Comprising Unteroffizier Manfred Pernass, Oberfähnrich Günther Billing, and Gefreiter Wilhelm Schmidt (shown in the picture), they were captured when they failed to give the correct password.
Perhaps the largest panic was created when a German commando team was captured near Aywaille on 17 December. So great was the confusion caused by Operation Greif that the US Army saw spies and saboteurs everywhere. A lack of vehicles, uniforms, and equipment limited the operation and it never achieved its original aim of securing the Meuse bridges. German soldiers, wearing captured British and US Army uniforms and using captured Allied vehicles, were to cause confusion in the rear of the Allied lines. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and its purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse river before they could be destroyed. Their mission was part of Operation Greif commanded by the famous Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge. The soldiers in the picture were executed after a military trial found them in violation of the Hague convention concerning land warfare, article 23: “It’s especially forbidden, to make improper use of a flag of truce, of the national flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy”.
German infiltrators lined up for execution by firing squad after conviction by a military court for wearing U.S.
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