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| Paladin Group | |
|---|---|
| Paladín | |
 Iron cross, which Otto Skorzeny and his followers wore during his life and, most importantly, during his funeral. | |
| Also known as | Paladin |
| Leader | Otto Skorzeny |
| Foundation | 1960s |
| Dates of operation | 1970 (1970)–1975 (1975) |
| Dissolved | 1975 |
| Country |  Francoist Spain |
| Allegiance |  SS veteran networks (such as ODESSA) |
| Motives | Anti-communism, Cultivating escape routes, Revanchism. |
| Headquarters | Madrid, Spain |
| Active regions | Europe |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Status | Inactive |
| Allies | |
| Opponents |  ETA |
| Battles and wars | Basque conflict, Years of Lead (Italy) |
| Preceded byDie Spinne | |
The Paladin Group (Spanish: Grupo Paladín) was a far-right organization founded in 1970 in Spain by former Waffen-SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny. It conceived itself as the military arm of the anti-Communist struggle during and after the Cold War. It was a private security contractor, the group's purpose was to recruit and operate security contractors to protect anticommunist countries. The group had active communications with post-war SS veteran networks and can be argued to be one of those networks, differing in the fact that they were also providing troops and training to far-right militias, and was a participant of Operation Condor, providing escape routes for former SS-men who were guilty of war-crimes.
Ideology
The French Nouvel Observateur magazine, of 23 September 1974, qualifies the group as a "strange temporary work agency of mercenaries" (étrange agence d’interim-barbouzes); in The Great Heroin Coup (1976), Henrik Krüger calls it a "fascist group" or "neo-fascist group", while Stuart Christie speaks of it as a "security consultancy group" in Granny Made me an Anarchist. Lobster Magazine describes it as a "small international squad of commandos". One of the Skorzeny's goals was entryism, which meant trying to infiltrate different groups around the world to re-establish SS and Nazi Party. However soon this goals was seemed to be abandoned as the group became a mercenary contractor by the time. There was no ideological stability within the organization; although the far-right element was a constant motive, the organisation was in active communication with anti-American Gaddafi's Libya while also being actively siding with pro-American groups such as Italian militias, showing that there was no fixed goal through the group's lifetime and this made the group earn the infamous title of "terrorists."
History
The Paladin Group was created in 1970 in the Albufereta neighborhood of Alacant, Spain, by former SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny and former US Colonel James Sanders. A former special operations officer, Skorzeny had become a member of the ODESSA network after the war, helping to smuggle Nazi war criminals out of Allied Europe to Spain, South America and other friendly destinations so they could avoid prosecution for war crimes. Skorzeny himself resided after the war in Spain, protected by the Spanish government.
Skorzeny envisioned the Paladin Group as "an international directorship of strategic assault personnel straddle the watershed between paramilitary operations carried out by troops in uniforms and the political warfare which is conducted by civilian agents".
In addition to recruiting many former SS members, the Group also recruited from the ranks of various right-wing and nationalist organizations, including the French Nationalist OAS, the SAC, and from military units such as the French Foreign Legion. The hands-on manager of the Group was Dr. Gerhard Hartmut von Schubert, formerly of Dr. Joseph Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry, who had trained security personnel in Argentina and Egypt after World War II. Under his guidance, Paladin provided support to the PFLP-EO led by Wadie Haddad at the same time as the Mossad. The Group's other clients included the South African Bureau of State Security. They also worked for the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 and the Spanish Security Main Direction, who recruited some Paladin operatives to wage clandestine war against ETA. The Group also helped Augusto Pinochet’s Regime fight against Communist insurgents after getting the dealing through Stefano Delle Chiaie of The Italian Neo-Fascist Organization known as National Vanguard (Italy) and to have provided personnel for José López Rega's notorious Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance death squad, however, this was never confirmed.
The Paladin Group was also allegedly allied with a number of other right-wing governments, including Salazar’s Portugal, and some of the Italian neo-fascists involved in the years of lead era attacks of the 1970s and 1980s. The Paladin Group also held offices in Zurich, Switzerland.
Following Francisco Franco’s death in 1975
Otto Skorzeny died the same year as Francisco Franco, whose death on November 20, 1975 led to the democratization of Spain. Third position political organizations, including Fascists and National Socialists, formerly supported by the Francoist regime ceased to be welcome in the new regime and fled to South America, in particular to Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, and Argentina, where the return of Perón after a 20-year exile in Spain had seen the June 20, 1973, Ezeiza massacre.
Legacy
Von Schubert became the head of the Paladin Group after Otto Skorzeny’s death in 1975. The group, with the affiliate organisation CEDADE, continued existing even after the death of their leader but ultimately dissolved into far-right groups such as National Democracy, Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari and Triple A. The group's legacy was also can be linked to "stay-behind" networks of Operation Gladio in which far-right militias similar to the "Paladin Group" participated in, a possible ideological influence or adoption of strategies.
See also
Bibliography
- Stuart Christie, Granny Made me an Anarchist
- L'Express, 13 September 1976
- Henrik Krüger, The Great Heroin Coup: Drugs, Intelligence, and International Fascism, Boston : South End Press, 1980. 240 pages. (First published in Denmark under the title: Smukke Serge og Heroinen en 1976.) ISBN 0-89608-031-5
- Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens, 1997. ISBN 0-316-51959-6 - (pages 185–86)
- Le Nouvel Observateur, 23 September 1974
- E. Gerdan, Dossier A ... comme Armes, édition Alain Moreau, 1975
- Le Monde 2, n° 60 - Special issue on Operation Condor
- Peter Dale Scott, Transnationalised Repression; Parafascism and the U.S., Lobster Magazine, N°12 : 1986.
- Frederic Laurent, L'Orchestre Noir, Stock, 1978.
References
- "Funeral de Otto Skorzeny - España 1975". YouTube. 4 February 2019.
- Smith, Stuart (20 September 2018). Otto Skorzeny: The Devil's Disciple. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-4728-2947-4.
– 'sore throat' – an allusion to the Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross), which was worn around the neck. Glory and romance drove Otto Skorzeny – and an acute sense of his own image.
- "Otto Skorzeny - Die Nachkriegskarriere von Hitlers Propagandahelden". www.kriegsreisende.de.
- "Exploring the Nazi Career of Otto Skorzeny, the 'Devil's Disciple'". History@Kingston. 5 July 2023.
- Wertz, Jr., William F. "Nazis, Operation Condor, and Bush's Privatization Plan" (PDF). larouchepub. EIR Investigation. p. 65. Retrieved 12 November 2024.
Piñar's New Force (Fuerza Nueva), the Argentine AAA, and Italian fascists including the Italian Ordine Nuovo led by Salvatore Francia and Pierluigi Concutelli, Spain's Guerillas of Christ the King (founded by Blas Piñar), the Associación Anticommunista Ibérica, Alianza Anticommunista Apostól- ica, and the Paladin group, which had been headed by Skor- zeny until his death in 1975. Dr. Gerhard Hartmut von Schu- bert, formerly of Joseph Göbbels' propaganda ministry, was its operating manager.
- Jenkins, Philip (1 March 1988). "Whose terrorists?". Contemporary Crises. 12: 5–24. doi:10.1007/BF00728657.
- Lee, Martin A. (1999). The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. Taylor & Francis. pp. 185–186. ISBN 0-415-92546-0.
- Patrice Chairoff, Dossier B... comme barbouze, 1975, éd. Alain Moreau, p.59 and p.254
- José L. Rodríguez Jiménez, Antisemitism and the Extreme Right in Spain (1962–1997) Archived 2013-09-26 at the Wayback Machine
- "Spanish interlude". libcom.org.
- Matteo, ALBANESE; Pablo, DEL HIERRO (2016). "Transnational Fascism in the twentieth century : Spain, Italy and the global Neo-Fascist network". Terrorism and Political Violence. 33 (2): 428–429. doi:10.1080/09546553.2021.1883353.