after the second world war, according to a member of a special unit who claims he personally executed 16 Germans.

Peter Mason, 73, has described how he was recruited in May 1945 to avenge the deaths of Special Operations Executive (SOE) spies murdered in concentration camps and SAS men shot by the SS as saboteurs. The mission was intended to punish war criminals not prominent enough to face justice at Nuremberg and other trials conducted by the allies at the end of the war.

In the euphoria after VE day, the British Government was reluctant to rake over some of the war's goriest episodes publicly. Disclosure of the Hunter-killer units would have undermined the legitimacy ensured by the war trials. The capture of German military records in Strasbourg, however made secret revenge possible on men who might otherwise have vanished. Mason, who led the unit killing Nazis until 1948, initially mounted his covert sorties from a converted stable block in the Black Forest village of Wildbad near Stuttgart, under Major Eric Barkworth, of 2 SAS, who sent him regular instructions by dispatch rider.

Independent historical research has already shown that Barkworth oversaw a separate less sensitive mission to arrest German war criminals from a base at Gaggenau, near Wildbad. Mason claims his activities were funded secretly by the War Office and were approved by Churchill. There was a hiatus of several months after the election of the Labour government before the unit's activities resumed.

Mason said last week, that the unit's preferred method was to collect the Nazis from prison camps, on the pretext that they were required to give evidence at Nuremberg. He and his fellow soldiers would check their identities and confront them with a file listing their atrocities before executing them. He said: "All the SS were tattooed with their number.Some used battery acid to try and burn it off and conceal themselves. If you saw a big scar, you knew who they were. They would fold up when they were shown the evidence."

Mason and his comrades, Nobby Clark and Josef Galinsky, killed their targets using German guns, including the Walther P381 pistol and the Luger P08, to make it appear that they had committed suicide. Alternatively Mason would claim that they had been shot attempting to escape.

The Germans' bodies were bundled into a hidden compartment in a Czech-built vehicle and dumped at a British camp. The unit was armed with Colt 45 pistols, M1 carbines and Thompson sub machineguns. Mason, a firearms expert, met Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, in 1959 and inspired him to equip the fictional spy with silenced weapons. Fleming later sent Mason a minature dagger as a token of appreciation.

The most notorious victim of the SAS unit was Otto Ortegies, a Hitler Youth leader, who was suspected of killing two British secret agents: He is said have castrated them and left them to bleed to death from telegraph poles. Mason and his fellow soldiers traced Ortgies to a Munich hotel room and led him out to be shot.

The story of the revenge mission is to be told in Master Spies, to be screened on Discovery Channel on January 11.

Mason, who once escorted Anthony Blunt, the traitor to Germany to retrieve letters by the Duke of Windsor will disclose further exploits in a book to be published this summer by Phillips Publicationstions, of New Jersey. Jim Phillips, owner of the publishing company, claims he has documents that authenticate Mason's story. One water damaged sheet of paper is dated May 8,1945, and stamped with the marks 2 SAS and the initials AG3 V W.

Mason, who wishes to keep secret his address in North America, maintains he has no regrets about his role as assassin. "I am proud of what I did," he said.

Sunday Times 28 December 1997



Official Assassin: Winston Churchill's Sas Hit Team (Hardcover) $47.88US

http://www.amazon.com/Official-Assassin ... 0932572316

[Peter H]

CI Centre Professor Nigel West calls Mason's sensational claims the "SAS Myth":

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:Y8 ... cd=9&gl=au

On whom is he relying when he tells us that Lord Rothschild was a Soviet mole, and that in 1946 the SAS dispatched three-man assassination squads to murder “German Gestapo and SS personnel responsible for the torture and murder of SAS or SOE officers”. The tale about Rothschild comes from Roland Perry’s The Fifth Man, and the SAS myth was created by ‘Captain’ [sic] Peter Mason in Official Assassin. Neither, equally unreliable book is taken seriously by any historian, and Bennett’s reliance on these authors in particular suggests a lack of discrimination...

[truthteller]

Here's another book review. This time from someone claiming inside knowledge.

official assassin by peter mason, May 22, 2004

By  Ex Soldier

As a former soldier from the British army who had a lot to do with the S A S between 1980 and 1993 , as well as studying military history , I have to say that at least 75% of the information would possibly be correct ,

A sargent peter mason served with the paras , transfeared to the S A S and belonged to the S I S hunter killer teams that tracked down the germans who killed S A S and S O E operatives that were captured in operations during the secound world war ,

He was promoted to officer rank and worked for both M I 5 and our M I 6 conducting Intelligence operations in Europe .

Accourding to my friends still serving in our security Intelligence services the large part of the book, 75% could very well be true ,

I suspect that if I was to go and ask a certain friend who has access to all ex S A S operatives who have ever served in the S A S over the years , he would be able to give me chapter and verse on this gentleman , I like to keep my friends as friends

I would say that this book is a good insight to the covert world of special forces activitys , and [ sic "poserble the closes a none member"] (corrected text "possibly the closest a non member) of the regiment would get to the information ,

I look forward to reading his next book called official assassin 2 when it's released as well as viewing the film that is ear marked for production .

Ex Soldier of the British army

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/09 ... ddFourStar


Why should I think that Nigel West knows more than a fellow who was associated with the SAS for more than 13 years? Apparently Ex Soldier has actually seen some of Peter Mason's service records. He puts West's assertion about "Captain" Peter Mason's rank to bed.

[LWD]

75% true = useless as far as a referance goes unless one can tell what 75%. Claims of service in secretive organizations are easy to make as are claims of what happened in them.

[David Thompson]

How does being "a former soldier from the British army who had a lot to do with the S A S between 1980 and 1993" give this not very literate and anonymous reviewer any information about, or insight into, events that supposedly happened 35 years earlier, and which involved a small and secretive cabal?

[truthteller]

How does being "a former soldier from the British army who had a lot to do with the S A S between 1980 and 1993" give the none-too-literate reviewer any information about events that happened 35 years earlier?

Ex soldier might just be a poor typist.

I give credit to ex soldier because he claims to have been associated with the SAS et al and to have personal friends in the SAS et al who have shared information with him. He also claims to have seen some of Peter Mason's service records.

Ex soldier speaks in direct declarative terms, a sign of truth telling. He is not twisting facts to maintain his assertions. He simply says what he knows, take it or leave it.

Unlike the critics, ex soldier does not stand to gain by his statements. That's big when analyzing a writer's accuracy when the issues are hard to cover with publicly available data.

I tend to believe Peter Mason because I've heard about assassinating low ranking Nazis this way for years. Where there's smoke there's been a killing.

[truthteller]

75% true = useless as far as a referance goes unless one can tell what 75%. Claims of service in secretive organizations are easy to make as are claims of what happened in them.

Since the main thrust of "Official Assassin: Winston Churchill's Sas Hit Team" is killing Nazi war criminals, 75% known accuracy is a lot. If only 75% of the hits were true, that would be plenty of verification for Peter Mason's book. As it is we don't know what Mason left out.

Besides if the main theme was in question, ex soldier wouldn't be supporting Peter Mason's story.

Many of Mason's claims might be easy to check. For example, if Mason says Hitler Youth leader Otto Ortegies was killed on a certain day, there could be records verifying the assassination.

If Otto Ortegies ended up dead around the time Mason says, give Mason credit. Since Mason claims to have personally carried out 16 executions, the names of these people and the time and manner of death of at least a few of them of them should be in the records somewhere. If the records support Peter Mason, the argument is over.