Revealed: Nazi plot to kidnap Ike

ON THE eve of their mission, the German soldiers were handed cigarette lighters full of potassium cyanide and told to kill themselves rather than be captured.

The squad was about to embark on one of the most audacious missions of the Second World War, remarkable details of which have now been revealed by the only known survivor.

Operation Griffin was nothing less than an attempt to snatch US General Dwight D Eisenhower from under the noses of thousands of Allied troops over whom he was supreme commander.

The members of the 10-strong team were disguised as Americans and given lessons in how to look, talk, eat and generally behave like GIs so they could trick their way into Eisenhower’s presence.

German planners hoped the kidnap would plunge the enemy into disarray and boost their chances of succeeding in the Ardennes offensive, Hitler’s desperate last gamble to repel the Allies in the west.

But the abduction plan proved as ill-conceived as Ardennes itself: the kidnap squad were indeed mistaken for Americans, but they were shot at by the Luftwaffe before they reached their target.

Fritz Christ, now 81, baled out of the captured American lorry in which he and his comrades were travelling seconds before it burst into flames. The retired lawyer from Mannheim, the son of a railway worker, does not believe anyone else got out alive.

Now, almost 60 years, later Christ has told his remarkable story for the first time.

The plan was for Christ’s team to drive towards Eisenhower’s headquarters at Fontainebleau, south of Paris.

The Germans knew that Eisenhower ‘commuted’ daily between the HQ and his own quarters 55 miles away at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

The general travelled by Jeep - famously driven by a woman, Kay Summersby, and accompanied by a handful of aides. The idea was for the German team to corner Eisenhower, force him into their truck, and drive to Germany. Christ had excelled in languages at school and at the German army’s translation college. He was the team’s best English speaker and perfected his American accent so that he could talk them out of any problems.

Christ, a lance corporal in the Luftwaffe, unwittingly volunteered for the mission in October 1944 after an appeal went out for fluent English speakers.

He said his reaction was: "Wonderful. Listening to prisoners of war, far away from the shooting." Even when the recruiters demanded all the volunteers be in top physical shape, Christ did not worry that he was heading for trouble.

Christ, along with other volunteers, was driven to a top-secret camp near Bayreuth in Bavaria. Letters home were forbidden, and his unit told his parents he had gone missing.

Christ and his comrades were trained in unarmed combat, the art of killing enemies silently with knives, and using special strangulation cords.

In his interview with Germany’s Stern magazine, Christ said the special training had its advantages. "It was like the food and treatment they gave pilots, we even had chocolate. Only there was no alcohol allowed."

They spent a lot of time watching American films. Christ told Stern: "They showed us how US soldiers greeted each other, and how the officers acted towards the soldiers. But we also had to note how the Americans smoked, never smoking right the way to the end, and how they put out their cigarettes. Then how they acted at meals, first cutting the meat in pieces, then putting the knife down, and then using the fork with the right hand.

"Then we were handed American sub-machine-guns. We learned to shoot from the hip, like the Americans. And every day there was a lesson in US slang."

It was only in early December that the volunteers were given details of their mission.

Most of the men would go behind enemy lines at the start of the Ardennes offensive and simply cause chaos, sabotaging what they could and directing American soldiers away from the attacking Germans.

But for Christ and nine of his colleagues, something even more daring and dangerous was in store: Operation Griffin.

Christ became Charles Smith from Detroit. He was ordered to study maps of the city and learn everything about its landmarks.

On December 13, three days before 300,000 German troops attacked the American army in the Battle of Bulge, Christ and his team travelled to a forest near the Belgian border.

Despite the attention to detail, no one had told Christ’s Luftwaffe colleagues to stay away from the area. Two hours after departing from Blankenheim, and a few miles short of American lines, the unit was strafed by a group of German fighters.

Christ, who had never before seen action, said: "It was terrible. I heard the shells strike and the screams of those who were hit. I jumped out and fell into a deep ditch by the side of the road. Then I saw the truck roll off to the side and then it was hit again. I heard a terrible noise, and the truck was nothing more than a burning hulk."

Christ faced a terrible dilemma. He was wearing both German and US uniforms to survive the bitter cold but had no papers and risked being shot by his own side as a deserter and by the Americans as a spy.

Somehow he dodged German patrols, and made it to Cologne, from where he was sent away to be treated for shell-shock.

Historians last night reacted with amazement to the story. Conan Fischer, professor of European history at Strathclyde University, said: "If they had caught Eisenhower, it would have been a terrific propaganda coup for the Nazis. But the reality was that they had already lost the war.

"The difference it might have made would have been to the post-1945 map of Europe. The Soviets would have conquered more territory. They might have reached the North Sea, taken all of Austria, and all of Bohemia."