The Sunday Times, London, Dec. 28, 1997

British Hit Squad 'executed' Nazis

BRITISH SOLDIERS WERE secretly assigned to hunt and kill Nazi criminals after the second world war, according to a member of a special unit who claims he personally executed 16 Germans.

   Peter Mason, 73, has described how he was recruited in May 1945 to avenge the deaths of Special Operations Executive (SOE) spies murdered in concentration camps and SAS men shot by the SS as saboteurs. The mission was intended to punish war criminals not prominent enough to face justice at Nuremberg and other trials conducted by the allies at the end of the war.

   In the euphoria after VE day, the British Government was reluctant to rake over some of the war's goriest episodes publicly. Disclosure of the Hunter-killer units would have undermined the legitimacy ensured by the war trials. The capture of German military records in Strasbourg, however made secret revenge possible on men who might otherwise have vanished. Mason, who led the unit killing Nazis until 1948, initially mounted his covert sorties from a converted stable block in the Black Forest village of Wildbad near Stuttgart, under Major Eric Barkworth, of 2 SAS, who sent him regular instructions by dispatch rider. 

   Independent historical research has already shown that Barkworth oversaw a separate less sensitive mission to arrest German war criminals from a base at Gaggenau, near Wildbad. Mason claims his activities were funded secretly by the War Office and were approved by Churchill. There was a hiatus of several months after the election of the Labour government before the unit's activities resumed. 

   Mason said last week, that the unit's preferred method was to collect the Nazis from prison camps, on the pretext that they were required to give evidence at Nuremberg. He and his fellow soldiers would check their identities and confront them with a file listing their atrocities before executing them. He said: "All the SS were tattooed with their number.Some used battery acid to try and burn it off and conceal themselves. If you saw a big scar, you knew who they were. They would fold up when they were shown the evidence."

   Mason and his comrades, Nobby Clark and Josef Galinsky, killed their targets using German guns, including the Walther P381 pistol and the Luger P08, to make it appear that they had committed suicide. Alternatively Mason would claim that they had been shot attempting to escape. 

   The Germans' bodies were bundled into a hidden compartment in a Czech-built vehicle and dumped at a British camp. The unit was armed with Colt 45 pistols, M1 carbines and Thompson sub machineguns. Mason, a firearms expert, met Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, in 1959 and inspired him to equip the fictional spy with silenced weapons. Fleming later sent Mason a minature dagger as a token of appreciation. 

   The most notorious victim of the SAS unit was Otto Ortegies, a Hitler Youth leader, who was suspected of killing two British secret agents: He is said have castrated them and left them to bleed to death from telegraph poles. Mason and his fellow soldiers traced Ortgies to a Munich hotel room and led him out to be shot. 

   The story of the revenge mission is to be told in Master Spies, to be screened on Discovery Channel on January 11. 

   Mason, who once escorted Anthony Blunt, the traitor to Germany to retrieve letters by the Duke of Windsor will disclose further exploits in a book to be published this summer by Phillips Publicationstions, of New Jersey. Jim Phillips, owner of the publishing company, claims he has documents that authenicate Mason's story. One water damaged sheet of paper is dated May 8,1945, and starnped with the marks 2 SAS and the initials AG3 V W. 

   Mason, who wishes to keep secret his address in North America, maintains he has no regrets about his role as assassin. "I am proud of what I did,” he said.

Sunday Times 28 December 1997