The tale of Otto Skorzeny, a notorious SS officer known as “Hitler’s commando”, was already astonishing. A strapping 6ft 4in, this Reich Adonis, adorned with university fencing scars running down his left cheek, was handpicked to rescue Mussolini from captivity in 1942 in a glider raid on a remote ski resort, which he accomplished without a shot being fired.

A Nazi hero was born.

Postwar, however, he knew he was a dead man walking. Especially with the indefatigable Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in hot pursuit. So how on earth did this uber Hiterlite live to the age of 67, dying in comfort in 1975 Madrid? Simple. He started working for Mossad.

It’s just come to light from his superior, 89-year-old Rafi Eitan, that Skorzeny was hired in 1962 by Israel’s renowned secret service and killed a fellow former Nazi and wartime scientist, Heinz Krug, who was developing Egypt’s strategic missile programme.