Hitler's Raid to Save Mussolini

by Greg Annussek

  According to Monelli, the Duce “was capable of intimidating the people around him, even the most courageous and more sure of themselves, in the most extraordinary way. They would go to see him firmly intending to talk frankly, and to make him listen, and end by stuttering out a few words, unnerved by his fierce expression. Usually he received his visitors sitting straight up at his writing-table at the end of the huge, empty Mappamondo room in Palazzo Venezia; any courage the visitor possessed was spent in that endless walk from the door to the desk under those dominating eyes.”122

  But although Mussolini frequently disagreed with Hitler on vital points and spoke bitterly about the German dictator behind his back, he never quite mustered the courage to assert himself during their face-to-face meetings; indeed, at these times the Duce often remained inexplicably mum.

  “As the Italian gradually declined to the status of a vassal of Hitler’s,” observed Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s interpreter, “he became more and more silent. When I now look back at the gradual change in his demeanor during their many conversations, I am inclined to think that Mussolini realised before many others did whither the journey was taking them, and that he certainly foresaw the catastrophe looming ahead long before his German partner did.”123

  * * *

  *It is sometimes forgotten that, before he gravitated toward Hitler, Mussolini was the darling of many of the world’s conservative politicians and opinion makers. He counted Winston Churchill among his admirers.

  *Mussolini did not coin the term. A Hungarian politician had used the word “axis” in this same context two years before Mussolini adopted it as his own.

  *Throughout his political career, Mussolini made a point of showing off his physical vigor, and could often be seen shirtless in press photos. By way of contrast, Hitler avoided almost all forms of exercise (aside from short walks) after 1938 in the mistaken belief that he suffered from a bad heart.

  *In case of war, Article Five of the Pact forbade either country from concluding an armistice without the agreement of the other. This article took on special significance during the summer of 1943.

  *Mussolini was known to keep the lights on in his office (even when he was not there) to create the impression of ceaseless activity.

  *The younger, more left-wing Mussolini kept a picture of Marx in his office.

  *Dollmann, for instance, admits that he found Mussolini “so much the more intelligent, human and fascinating of the two men.” Dollmann, Interpreter, 182.

  *Hitler was not blaming Mussolini personally for these leaks, but rather the socalled traitorous clique that surrounded him.

  A DANGEROUS GAME

  Although the events in Italy made a deep impression upon him [Hitler], they in nowise succeeded in throwing him off his equilibrium. On the contrary, his brain was already at work feverishly formulating and preparing new decisions.1

  —Joseph Goebbels, from a diary entry dated July 27, 1943

  UNBEKNOWNST TO THE WORLD AT LARGE, THE COUP OF JULY 25 HAD set the stage for a dramatic showdown between the Nazis and the Italians, even though their Axis alliance remained formally intact.

  When news of the coup reached the Wolf ’s Lair on the evening of July 25, Hitler reacted with shock and outrage. Badoglio, the new Head of the Government, immediately tried to soothe him with pledges of Axis loyalty and assurances that Mussolini had resigned of his own accord; but Hitler would have none of it. He was certain that Badoglio was intent on switching sides in the war. In the secrecy of his headquarters in East Prussia, Hitler railed against Italian “treachery” and vowed to deliver swift retaliation against Rome’s fledging government within days, and maybe hours.

  With one quick, improvised stroke, he intended to arrest the Duce’s usurpers and reinstate the fallen dictator before the new government in Italy could consolidate its hold on the country or throw open its ancient gates to the enemy. It was no secret that the Allies, who were already having their way in Sicily, were sharpening their spears in the Mediterranean in preparation for a massive sea-borne invasion of the Italian peninsula.

  Though the coup was certainly a personal affront to Hitler, whose bond with Mussolini was well known, there was much more at stake than a bruised ego. If the power play in Rome was being closely coordinated with Churchill and Roosevelt—and Hitler strongly suspected this—it posed a threat of truly major proportions for the Third Reich and warranted an immediate response. In the nightmare scenario envisaged by the Nazis, the Duce’s downfall would quickly be followed by an Allied landing on the Italian mainland, sanctioned by Badoglio and probably occurring near the Gulf of Genoa.2

  An Anglo-American thrust in this region, located in northwestern Italy about two hundred miles or so north of Rome, would most likely split the peninsula in two and allow the Allies to gain control of most of the country with minimum effort. It would seal the fate of tens of thousands of German soldiers in Sicily and southern Italy by cutting their supply lifeline to the homeland and endangering their rear. It would also bring the war in Europe that much closer to Germany by opening up a new front on the doorstep of the Third Reich overnight and threatening Hitler’s vital reserves of oil and other raw materials in the nearby Balkans. Indeed, Hitler and many of his commanders were haunted by the fear that the Allies would use Italy primarily as a springboard for an invasion of the Balkans.

  The only forces available to meet this threat were the Italian armed forces; but they would offer no resistance should Badoglio decide to welcome the invaders. As for the Germans, who were caught wrongfooted by the coup, they simply did not have enough troops and armor in Italy to repel such a bold move on the part of the Allies. On July 25, the day Mussolini fell, the Nazis had only three divisions on the mainland: the Third Panzergrenadier Division in central Italy near Rome, and two more divisions in the south. The Germans did have about 60,000 troops fighting in Sicily, but it would be a relatively easy matter for the enemy to cut off and trap these island-bound forces.

  Hitler therefore believed that the Italian coup signaled the beginning of a desperate race against time. To foil the plans of Badoglio and the Allies, he said, it was crucial that the Nazis engineer a speedy countercoup in the Eternal City because they must “reckon on the Allies attacking straight away.”3 By using force to restore the Fascists to power, Hitler hoped to prevent an Italian surrender and its inevitable consequences on the military front. Finding the Duce and placing him at the head of this Fascist resurrection was an essential part of his scheme.

  Hitler’s sense of urgency in the days right after the coup was palpable and infectious. It radiated through the Wolf ’s Lair and added fuel to the general feeling among Hitler’s lieutenants that the situation in Italy would change radically in the near future—either for the better or the worse.

  “In spite of the King’s and Badoglio’s proclamation,” Erwin Rommel noted in his diary on July 26, “we can expect Italy to get out of the war, or at the very least, the British to undertake further major landings in northern Italy . . . at Genoa and Leghorn.”4 That same day, Martin Bormann dashed off a letter to his wife in which he expressed his fears: “[I]f the British were to land anywhere today, all Italy would fall into their laps, and all the Italians round their necks!”5 Goebbels prophesied that the Allies would strike within a week unless the Nazis seized Rome at once.6

  And yet, defying the apparent momentum of events, the nailbiting suspense brought about by Mussolini’s abrupt disappearance remained unbroken by the passage of the next several days. As that anxious July crawled to a close, the precipitous German action promised by Hitler never materialized: No German tanks thundered through the sweltering piazzas of the Italian capital, no paratroopers fell silently from its cloudless skies.

  But Hitler’s enemies were also slow to act. At month’s end, the newly minted Badoglio regime still had not surrendered Italy to the Allies, as Hitler had first anticipated. Though the war in Sicily continued to rage, with Germans and Italians fighting together in a losing
effort (oblivious, no doubt, to the Machiavellian intrigues going on at the highest levels of their respective governments), the Anglo-American invasion force destined for mainland Italy remained coiled in its enclaves on the coast of North Africa, unwilling to strike.

  Indeed, a week after the Italian coup, an uneasy modus vivendi seemed to prevail between the European Axis powers. This despite the conspicuous absence of Il Duce, whose whereabouts and fate were still a matter of speculation among Hitler and his cronies.

  So what accounted for this almost eerie calm that had descended over Axis relations? Though Hitler and Badoglio seemed poised to turn on each other during this period, a closer look behind the scenes reveals how a series of unexpected complications and second thoughts forced both leaders to step back from the brink of open hostility, though for how long remained to be seen.

  “When I reached my home I was immediately called by telephone from the Fuehrer’s GHQ,” Goebbels reported in his diary on July 26, one day after the coup. “The news from there sounds almost unbelievable. It is to the effect that the Duce has resigned, and that Badoglio has taken over in Italy in his place. The whole situation, I was informed, was still very obscure; such news as we received had come over the radio and was given out by Reuter. At GHQ nobody can figure out just what has really happened. The Fuehrer wants me to proceed immediately to his headquarters. He wishes there to evaluate the situation with his closest collaborators.”7

  These two themes touched on by Goebbels—namely, disbelief and confusion in regard to the events of July 25—would dominate the scene at Fuehrer Headquarters in the days to follow. Though the situation in Italy had been deteriorating for several months before the summer of 1943, the palace revolution engineered by King Victor Emmanuel was greeted with shock and surprise at the highest levels of the Nazi hierarchy, many of its members having overestimated the Duce’s ability to keep afloat the sinking ship of Fascism. More to the point, the crisis also sparked a prolonged debate between Hitler and his top lieutenants concerning the significance of the coup and how Germany should respond.

  The gravity of the situation was reflected in the hasty summons of Nazi VIPs to the Wolf ’s Lair for the intense, almost unceasing series of meetings that occurred in the days after Mussolini’s fall. Among the dozens of Party bigwigs and lesser lights nervously pacing the hallways at GHQ during this chaotic time were Goebbels; Hermann Goering, the chief of the Luftwaffe; Marshal Rommel, the Desert Fox, who had flown in from Greece; the SS chief, Heinrich Himmler; Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister, who was suffering from the flu; and Hitler’s favorite architect, Albert Speer, who was Minister for Armaments.

  “Everyone is deeply depressed,” observed the young Rudolf Semmler, who worked under Goebbels and had accompanied his chief. “Everywhere [there are] strict precautions against entry and exceptional security measures. The dictatorship smells danger.”8

  Hitler did sense danger, and had reacted energetically to the crisis. By the time his war chiefs and other advisors had arrived at the Wolf ’s Lair, he had already cooked up four main plans with which to deal the Italians a counter blow.9 Taken as a whole, this ambitious program was intended to accomplish several goals: to overthrow the Badoglio government in Rome by force, to rescue the Duce and reinstate him as the captain of the Italian state, and to secure the southern front of the Third Reich against the Allies. The lattermost objective, which was naturally considered paramount, was to be achieved by occupying Italy with German troops and establishing a solid line of defense.

  Two of Hitler’s plans were being improvised on the spot, namely, Operation Oak, the mission to find and rescue Mussolini; and Operation Student, the armed takeover of the Italian capital and the restoration of the Fascist regime, which also involved arresting the king, Badoglio, and various other Italian notables.*10 The other two operations had been conceived at an earlier date—such was the sorry state of Axis relations—and were now being revisited in light of current events. One of these, Operation Black, was the blueprint for Hitler’s military occupation of the Italian peninsula.11 Operation Axis, the last of the four plans, was designed to achieve the capture or destruction of the Italian fleet lest it fall into enemy hands and be used against the Germans.12

  Needless to say, executing any of the four operations would constitute a flagrant violation of the fragile alliance that still existed in name between the Nazis and the Badoglio regime; indeed, Badoglio’s control of the Italian armed forces could potentially jeopardize any one of these Nazi maneuvers. But, then again, risky moves were nothing new for Hitler. Had he not conquered most of Europe by single handedly taking a series of political and military high-stakes gambles? Even if he did not possess hard evidence to support his suspicions, the man who had swept the strongest armies of the Western world from the Continent was loath to sit on his hands while the Italians connived with his enemies to destroy him.

  Problems, however, arose immediately. For one thing, Hitler’s strident call to action ignited stiff opposition from most of his generals, who doubted the feasibility of a quick solution. “At night there was another conference with the Fuehrer,” Goebbels noted in his diary on July 27, referring to one of the major brainstorming sessions. “He once more developed his view that action against Italy or against the rebellious camarilla must be undertaken as quickly as possible.” But as the propaganda guru quickly noted, one of Hitler’s best commanders advised caution: “Rommel thinks this action should be prepared adequately and upon mature reflection. The debate lasted until far after midnight. Unfortunately it led to no final result as the number of participants was too large; about thirty-five persons took part.”13

  Rommel’s was not a lone voice. Though men such as Goebbels, Goering, and Ribbentrop adopted Hitler’s point of view, most of the Fuehrer’s top soldiers contended that Germany did not have enough forces on the ground in Italy to carry out his grandiose schemes.14 At this precarious stage of the war, with German armies hard-pressed in the East and in Sicily, the Fuehrer’s weary, practical-minded generals had no enthusiasm for risky adventures on mainland Italy; after all, that nation’s army and an unfriendly populace could join ranks and foil Nazi improvisations. These points were driven home that same day by Admiral Karl Doenitz, chief of the German navy, who argued hotly with Hitler during another meeting.

  “A removal of the present [Italian] leaders by us might . . . have an undesirable effect . . . if it is not skillfully engineered,” warned Doenitz, who was skeptical of Hitler’s plan to cart off the new Italian government by force and resurrect the Fascist regime. “I doubt that Fascism still means anything either to those who favor continuing the war on our side or to the Italian people themselves. It is not to be expected that we can superimpose conditions on the Italian people. . . . All will depend on the correct timing of any contemplated action against the present Italian government.”15

  Doenitz was deeply concerned about the risks of acting prematurely. He suggested that Hitler maintain the alliance with Italy long enough to increase the number of German troops on the peninsula. “I believe there is still time, and that it can be used by us for further strengthening our position in the Italian area by bringing in several more divisions.”16

  Hitler bridled with impatience. “We must act at once,” he told Doenitz. “Otherwise the Anglo-Saxons will steal a march on us by occupying the airports. The Fascist Party is at the present only stunned and will rise up again behind our lines. The Fascist Party is the only one that is willed to fight on our side. We must therefore restore it. All reasons advocating further delays are wrong; thereby we run the danger of losing Italy to the Anglo-Saxons.” He arrogantly brushed off the sailor’s nagging reservations: “These are matters which a soldier cannot comprehend. Only a man with political insight can see his way clear.”17

  Yet, to Hitler’s annoyance, other high-ranking military advisors, such as Keitel, Jodl, and Rommel, also voiced their hesitations about Operation Student during this conference and
advocated a gradual infiltration.

  Hitler received more novel advice from Marshal Albert Kesselring, the overall commander of German forces in Italy. Kesselring, nicknamed “Smiling Albert” by his troops, was an optimist by nature and, what was rarer among Hitler’s soldiers, had a reputation for being an Italophile.18 He went so far as to suggest that Badoglio should be taken at his word.

  “Kesselring believes that the present [Italian] government is trustworthy,” Doenitz noted, “and he is therefore against any interference on our part.”19 Hitler could only roll his eyes. “Kesselring is a terrific optimist,” Hitler had remarked two months earlier, “and we must be careful that in his optimism, shall we say, he doesn’t misjudge the hour when optimism must give way to severity.”20 To Hitler’s mind, Kesselring’s faith in the Italians reflected an incredible and dangerous naïveté. Hitler was irritated to learn that most of the German diplomats based in Rome also put stock in Badoglio’s repeated pledges of friendship.

  The endless debates at the Wolf ’s Lair in the days following the coup boiled down to one overriding question: Should the Germans risk taking strong action against the new Italian government immediately — by invading Rome and restoring the Fascists to power—or should they take a more conservative, wait-and-see attitude? If carried out effectively, the first option just might prevent the Italians from switching sides in the war (but it could also result in disaster). On the other hand, choosing the latter course would provide the German army with time to build up its forces on the ground in Italy, which in turn would increase Hitler’s odds of success should the Nazis be forced to fight the combined armies of the Italians and the Allies in the not-too-distant future.