Special Forces Berlin

Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army's Elite, 1956-1990

James Stejskal

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781612004457
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The previously untold story of a Cold War spy unit, "one of the best examples of applied unconventional warfare in special operations history" (Small Wars Journal). It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two US Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the expected juggernaut, if and when a war began. This plan was Special Forces Berlin. Their mission—should hostilities commence—was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality, it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each of these one hundred soldiers and their successors was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, and intelligence tradecraft, and were able to act, if necessary, as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin left a legacy of a new type of soldier, expert in unconventional warfare, that was sought after for other deployments, including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the US government officially acknowledging their existence in 2014, their incredible story can now be told—by one of their own.

CHAPTER II

THE FORMATIVE YEARS (1956–1971)

If we are mark’d to die, we are enough

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

William Shakespeare, Henry V

Berlin was probably the last thing Major Edward Maltese was thinking about that day in the spring of 1956. Having recently arrived at Flint Kaserne, Bad Tölz from the United States, he fully expected to take command of a company of the 10th Special Forces Group (SFG) and settle into the regimen of living and working in southern Germany. He would get his company, just not at Bad Tölz. Colonel William E. Harrison, the 10th’s commander, ordered Maltese to set up a new Special Forces Detachment in Berlin. It would have a modified SF company organization—six teams and a small headquarters staff—and a skeleton crew of 40 men to start. Most important, its true name, organization, and especially its mission were classified.

The unit would be attached to Headquarters, 6th Infantry Regiment, which was already stationed in the city as part of the American Berlin Command occupation force.1

It would be a formidable job, but “Malt” was ready. As an infantry officer during World War II, he jumped into St Mere Eglise, France on D-Day with the 1/505th Parachute Infantry Regiment and again into the hellfire of Operation MARKET GARDEN in Holland. He was with General James Galvin when the 82nd Airborne entered Berlin as part of the first occupation force. In the Korean War he was a company commander and made his third combat jump with the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. He joined Special Forces in 1953 and was assigned to the 10th when it moved to Germany. “Malt” cared more about his men’s welfare than his own advancement. They felt it and reciprocated with great respect and loyalty and he advanced steadily in rank anyway. Maltese would be instrumental in dealing with the staff at Berlin Brigade while his men plunged into the details of building a clandestine unit in the city.

His first task was to select the men who would go with him.2 The initial group consisted of a major (himself), a captain, and six Operational Detachment “A” Teams simply designated Team One through Team Six.3 Initially, the teams were manned at half strength with six non- commissioned officers, commanded by a master sergeant. A captain would eventually fill that position and the teams would be increased to 11 men.4 All were SF qualified and a Top Secret (TS) security clearance was required (a step above the Secret clearance usually necessary for SF duty) as well as the ability to speak German or another Eastern European language.5 This was mostly unnecessary as about 45 percent of the men were Lodge Act soldiers.6 Perhaps the most significant requirement was for each volunteer to understand the clandestine nature of the job. While in Berlin, no one was to identify himself or the unit as SF or allude to the nature of their mission. They were there to “support the Berlin Brigade,” a phrase that said everything and nothing at the same time. There were problems with this rather ad hoc cover mechanism that would come back to haunt the unit. Having no officially approved cover meant the unit had no established cover for status (its alleged reason to exist), and second, the men had no cover story for their day-to-day jobs, their reason to be in the city. The inevitable result was that everyone came up with his own story resulting in a patchwork of inconsistent covers, which gave the opposition something to focus on: a mystery unit. Working outside the confines of the base, the men would put on their ad hoc covers, but an in-depth check would have quickly revealed their falsity. Other mechanisms would later be developed to better conceal the men and the mission.

While many of the officers and senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs) were selected by hand, enlisted volunteers were requested by the simple means of posting a notice on the unit bulletin board in the late spring of 1956. The notice asked for men in specific military occupational specialties (MOS) and qualifications who wished to be considered for a new unit in Berlin. Those who responded were interviewed and told they would be notified in several weeks if selected. Henry Bertrand was one who saw the notice and volunteered. An SF medic in Bravo Company of the 10th, he was given orders for Berlin in June.7

Getting There

Once the men were selected, the next order of business was to get everyone to the city. Bertrand remembered that in July 1956, Major Maltese ordered the men to travel to Berlin in small groups of three to four. They drove personal cars north to Helmstedt, a small West German town on the border where the Autobahn crossed into the Soviet zone. Helmstedt was near the Checkpoint Alpha crossing site, where Allied travelers processed first through the MPs and then the Soviets before entering the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to get to Berlin.

When they arrived at Helmstedt, they dropped off their cars and rode the US Army Duty Train through the Soviet zone to Berlin. At that time, no one with a TS clearance was permitted to drive a car though the Soviet zone because the Army did not want to risk having a soldier detained and interrogated by the Russians. The Duty Train was the more secure route. Traveling in civilian clothing under classified CINCUSAREUR orders attaching them to the 7781st Army Unit, the men rode to Berlin and went straight to McNair Barracks, their new home in the American sector.8 The rest of their equipment was to follow by guarded truck and military train into the city.

The cars they had driven to Helmstedt were brought to Berlin by the MPs themselves. They followed the long straight drive through the Soviet zone to the next stop, Checkpoint Bravo, where the drivers and their cars were checked out of the Soviet zone and into the American sector of West Berlin.9 After several days in Berlin, the men were still without their vehicles and they began to wonder what had happened. When they looked around the various barracks, they found that the cars had arrived and had been appropriated and used as personal transport by the MPs who had driven them to the city. The cars were swiftly returned after the MPs were confronted and the consequences were fully explained.

Working out of the regimental headquarters of the 6th Infantry, the new unit’s cover as the “Security Platoon” provided a reasonable amount of latitude for a clandestine Special Forces unit to operate in the city both in uniform and in civilian clothes without raising suspicions. Only about ten officers in the Berlin Command knew the true makeup of the “platoon” and its mission. The men of the Detachment did not have much contact with 6th Infantry units other than to participate as “aggressor forces” in the field exercises that took place in the Grunewald forest. The Det was conducting its own preparations for war.

In April 1958, the unit moved again, this time several kilometers across town to Andrews Barracks. It was a location that would permit expansion and better security. The unit was renamed Detachment “A” and was simply called “the Detachment” or Det “A” for short. This would be the unit’s cover name until its inactivation in 1984.

After the move was completed, the unit needed to be filled to its authorized strength and the search began for qualified men. Two methods were used: the standard army method of someone in the Pentagon scouring records for experienced men to take the assignment and the commander’s “direct approach.”

Jim Wilde was at Bad Tölz waiting to be assigned to one of 10th Group’s teams in 1957. He was a junior NCO and had recently arrived from Fort Bragg as part of a levy from the 77th SFG. One day he and Karl Helmle were ordered to report to the day room where “a major” awaited them. Wilde’s first panicked thought was along the lines of “I’ve never talked to a major and why would one want to talk to me?” So it was with some trepidation that he reported to the officer. Wilde entered the room, reported in, and was told to sit down. The commander said, “I have only two questions for you. Do you speak German and do you drink?” Wilde said later that he thought about his answers for a moment and then lied a bit. His German was OK, but not fluent he said, and he drank, but he thought it was better to say he didn’t. The major seemed to measure Wilde up for a moment and then said, “Pack your bags, you’re leaving with me for the train station in two hours.”

Wilde hesitantly asked, “Where are we going, sir?”

“Berlin,” came the reply.

Wilde blurted out, “But I don’t want to go to Berlin!”

It was not negotiable, “You are a radio repairman. I need radio repairmen. We’re leaving for Berlin.” With that the interview was over.10

In later years, if an aspirant wanted the assignment (assuming he even knew of the unit’s existence) it helped to contact SF Branch at “DA” (Department of the Army) and talk very nicely with the personnel specialists about the assignment. Gifts of alcohol, candy, and flowers made a positive consideration of the request more probable.11

In the early years, a few enlisted men and officers were recruited for the unit who were not “SF” qualified. Some, like parachute riggers, admin specialists, and supply sergeants, would work on the headquarters staff. A small number would be assigned to teams where they would be trained up on the job, as there were simply not enough SF-qualified soldiers in the Army at the time.12 Wilde would receive his “S” as a radio operator and be cross-trained in demolitions and weapons after a year on the team.13 Not only did a soldier need to be individually and technically qualified, he had to fit in with his mates.

Language was always important and early on the inside joke was that English wasn’t heard much in the team rooms. In fact, it may have been the least common language! Although German was the primary language requirement, the teams had a decidedly eastern European flavor. And, the Lodge Act soldiers were clannish—they called themselves the “10-8-12 Club,” a reference to their identification numbers that all began with “10812.” One American-born sergeant who joined the unit early on said he was assigned to a team made up of 10812 men. It was several weeks before anyone but the team sergeant spoke to him. But, once he was accepted, it was like being adopted into a family. The unit had several cultural layers and each “A” Team had a decidedly different personality.

“In the Event of a General Outbreak of Hostilities … .”

1956 was a turbulent year in Europe. Popular uprisings in Communist Poland and Hungary were ruthlessly put down by their Soviet occupiers. In the GDR, the Group of Soviet Forces Germany occupied the country with between 382,000 and 423,000 troops. The GDR’s newly formed army, the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA) had about 75,000 men.14 In contrast, the Allied force made up of Americans, British, and French numbered only around 10,000 in West Berlin. Despite the fact the Allies could count on “Force B,” an additional three detachments of heavily armed, paramilitary Bereitschaftspolizei (Readiness Police) and their German Labor Service guard battalions, the odds were not in their favor.15 Det “A”—in their Security Platoon guise—trained the Bereitschaftspolizei Notstandzug (Emergency Platoon) in the use of the American heavy weaponry it had been issued, primarily the 60mm mortar. In the late 1950s, the Bereitschaftspolizei were a small but crucial part of Berlin Brigade’s defense plans.16 Allied reinforcement of Berlin in time of war would not just be infeasible; it would be impossible, as Warsaw Pact air defenses would quickly close all air corridors. NATO would be occupied with holding off the Soviet onslaught expected to slam through the Fulda Gap onto the plains of Western Europe. In effect, the Allies in Berlin would be on their own. Some believed the city would become the world’s largest POW camp.

The Area of Operations

Berlin in the late 1950s was a study in contrasts. East Berlin, under Soviet occupation, seemed not to have come far since the final battle of the war in Europe. The damaged shells of public and private buildings still bore mute testimony to the destructive fury the Russian army and the Allied bombings had brought down on the city. Much of its industrial capacity had been simply ripped out and transported to the Soviet Union while the rebuilding of the city progressed slowly. Where it was rebuilt, especially along the newly renamed Stalinallee, the buildings reflected a socialist style considered both ponderous and ugly. It had been a cosmopolitan city ravaged in war that now lived day-to-day anticipating the next cataclysm. Brown lignite coal smoke from East Germany hung thickly, while cold winds from the steppes of Russia penetrated the soul through the long, cold, gray winters.

In the western sectors occupied by the Americans, British, and French, it was a different story. Although there were huge depots of coal reserves stored in strategic locations, a legacy of the Berlin Blockade of 1948, the West responded with a rebuilding plan designed to reflect the “new, democratic western Germany to the outside world.”17 International architects were invited to design and build a modern city with public parks and improved living accommodations. The United States presented the city with a conference hall that was quickly nicknamed the “pregnant oyster.” It was clear the city was more than a political flashpoint, it became a cultural and social counterpoint between the Communist East and the Democratic (and Capitalist) West.

For the men of the Detachment, it was an unbelievably unique experience. Serving in the divided city, whether in 1956 or in 1985, was unlike duty anywhere else. Walking along Bernauer Straße next to the Wall in the early evening fog, S-Bahn trains rattling along on the overhead tracks, you could easily you were taking part in a film noir adaptation of The Third Man or The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Not 50 meters away was the front line of an existential struggle between two cultures that stood ready to go to war. The front line encircled you, your home, your family—everything—there was no rear area for a safe retreat. You lived deep inside what was already enemy territory. Yet, across the street you could walk into a Kneipe and order a beer and schnitzel and sit quietly reading a book, completely oblivious to the conflict.

The history of Berlin weighed down oppressively at times. A sign on a building facade commemorated the events of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass when the anti-Jewish pogroms started in 1938. The march of jackboots through the narrow streets echoed in not-so-distant memories. To escape, there were the beaches of the Wannsee where many came to forget they were locked inside a huge cage. Spring and summer seemed to signal both renewal and survival.

The Detachment’s men moved through the city in civilian clothes, carrying the briefcases, shoulder bags, or, later, day packs, that contained the tools of their trade; whatever they needed for the tasks they were to undertake that day. They wa...