THE GREENUP OPERATION

The US Army only decided to place agent groups behind enemy lines towards the end of the war. The CIA forerunner, the „Office for Strategic Services“ OSS, The US army, the Nazis, put together shock troops to gain important military intelligence. Three men were to reconnoitre the Nazi army's arms deliveries to Italy via the Brenner Pass in the Innsbruck area, collect evidence of Hitler's invoked ‚Alpine fortress‘ and radio the findings to a US base in northern Italy. It was the beginning of an operation that went down in the annals of the US Army as the ‚most successful operation behind enemy lines‘.

JUMP ONTO THE SULZTALER FERNER

Operation Greenup„ began in a snow chaos. Jumping out of a US bomber in driving snow over the Sulztaler Ferner in the Ötztal Alps is quite a feat. Fred Mayer, Hans Wijnberg and Franz Weber landed in man-high snow on the winter night of 26 February 1945. They first fought their way to the Amberger Hütte and two days later to Gries in the Sulztal valley. At the hut, they quickly hid the two army uniforms of Mayer and Wijnberg. They would still need them after the capitulation of Hitler's Germany. 

Weber - wearing his old Wehrmacht uniform as camouflage - quickly borrowed a sledge in Gries with which the three of them transported their luggage, especially the radio, to Längenfeld. They travelled by bus to Ötztal-Bahnhof and continued by train to Inzing. From here they crept on foot to Oberperfuss, Franz Weber's home town. It was known there that he had deserted. His exposure would therefore have meant certain death. But on this day, a story begins in Oberperfuss that bears witness to incredible individual courage, the resistance of almost an entire village, courageous women and the belief that Operation Greenup could hasten the end of the horrific Nazi regime.

Source: https://www.innsbruck.info/blog/de/menschen-geschichten/operation-greenup-die-errettung-innsbrucks/