
Max Radl (1898-1943) was an Alpenkorps officer who'd retired from front line duties following the loss of his left eye and hand.
Biography[]
Born in Linz, Austria in 1898. In 1943, while he was serving in the Abwehr, he was tasked by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris to study the possibility of Adolf Hitler's plan to kidnap Winston Churchill. Canaris considered it a waste of time, but Radl dutifully undertook it anyway, and discovered that Churchill was due to arrive at an isolated Norfolk village named Studley Constable. His choice to lead the commando raid was Luftwaffe officer Oberst Kurt Steiner.
Radl reported to Heinrich Himmler about his conclusions and was told that Hitler had approved the mission. He didn't suspect that Himmler was actually lying. No such approval had come from the Führer. Himmler was acting entirely on his own accord and intended to use Radl as a scapegoat if the mission failed. Believing he was acting on the Führer's orders, Radl went and retrieved Steiner from the penal colony where he was imprisoned for helping a Jewish woman escape from the SS, and sent him on the mission to capture Churchill.
When the mission failed and Steiner was killed, Himmler shifted the blame from himself to Radl. The Oberst was arrested by an untersturmfuhrer and Hauptsturmführer Fleischer of the SD and later executed for "exceeding orders."