SAS called in to teach the Germans a lesson

SAS called in to teach the Germans a lesson By Andrew Gilligan and Chris Oliver Wilson

TO Michael Portillo, it is the embodiment of Britain: "three letters that send a chill down the spine of the enemy". But now the SAS is to share its brutal secrets with the Germans.

The regiment will work alongside an old foe as it plays a key part in setting up and training the German Army's new special combat force, the Kommando Spezialkräfte, or KSK. Explicitly modelled on the SAS, the new unit will specialise in behind-the-lines operations and hostage rescues of the kind that the men in balaclavas have made famous.

Brigadier-General Eckart Fischer, the German military attaché in London, said: "The SAS are a very experienced force and we are happy to learn from them."

Training will take place at the SAS's secure centre at Pontrilas, 10 miles from the regiment's Hereford headquarters. German KSK hopefuls will train with new British SAS recruits for at least some of the time as follow the same taxing endurance and fitness regimes.

German sources said that the KSK was designed to be deployed outside Germany against groups which might threaten German national interests, "wherever they may be". It will perform tasks of a "crisis-prevention or solving" nature.

The force is a new departure for the post-war German military, which has always resisted creating elite corps for fear of inviting comparisons with notorious wartime units such as the Waffen-SS. But any parallels were firmly denied last week. "Otto Skorzeny (the Nazi commando who rescued Mussolini from captivity) is history," said General Fischer. "We don't want to build on that tradition."

The new unit, launched last week, is instead partly designed to demonstrate that Germany is willing to take a greater military role in Europe. The country's constitution was recently changed to allow federal forces to operate outside the umbrella of Nato.

"When we restructured our forces, we realised that there were certain things they could not do," said General Fischer. "We had to borrow Belgian paratroops in order to bring out German citizens from Rwanda. We found that embarrassing."

The Ministry of Defence said it was flattered that the Germans appreciated the work of the SAS. "We have warm and constructive relations with all our Nato allies, especially the Germans," said a spokesman.