73 Facts About Rolf Steiner

Rolf Steiner was born on 3 January 1933 and is a German retired mercenary.

Rolf Steiner began his military career as a French Foreign Legion paratrooper and saw combat in Vietnam, Egypt, and Algeria.

Rolf Steiner is the son of a Protestant father and Catholic mother.

Rolf Steiner later claimed to have fought as a Jungvolk volunteer in the Volkssturm militia in the final days of the Second World War, but no evidence exists to support this claim outside of his own memoirs.

Rolf Steiner stated that his father who had served in the Luftwaffe committed suicide in 1937 after failing a "racial hygiene test" as it was discovered that one of his ancestors was a Jewish woman who converted to Lutheranism in the 18th century to marry a Gentile.

Rolf Steiner stated that his mother abandoned him in 1944 when he was 11, leaving him to be brought up at a nunnery in Lower Bavaria.

Rolf Steiner maintains his teachers called him a "filthy Jew" and he was thrown into the Ganacker concentration camp in February 1945 after he was caught throwing food to the inmates.

In 1948, at the age of 16, Rolf Steiner decided to study for the priesthood.

Rolf Steiner intended to become a Catholic missionary in Africa.

When he was 17, Rolf Steiner enlisted in the French Foreign Legion at Offenburg, and was sent to Sidi-bel-Abbes in Algeria.

Rolf Steiner intensely wanted to be a soldier, and since the Wehrmacht had been abolished together with the German state in 1945, joining the Foreign Legion was the best way to satisfy his martial ambitions.

Rolf Steiner first saw action in 1951, loading a machine gun that he was forced to take over after the Hungarian operator was wounded and then bled to death.

Rolf Steiner claimed to have lost one of his lungs due to a Viet Minh bullet at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, but the British journalist Frederick Forsyth denied this claim, stating that Rolf Steiner's lung was removed by doctors after he was infected with tuberculosis in 1959.

However, Rolf Steiner expressed much regret that he did not fight in the legendary Battle of Dien Bien Phu where the French paratroopers and Foreign Legionaries fought ferociously against overwhelming odds for four months, saying he would have very much enjoyed the carnage of Dien Bien Phu.

Rolf Steiner was later posted to Algeria where he met his future wife Odette, a Pied-Noir.

Rolf Steiner spent five years from 1956 to 1961 fighting in Algeria.

In 1961, Rolf Steiner took part in the attempted military coup d'etat against de Gaulle.

Rolf Steiner joined the OAS less because of politics because of "a spirit of camaraderie".

Rolf Steiner was eventually arrested, sentenced to nine months in prison, and then released into civilian life.

The French secret service, the Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionnage was sponsoring mercenaries to fight for Biafra, and Rolf Steiner was one of the mercenaries recruited.

French documents declassified in 2017 confirmed what had long been suspected; the recruitment of mercenaries such as Rolf Steiner to fight for Biafra, together with the supply of arms, were orchestrated by the "Africa cell" within the French government headed by the controversial French civil servant Jacques Foccart.

Rolf Steiner flew to Port Harcourt via Lisbon, Portugal and Libreville and enlisted into the Biafran army.

Rolf Steiner was one of the few who chose to stay on, becoming their leader due to his seniority as a former sergeant in the French Foreign Legion.

Rolf Steiner's first project upon arriving in 1967 was an attempt to create a brown water navy for Biafra by converting some river boats into gun boats.

Rolf Steiner argued that with Biafra being flanked on three side by rivers, most notably the natural defensive barrier of the great Niger River, that controlling the riparian waters was essential.

Together with the Italian mercenary Giorgio Norbiato, a former Marine Commando with the Italian Navy, Rolf Steiner converted three Chris-Craft Boats from the Port Harcourt Sailing Club into makeshift gunboats.

Rolf Steiner was given the command 4th Biafran Commando Brigade, composed of 3,000 men, as a lieutenant colonel.

Rolf Steiner had wanted to conduct irregular operations, but the need to defend the oil wells of Biafra led him and his men being assigned a much more conventional role after March 1968.

However, Rolf Steiner and the 4th Commando Brigade put up a very stubborn defense that finally shattered the 3rd Marine Division.

Rolf Steiner started to press for the Biafrans to launch an offensive to seize Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, in a plan that was widely considered to be insane as Lagos was too far away from the front.

Rolf Steiner revelled in the war and was well known for his eccentricities, such as pulling out his Browning Hi-Power handgun and firing into the air whenever he wanted people to pay attention to him.

Venter wrote that Rolf Steiner was an "austere, engaging" man who quickly became a favorite of the journalists covering the war who found the flamboyant, eccentric mercenary a good news story.

The fact that Rolf Steiner usually spoke either in his native German or French limited the impact of his rants, as his Ibgo-speaking soldiers did not understand what he was saying, causing him to finally switch over to English.

Rolf Steiner was known for arbitrarily demoting and promoting men up the ranks, though he was considered to be a good judge of talent by promoting capable men to provide leadership at the tactical level.

When Rolf Steiner promoted one Ibgo soldier to captain, there were complaints that it was not acceptable to have a man who did not know how to use cutlery and who ate food with his fingers eating in the officers' mess; Rolf Steiner replied that he did not care if he ate with his feet as long as he was a good officer.

Rolf Steiner claimed to have fought for Biafra for idealistic reasons, saying the Igbo people were the victims of genocide, but the American journalist Ted Morgan mocked his claims, describing Rolf Steiner as a militarist who simply craved war because killing was the only thing he knew how to do well.

Rolf Steiner enjoyed strutting around in fatigues, and leading his Biafran commandos into battle.

The troops do not seem to mind the harshness of the command; they follow Rolf Steiner because they believe he is a winner and because he has juju.

Rolf Steiner insisted on giving his commands in "Legionarie French", though the British journalist John St Jorre described Rolf Steiner's English as "quite competent".

On 15 November 1968 Rolf Steiner ordered Operation Hiroshima with the aim of retaking Onitsha and stopping the Nigerian advance.

Baxter wrote that Rolf Steiner "ordered a surprisingly ill-conceived full frontal assault against Nigerian positions across an open area without artillery, air or fire support".

On 6 December 1968, Rolf Steiner was ordered to present himself before Ojukwu and explain his failure.

Rolf Steiner ordered a glass of beer and became extremely angry when he found the beer was warm, smashing his glass as he maintained that he deserved cold beer.

When Ojukwu refused, Rolf Steiner attempted to slap him across the face, leading to a brawl with Ojukwu's bodyguards.

Rolf Steiner's departure was greeted with much relief by the Biafran officers.

Rolf Steiner was more of a bad influence than anything else.

The Indian historian Pradeep Baru wrote that the 4th Commando Brigade, under Rolf Steiner's leadership, had a "poor operational record" and by late 1968 several Biafran officers felt that Rolf Steiner was more of a liability than an asset for Biafra.

Jowett wrote that Rolf Steiner was over-confident and became "delusional" in his self-assessment of his abilities.

Rolf Steiner offered his services to Idi Amin, then commander of the Ugandan Army, and arrived in the Sudan in July 1969 where he started by supervising the building of an airfield to fly in arms.

In November 1969, Rolf Steiner definitely attached himself to the faction led by General Emilio Tafeng who he was serving as a military adviser.

Rolf Steiner suggested to Tafeng that arms could be smuggled into the Sudan via Uganda under the guise of humanitarian aid, saying it would be easy to hide arms and ammunition among the blankets, medical supplies and agricultural implements.

Rolf Steiner further suggested that Tafeng should overthrow Nile Provisional Government President Gordon Muortat and, once Tafeng was in charge, appoint Rolf Steiner chief of staff of Anyanya.

Rolf Steiner said the only time he was ever happy was when he went into battle.

Rolf Steiner told me that he thinks of himself as a 17th century man.

The locals told Reed that the previous year Rolf Steiner had ordered them to build an airfield, saying that "plane loads of arms and relief aid" from the West would then be flown in.

Rolf Steiner was noted for his eccentric training and leadership methods such as firing his gun near the feet of sentries he caught sleeping at night, making recruits ride leap swings through fires, and making trainees sit in a circle with their feet facing a mortar tube while he fired a round.

Rolf Steiner began to train Tafeng's men at his base in Morta and led a "daring attack" on the Sudanese Army post at Kajo Keji.

Nimeiry's offensive resumed in September 1970 with several Anyanya camps, including the camp at Morta where Rolf Steiner had been based, taken by the Sudanese Army.

In November 1970, Rolf Steiner decided to return to Europe and departed for Kampala, Uganda where he was promptly arrested as part of a power struggle between Amin and President Milton Obote.

On 18 January 1971, Rolf Steiner appeared at a press conference in Khartoum, where he admitted that he worked as a mercenary, but denied having fought for Anyanya, saying he only served the Anyidi Revolutionary Government.

Rolf Steiner was convicted and spent three years in prison, where he was severely tortured and was eventually sentenced to death by the Sudanese courts, which then commuted the sentence to twenty years on "humanitarian" grounds.

Venter observed that had Rolf Steiner not been from the West, it was almost certain that the death sentence would have been executed.

Rolf Steiner has denied that the East German filmmakers tortured him, saying that they got him to talk by supplying him with beer.

The British historian Edgar O'Ballance wrote: "Rolf Steiner had hardly made any impression in the south, which in general seemed embarrassed by his former presence there, but in view of his experience, some of his comments on this semi-secret war are of interest".

Rolf Steiner gave his own assessment of the Anyanya guerrillas, saying they fought well against each other, but less well against the Sudanese Army.

Rolf Steiner described Anyanya as riven by factionalism, personality conflicts and an inability to co-ordinate the political and military aspects of the war.

Rolf Steiner retired to Germany where he remarried and dictated his memoirs to his ghost-writer Yves-Guy Berges, which were published in 1976 in French as La Carre rouge and as The Last Adventurer in English in 1978.

In 1976, the East German documentary Immer wenn der Rolf Steiner kam featuring interviews with Rolf Steiner in Khartoum prison was released, which sought to portray him as the puppet of Western oil companies.

Rolf Steiner later commented that the joke was on the filmmakers behind Immer wenn der Rolf Steiner kam as in fact Western oil companies had signed concessions to pump oil in what is South Sudan with the Khartoum regime, and the oil companies wanted nothing to do with Anyanya.

In 1976, Rolf Steiner tried to sue the government of the Sudan for torturing him to sum of 12 million deutschmarks, but his lawsuit was thrown out by a Cologne court.

In 1977 and 1978, Rolf Steiner visited East Germany to contact the East German officials who interviewed him in Khartoum, though to what purpose remains unclear, but in 1978 the Stasi stated there was to be no more contact with him.

In June 1982, Rolf Steiner was involved in a lawsuit in Munich as the government of the Federal Republic attempted to bill him for the cost of flying him out of Khartoum, leading him to claim that he had not wanted to leave the Sudan.

Rolf Steiner rejects the label of soldier of fortune, saying he had been defamed as he maintained: "When a man fights for what he truly believes, he is not a mercenary".