Seventh Enemy Offensive - German Intelligence

German Intelligence

Three separate organisations were involved in attempting to determine the location of Tito's headquarters and the disposition of Partisan forces in Drvar. These were the intelligence and special clandestine operations sections of the Abwehr, and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) (the intelligence branch of the SS).

The first of these was the Benesch Special Unit of Section II of the Abwehr, some members of which had been involved in identifying Tito's presence in the town of Jajce prior to the German offensive to retake the town. The Benesch Special Unit was part of the Brandenburg Division, and was staffed by ethnic Germans who spoke local languages. The unit had many contacts with both the Chetniks and Ustaše militia, and had been tracking Tito since October 1943. Leutnant (Lieutenant) Kirchner of that unit had been responsible for locating Tito prior to the re-capture of Jajce, and he established a patrol base near Bosansko Grahovo. He got very close to the Drvar cave, and located the Allied military missions, but despite German radio intercepts confirming that Drvar was the site of Tito's headquarters, Kirchner was unable to pinpoint the cave as the location of the headquarters. Kirchner was attached to 500th SS Parachute Battalion for the operation.

The second intelligence organisation was FAT (Front Reconnaissance Troop) 216 of Section I of the Abwehr. FAT216, commanded by Leutnant Zavadil was also attached to 500th SS Parachute Battalion, but did not contribute much to the intelligence used to plan the raid.

On Hitler's orders, SS-Sturmbannführer (Major) Otto Skorzeny, who had commanded the operation to rescue Mussolini, was independently involved in intelligence gathering in the lead-up to the raid. Skorzeny acted on behalf of the SD, and after obtaining information from a Partisan deserter that pinpointed Tito's headquarters at the cave, he proposed a plan to infiltrate Drvar with a small group of soldiers to assassinate Tito. Skorzeny soon discovered that the plan to eliminate Tito had been compromised, and had nothing further to do with the planned operation. It appears that he did not pass on the useful intelligence he had gathered to SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Kurt Rybka, the commander of 500th SS Parachute Battalion, who was responsible for planning the critical airborne aspects of the operation.

Largely due to interservice rivalry and competition, the three organisations did not share the intelligence they gathered, which had a significant effect on the tactical planning and execution of the operation.