Gerhard Mertins (30 December 1919 – 19 March 1993) was a German

paratrooper A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during Worl ...

, post-war arms dealer and German Intelligence operative. In 1943, he participated in the

Gran Sasso raid During World War II, the Gran Sasso raid (codenamed ''Unternehmen Eiche'', , literally "Operation Oak", by the German military) on 12 September 1943 was a successful operation by German paratroopers and ''Waffen-SS'' commandos to rescue the dep ...

rescuing Benito Mussolini from prison. According to

Manuel Contreras Juan Manuel "Mamo" Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda (4 May 1929 – 7 August 2015) was a Chilean Army officer and the former head of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Chile's secret police during the ...

, he allegedly supplied the

Pinochet regime Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

with arms and helicopters. In 1976, he and Manuel Contreras traveled to Tehran to offer the Shah regime help in killing Carlos the Jackal.

Awards

* Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 6 December 1944 as ''

Hauptmann is a German word usually translated as captain when it is used as an officer's rank in the German, Austrian, and Swiss armies. While in contemporary German means 'main', it also has and originally had the meaning of 'head', i.e. ' literally ...

'' and leader of Fallschirm-Pionier-Bataillon 5Scherzer 2007, p. 538.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mertins, Gerhard 1919 births 1993 deaths Fallschirmjäger of World War II Recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross Federal Intelligence Service informants Recipients of the Gold German Cross German businesspeople Military personnel from Berlin