Operation Greenup

Operation Greenup*

Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency William J. Casey called Operation Greenup "by far the most successful of OSS operations mounted from Bari".
The operation included three men: Fred  Mayer (https://www.jwmww2.org/soldier.aspx?id=4108),
Hans Wijnberg (https://www.jwmww2.org/soldier.aspx?id=4103)  
and Franz Weber - a former Austrian Wehrmacht officer. Their task was to scout "the heavily fortified area of Austria's 'Alpine Redoubt'.
It was decided the men should be parachuted near Innsbruck, but all flat areas were occupied by the military. Mayer recalled a small lake between two peaks that was frozen in February. It wasn't an easy place to fly to, especially in the winter conditions, but finally a pilot named John Billings volunteered. "If they are crazy enough to jump there, I will be crazy enough to take them there".
On February 26, 1945, the men jumped in the darkness. They found themselves at the ridge of a glacier at a 10,000 feet elevation. They found all but one container that was dropped with them. Unfortunately, their skis were in that missing container. They had to walk down the slope in waist-deep snow.
Eventually they reached Weber's family. With their help, Mayer posed as a German Army officer. He actually stayed in the officers' barracks in Innsbruck for several months. The information he collected was promptly radioed back by Wijnberg. After three months Mayer decided to pose as a French electrician, who supposedly was fleeing from the advancing Soviet forces.
Mayer was arrested when a black-market racketeer he dealt with was caught by the Gestapo and named him as a spy. As soon as his interrogation became physical, the black marketer revealed that he knew a high-ranking American agent. Mayer spoke only in French, and tried to convince the Gestapo that he was what he pretended to be. He was tortured to force him to talk:
"In the dark room, the Gestapo officers slapped and punched the spy in the face. His cover wasn't holding water, and so the tall one stripped him from head to toe. Despite the agent's bullish strength, the SS men brutally manhandled him, shoving him to the floor. Cuffing his hands in front of him and pulling his arms over his bent knees, they forced him into a constricting fetal position, then shoved the barrel of a long rifle into the tiny gap behind his knees and his cuffed hands. 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. Uncoiling a rawhide whip, the tall one put his full weight behind each swing, mercilessly thrashing the agent's body like a side of beef".
All that time the Gestapo kept asking where his radio and radio operator were. One Nazi noticed that Mayer was circumcised, but the other dismissed it. They refused to believe that a Jew would return as an agent for the Allies.
Then the man who betrayed him was brought to face Mayer. Realizing that there was no more use pretending, Mayer began speaking German. He confirmed he was an American. However, he insisted that he worked alone.
At the same time Mayer was tortured, Hermann Matull, another American agent, was being interrogated by the Gestapo. He was shown the picture of Mayer's beaten and swollen face, and was asked if he knew the man. Matull recognized him instantly. He claimed that Mayer was a "big shot" in the American command, and that if Mayer were shot, the Americans would kill all who had mistreated him. Matull even insisted that a man as senior as Mayer could be interrogated only by the Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, Franz Hofer.
Hofer believed that the defeat of Germany was inevitable, and was looking for a way to surrender to the Americans rather than to the Red Army. He ordered the Gestapo to bring Mayer to him. Mayer was introduced to Hofer's wife and the German ambassador to Benito Mussolini's government, Rudolph Rahn. They ate dinner and talked. Mayer initially believed that it was just a new way to make him reveal where his radio operator Hans Wijnberg was located, but he later understood that the Germans were really there to discuss their surrender.[13] Rahn said he was going to Bern, and promised to deliver Mayer's message to Allen Welsh Dulles, the OSS man there. Mayer agreed. It was the only way to inform the center of what was going on without revealing the existence of Wijnberg. Dulles got the message and cabled it to OSS headquarters in Italy: "Fred Mayer reports he is in Gestapo hands but cabled 'Don't worry about me, I'm really not bad off'" – a remarkable message considering that it was coming from a Jew.
On the morning of May 3, 1945, the American 103rd Infantry Division of the Seventh Army was ordered to take Innsbruck. When the troops got closer to the city, they saw an approaching car with a white banner made out of a bed sheet. Major Bland West, an intelligence officer, saw a young man with a swollen face jumping out of the car. 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. Later on West found out that Mayer was a sergeant. Thus, the German troops in this area surrendered to an American sergeant, a Jewish emigrant from Germany.