Major Taussig

Major Taussig was a cold and ruthless Waffen-SS officer serving under Colonel Jannings in Italy in 1944. Told to root out partisan activity, he and his men drove into the town of Reanoto, where Taussig had (he thought) the entire population of the village rounded up and executed under suspicion of hiding Partisan leader Scarpi and his men, unaware that there were several children from the town watching from afar. Following the massacre, Taussig turned the now empty town into the new SS headquarters of the region.

When Jannings turned the efforts to hunt down the lone American Captain Turner into an SS-led affair due to the death of Corporal Gunther, he put Captain von Hecht and his men under the command of Taussig in Reanoto. The two took an instant dislike to one another. While Taussig went to the Grimaldi Tunnel, which Jannings mistakenly believed was Turner's target, he left von Hecht and his three men Schwalberg, Ehrlich and Hermann in town. Disobeying orders, von Hecht and his men left to scout the woods for the missing Corporal Merkel and his men, as well as any signs of Turner heading for the Della Norte Dam.

While both were gone, the orphans of Reanoto, led by Turner, swept into town in a surprise attack and slaughtered the entire compliment of SS. When they returned, Taussig was horrified. Despite this, he refused to listen to von Hecht when the Wehrmacht officer tried to convince him that Turner's true target was the dam. An enraged von Hecht then pulled his Luger and shot Taussig dead on the spot.