Trembling, he stammered, Do anything you want to me, but dont hurt my family.. Ulmer asked several pointed questions about their background, and the men revealed that they were Jewish. Both programmetitles are somewhat misleading, since the members of Operation Greenup were tasked withgathering intelligence rather than directly killing Nazis, and the only connection with the filmInglorious Basterds is that they were American Jews operating behind enemy lines. I do not want them to think that they are getting a glimpse of who you are really going to be.'" Barrett is the world leader in long-range, large-caliber, precision rifle design and manufacturing. However, Tarantino based his film on an actual operation codenamed, Greenup. Franz Anton von Weber (* 26. Fortunately for Webers fiance and her family, Mayer had found other lodgings before being captured. A German soldier, Matull had deserted and was caught by the Allies who threw him into a POW camp. Contributor. A real world spy story fit for the silver screen. Mayer obtained a German uniform and impersonated a wounded officer. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. Mollis,Glarus,,Switzerland . 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 the Nazis came to power. 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. Speaking in an interview(via Screenrant) with fellow filmmaker Robert Rodriguez for an episode of "Director's Chair" on El Rey Network, Tarantino said, "People thought I was going through writer's block, you know, I was going through the opposite. "Inglourious Basterds" made its world premiere at the 2009 Cannes FilmFestival, but the version of the film that screened there wasn't quite the same as the version which ultimately make it to theaters later that summer. It was "The Fifth Element" director Luc Besson who encouraged Tarantino to finish "Inglourious Basterds" as a movie rather than a miniseries. Tom Moon, author of This Grim and Savage Game: OSS and the Beginning of U.S. Covert Operations in World War II, wrote, The Germany Army in that area had in effect surrendered to an OSS Jewish Sergeant.. Mayer was then ordered to investigate a nearby underground factory that was building Me 262 jet fighters. Franz Weber. Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, The OSS in Vietnam, 1945: A War of Missed Opportunities by Dixee Bartholomew-Feis, Secret Agents, Secret Armies: The D-Day Misfit Spies, Black Volunteer Infantry Platoons in World War II, Kasserine Pass: German Offensive, American Victory, Gallantry against Great Odds: LTC George Marshall and Operation RESERVIST, Prelude to Liberation: Genesis of American Amphibious Assault in the ETO, Black Thursday October 14, 1943: The Second Schweinfurt Bombing Raid, An Exercise in Depravity: The Establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto, Unsung Witnesses of the Battle of Stalingrad, Stalingrad: Experimentation, Adaptation, Implementation. He then worked for Mayer till the Gestapo caught him. They were sent to enemy lines to sabotage Nazi activities. Hofer got Mayer to help him arrange the surrender. Privacy statement, cookies, disclaimer and copyright, On a journey of discovery to historical sites? The members of Operation Greenup ended up helping the Allies get their victory and were later on decorated for their heroic services during the war. Cross) Chemistry: The Central Science (Theodore E. Brown; H. Eugene H LeMay; Bruce E. Bursten; Catherine Murphy; Patrick Woodward) The Americans will slaughter everyone who did this!. Air Force, The only area to infiltrate was a small lake frozen over in the winter between the mountains. Mayer died in 2016, aged 94. He was an actor, known for The Marriage of Figaro (1949), Pillars of Society (1935) and So ein Flegel (1934). Birth, Baptism & Christening. There was also Franz Weber a Catholic Austrian Wehrmacht officer and POW, who felt loyal to Austria, not to Nazi Germany. In 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of the United States Army trained three soldiers: Frederick Mayer, Hans Wynberg, and Franz Webe. An irreverent alternate history following two intersecting plots of Jews taking violent revenge against the Nazis (one by an orphaned French theater owner named Shosanna, the other by an American GI squad known as the Basterds), Tarantino's sixth film became the director's biggest hit up to that point in the summer of 2009. Channel 5s website describes the programme as follows: Documentary exploring one of the hundreds of undercover missions launched by the US governments Office of Strategic Services during World War II. 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. His current life is fairly peacefulhe still chops wood nearly every day and volunteers with Meals on Wheels. WORLD WAR II; Nov 27, 2015 Shahan Russell, Guest Author. 1526-24 January 1624 (Age 98) Beglingen, Glarus, Switzerland. Mayer parachuted onto an Alpine glacier, infiltrated enemy lines, and posed as a German officer to ascertain crucial intelligence. But America desperately needed to beef up its military, so they let him join the 81st Infantry Division the following year. Weber stayed with his family, his fiances mother took Mayer in, and Wijnberg stayed at a neighbors house. With a man on each side of the rifle, they lifted his naked, rolled-up body and suspended the human ball between two tables, like a piece of meat on a skewer. Mayer eventually headed back into Nazi-occupied territory in Europe serving as U.S. spy. Does anyone out there have Quentin Tarantinos cell? Service on a half-dozen fronts, including the bloody struggle against Marshal Tito's partisans in occupied Yugoslavia, has opened Weber's eyes. Early on May 3, 1945, the American 103rd Infantry Division of the Seventh Army was ordered to take Innsbruck. According toIndieWire, in Tara Wood's Tarantino-focused documentary "QT8: The First Eight," Eli Roth recounts the story of one extra who got fired for not developing a backstory for his non-speaking character. The governor was about to go on the radio to tell his troops to fight to the last man. In mid-April, a black marketer whom Mayer dealt with was caught up in a Gestapo dragnet. Mayer became an Army Ranger and went on to join the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) the precursor of todays CIA. Nearly all the sections missions to this point had been abysmal failures, leading to the death or capture of the OSS agents, and several agents ended up in Germanys most infamous concentration camps. After three months, Mayer changed his cover to that of a French electrician who was fleeing the Soviets. A couple of excellent books on the subject are : This Grim And Savage Game: The Oss And U.s. Covert Operations In World War II by Tom Moon and. Website zuerich@fcw.ch +41 44 225 78 78 Google Maps Public transport. Major Bland West, an intelligence officer, saw a young man with a swollen face jumping out of the car. Undeterred by the units previous record, Mayer and his friends approached the units commander, Lt. Alfred Ulmer, and begged to sign up. Mayers superiors were impressed by his skill and native fluency in German and French, as well as English. The interrogation was watched by a third man, who eventually took Mayer to the house of Franz Hofer, the local Gauleiter [Nazi Party boss]. Ittrained them for operations behind enemy lines. Bahnhofplatz 9. They showed him a picture of Mayers ruined face, but Matull was a world-class hustler before the war. His website is http://www.patrickkodonnell.com/. 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. He introduced himself as Lt. Mayer of the OSS and explained that he was going to take the major with him to accept the German surrender from Hofer. Once the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Mayer enlisted in the U.S. Army. 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. In the dead of winter, 1945, German-born Fred Mayer, Dutch-born Hans Wijnberg and former Wehrmacht officer Franz Weber parachuted into the Austrian Alps. It was the perfect opportunity to kill Nazis, which was the reason many Jewish boys joined. While Mayer was being tortured in a Nazi prison, another American agent was being interrogated by the Gestapo. RecPak is a meal replacement for the outdoors that saves you weight, space and time in the most challenging environments, just add water. 8001 Zrich. Or are you interested in war medals and their recipients? The mission involved two Jewish members of the Office of Strategic Services,Frederick Mayer andHans Wijnberg, who parachuted into Austria in February 1945 to figure out Germany's battle plans. All Rights Reserved. Franz Weller was captured in May 1945 by . In 1945, members of the American "Deer Team," part of the OSS, worked with Vietnamese guerrilla fighters to throw Japanese troops out of Indochina. They didn't end up killing Hitler, but they were able to negotiate the surrender of the German Army in Austria. Then good fortune stepped in. His parents and younger brotherwere all murdered in the Holocaust. In zweiter Ehe war er mit Genovefa Brenner verheiratet; aus dieser . This was worn by civilians in the employment of the Waffen SS. The true story reads better than the fictional one, although I admit a fondness for Tarantino films however. They would use Weber and for this mission, it would be Mayer, Wynberg and Weber. He retired as World Champion in 1985 but returned to the sport of speed skiing seven years later to compete in the 1992 Winter Olympics at Albertville, France where he clocked his fastest personal time of 138.112 mph/222.222 kph (average speed). But unlike other refugees, Mayer decided to return to German-occupied Europe to strike back at the very individuals who imprisoned some of his family members in concentration camps. He died in Switzerland. On 7 December 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, forcing America to enter the war. A sense of calm came over Mayer, and he looked directly into the eyes of the Gestapo agent. They teamed up with Franz Weber a Germany army officer that became a "deserter-volunteer" OSS agent. 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." Mayer was given command of Operation Greenup charged with finding out how weapons were making it into Italy, then an Axis power. During WWII, some Jews really did volunteer to go into Nazi-occupied Europe to engage in espionage and sabotage. Nonetheless, this story has made some people uncomfortable. Mayer was then betrayed and captured. Mayer was assigned to the German Operational Group before heading out. In an amazing turnabout, Mayer received an opportunity for revenge. All results for Franz Weber. It was April 1945, and Germany was finished. For the next three days, he was mercilessly beaten, tortured, and hung upside down. Unlike the strange and often idiotic Tarantinos movie, however, the truth was far more bizarre. Theres no doubt that Operation Greenup saved many thousands of lives, Austrian and American, civilian and military. I dont stay up late anymore.. Hofer was looking for a way to surrender to the Americans and not the Russians and saw this as his chance. 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!" Like many other Germans by the end of the war, Hofer was looking for a safeguard with the Allies to secure his own freedom. Mayer was put in for the Medal of Honor twice and it was downgraded to the Legion of Merit. Kruger did consent to this, and she posted on Instagramin 2018 that Tarantino "treated me with utter respect and never abused his power or forced me to do anything I wasn't comfortable with." Support Veteran Journalism . Mayer was motivated by a powerful combination of hate and lovehate toward the Nazis and love for America. STIWOT, 1999-2023. Part of the reason Tarantino decided to make "Kill Bill" first was due to the fact the story for his epic was growing so large in scale that he was having trouble cutting it down. He was shown a picture of Mayer and was asked if he knew him. In the dark room, the Gestapo officers slapped and punched the spy in the face. Pernass, Manfred Franz Joachim, born on 03-08-1920 in Gollnow, the son of Willli Hermann Pernass and Charlotte Anna Elisabeth Ulrich, was a soldier in the German Army and set up in Operation Greif. Over 16.5 million men and women served in the armed forces during World War II, of whom 291,557 died in battle, 113,842 died from other causes, and 670,846 were wounded. Inside was the officer responsible for his interrogation., Do what you want with me, the man pleaded. ?, The GIs were not so merciful with the Gestapo, however, especially as some them were Jews. Wijnberg and Weber had to flee, whilst Mayer was tortured by the Gestapo. By using our Services, you agree to our use of cookies. After training for months and mapping out the mission in minute detail, the men were ready to gobut no one wanted to fly the team. Mayer, Wijnberg, and Weber were parachuted with their supplies into Austria on 26 February 1945 in total darkness which was why they ended up on the crest of the Sulztaler glacier some 9,000 feet up a mountain. In February, 1945, an odd trio parachuted onto a vast Austrian glacier and kicked-off one of the most spectacular clandestine missions of World War II. Franz Weber currently works honorary as a teacher at the Clinic for Nephrology , University Hospital Essen.
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