Gerhard Mertins

German businessman and SS officer (1908–1975)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (August 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the German article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,120 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Gerhard Mertins]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Gerhard Mertins}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Gerhard Georg Mertins
Born	(1919-12-30)30 December 1919 Berlin, Germany
Died	19 March 1993(1993-03-19) (aged 73) Florida, United States
Allegiance	Germany (1940-1945) Iran (1976)
Service/branch	Luftwaffe
Rank	Hauptmann
Commands held	Fallschirm-Pionier-Bataillon 5
Battles/wars	World War II Operation Mercury^[1] Eastern Front Operation Greif
Awards	Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
Other work	Businessman Arms dealer^[2] Intelligence operative

Gerhard Georg Mertins (30 December 1919 – 19 March 1993) was a German paratrooper, post-war arms dealer and German Intelligence operative. In 1943, he participated in the Gran Sasso raid rescuing Benito Mussolini from prison.^[3] According to Manuel Contreras, he allegedly supplied the Pinochet regime with arms and helicopters. In 1976, he and Manuel Contreras traveled to Tehran to offer the Shah regime help in killing Carlos the Jackal.^[4]

Awards

Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 6 December 1944 as Hauptmann and leader of Fallschirm-Pionier-Bataillon 5^[5]

References

Citations

^ Hammerschmidt 2013, p. 392.
^ Hammerschmidt 2013, p. 393.
^ Romano Mussolini, My father, il Duce, Kales Press 2006, S.29: "For more than sixty years, my father´s liberation from Gran Sasso was attributed solely to Skorzeny, even though Mors and Mertins played crucial roles."
^ González, Mónica (6 August 2009). "El día en que Manuel Contreras le ofreció al Sha de Irán matar a "Carlos, El Chacal"". ciperchile.cl (in Spanish). CIPER. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
^ Scherzer 2007, p. 538.

Bibliography

Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2.
Hammerschmidt, Peter (2013). Die Nachkriegskarriere des "Schlächters von Lyon" - Klaus Barbie und die westlichen Nachrichtendienste (PDF) (in German). Mainz, Germany: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität. Retrieved 11 February 2024.