BRUSSELS: Himmler, the Gestapo Chief and Leader of the Nazi home front, is combing the German Secret Service and special police organisations for assassins and sabotage experts, whom he wants for the army, according to well-founded reports from Germany. These “cloak and dagger boys” have been operating since the beginning of the war. It is believed that these are the men who kidnapped two British officials at Venlo in 1940, who rescued Mussolini from Allied imprisonment, and who, it is recorded, kidnapped Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian Regent.

Himmler’s growing influence on Germans’ fronts and their operations field has brought with it a new policy. These “killer” units are to be part of the regular German Army to help to achieve closer co-ordination of military operations and sabotage. Recent reports of a German scheme to scatter saboteurs and assassins behind the lines to kill Allied leaders indicate not only the formation of a German organisation, but the stranglehold gained by the Gestapo and the SS on the German army. It is now believed that the German ‘Absehr’ (Defensive Organisation) has been incorporated into the military section of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Principal Organisation of Reich Security).

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2020