A real legendary Basterd

A kid from a Jewish family in Nazi Germany fled with his family to America, then when America entered the war, joined the army, became a spy and helped them win. And then he lived to the age of 94!

Mayer was born in Freiburg im Breisgau, into a Jewish family. His father had been a decorated WWI hero and when the Nazis came to power and he hoped that would protect them. But when that clearly wasn’t happening, they emigrated to the US in 1938, just one year before war.

Mayer joined the US military as soon as he new country joined the war in 1941, and given that he spoke fluent German, French and Spanish, as well as his newer English, and had excelled at demolition, infiltration, raiding, sniping, and hand-to-hand combat, it became clear he would be an excellent spy. He joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), later better known as the CIA.

Operation Greenup was his great triumph during the war, when a small team he led parachuted into western Austria to infiltrate and spy on the remaining German positions there. Despite being captured, Mayer gave up no information and ended up tricking the German commander there into surrendering to someone who was actually only a sergeant!