During the Cold War, Berlin was the epicenter of the invisible conflict, and looking beyond The Wall, lurked a top secret unit which fought the battles that we knew nothing about until recently. The men pictured are Detachment A.
In August 1956, the elite 10th SFG, based in Bad Tolz, Germany, stationed the secretive 7781 Army Unit. Each team had 6 members.
DET A conducted clandestine operations in and around the Iron Curtain. They specialized in all the arts of espionage, trained in demolitions, airborne and underwater insertions, escape & evasion, winter warfare and everything in between. The team often worked along side the SAS and German special police units. They were pretty much the real version of James Bond, using unique weapons such as coal filled with C-4 explosives, oneshot cigarette-lighter guns, vials filled with metal shavings for destruction of turbines and a wide variety of suppressed weapons; the German Walther MPK 9mm SMG that fit in a briefcase was the weapon of choice.
Originally operating in small cells, by the late 1960s the unit expanded to 12-man “A” teams. Many members were German or East European refugees who still had families trapped behind the Iron Curtain. In the early years, a significant number were WWII vets, too. Hence they brought much-needed skills along with knowledge of other nations and languages to the unit. Every member spoke fluent German and dressed mostly in authentic German civilian clothes. They sometimes carried non-American flash documentation and identification. Dual passports, or dual nationalities, were part of the deception.
In the mid 1970s, their mission expanded to deal with every growing threat of terrorism. In 1980, they participated in Operation Eagle Claw in an attempt to rescue 52 diplomats held hostage in Tehran, Iran. Detachment ‘A’ was responsible for the pre-mission reconnaissance of the targets by successfully infiltrating a team into Tehran on several occasions and contributed an element to rescue three hostages held in the MFA.
Four years later the mission of this unique outfit was deemed unnecessary even though the Cold War was far from over. At the end of 1984, Detachment A was disbanded.