BERLIN, March 2 (UPI) -- A former top security chief who founded a German elite military unit has come under fire for comparing it to Nazi special forces.
"Secret Warriors" is the title of a new book by Ulrich Wegener, the founder of the GSG9 special unit that became famous after it successfully stormed a German passenger plane kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1977.
In the book, Wegener and his co-author Reinhard Guenzel, a former head of the GSG9, said the military units Kommanod Spezialkraefte, or KSK -- which has fought with the U.S.-led anti-terror operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan -- had its roots in the special division 'Brandenburg' of the Wehrmacht, the Nazi army.
KSK soldiers knew exactly "where their roots are," Guenzel wrote in the book. Wegener wrote that camaraderie and corps spirit are learned from the former Nazi unit.
The book has been put on the market by a publishing house that authorities say belongs to far-right owners.
A senior defense expert of the governing Social Democrats has since asked the defense and interior ministries to reassess the authors' pension entitlements.
