Hitler's Raid to Save Mussolini

by Greg Annussek

  “Most of the northern Italian cities are in our hands,” Goebbels was already reassuring himself on September 11. “Above all, contact with our troops in the south has been re-established and secured. Thus the main problems connected with our security in Italy have been solved.”52

  The Nazis were also well on their way to disarming Italian soldiers throughout the country either by negotiation or by force. Those stationed in foreign lands, such as France and the Balkans, also laid down their arms under the shadow of German bayonets. Most Italian troops—hundreds of thousands of them—were taken prisoner on Hitler’s orders; Kesselring, whose forces were already stretched to the limit, allowed the soldiers in his sphere of command to return to their homes.*

  There were a few bright spots for the new partnership between Italy and the Allies. The Italian navy, its reputation never having suffered the indignities leveled at Mussolini’s army and air force, managed to score a victory of sorts by escaping the clutches of the Nazis. This was not through a dramatic feat of arms but rather the result of a theatrical deception on the part of the Italians. Admiral Raffaele De Courten, chief of the navy, had met with Kesselring on September 7, one day before the surrender.53 He informed the gullible Kesselring that the Italians were preparing to take to the seas in a heroic effort to do battle with the enemy.

  With tears in his eyes, De Courten informed the German commander that the navy would either destroy the Allied fleet or die trying. “Admiral de Courten explained that according to all the signs an Allied landing on the mainland was imminent,” recalled General Siegfried Westphal, Kesselring’s chief of staff, “and that the Italian Navy did not want to remain idle in harbour while this vital struggle was in progress. . . . Therefore the Navy’s heaviest units would shortly make a surprise sortie from La Spezia to steam around the western cape of Sicily and seek an engagement with the British fleet, which would end either in victory or on the sea’s bed. . . . The emotion with which de Courten made his statement, his tears and his invocation of the German blood that flowed in his veins from his mother’s side, did not fail to make a deep impression.”54

  By the time the Nazis got wise to De Courten’s ruse, most of the fleet had already escaped by sea, bound for the safe haven of Alliedcontrolled Malta. The fleet, which departed Genoa and La Spezia on the evening of September 8, did not have the luxury of air cover. The Luftwaffe managed to sink the Roma and damage the Italia, but the majority of vessels arrived in Malta on September 11 in one piece.55 “The splendid prize of the whole fleet of what had been a victorious Power of the first rank thus fell into our hands,” Churchill boasted.56

  Angry about losing the fleet, the Nazis executed several Italian commanders at La Spezia who, having failed to get away, had scuttled their ships rather than hand them over to the Germans.57 It was just one instance of the widespread brutality exhibited by the Nazis throughout the peninsula in the several days following Italy’s surrender.

  Now that the Germans had more or less stabilized the situation on the peninsula, they needed to figure out their next move: What was to be Hitler’s strategy for defending Italy now that it had switched sides in the war? For Hitler and Rommel, the answer was fairly obvious. Kesselring was to evacuate southern Italy and hand over his divisions to Rommel, his rival, who was to assume command of all German forces in Italy and defend the northern enclave against the Western armies.

  Just two days after the surrender, Goebbels repeated this refrain. “Naturally we shall not be able to hold southern Italy,” he confided to his diary on September 10. “We must withdraw northward beyond Rome. We shall now establish ourselves in the defense line that the Fuehrer always envisaged; namely, the line of the [northern] Apennine Mountains. The Fuehrer hopes we can withdraw that far and at that point build up a first line of defense.”58

  But Kesselring, for one, was beginning to have his doubts about the wisdom of handing Italy over to the Allies as a gift, even the southern and central regions. True to form, he was inclined to view the situation in a much more favorable light. The defection of the Italian navy notwithstanding, he could barely believe his good fortune in the days after Avalanche. Despite the surrender of Italy and an Allied invasion, four-fifths of the country remained firmly in German hands.59

  He was lucky, of course, that the Allies had not mounted an assault closer to Rome: Such a move would have instantly sent the Germans in southern Italy scurrying to the north in an effort to avoid being cut off and trapped. “An air landing on Rome and sea landing nearby, instead of at Salerno, would have automatically caused us to evacuate all the southern half of Italy,” Kesselring later admitted.60

  The choice of Salerno as the invasion point was decided primarily by the limitations of Allied air power and the desire to capture a major port—Naples—early in the campaign. The fighters based on Sicily had an effective combat radius of 180 miles, and this factor eliminated potential landing sites north of Salerno. Aircraft carriers might have changed this equation, but they were unavailable in sufficient quantity.61 The Allies’ obsession with air cover, which Kesselring had anticipated, helps to explain how the Nazis were able to predict a landing in the Salerno area.

  If anyone had the right to feel vindicated by the events of September 8, that man was Adolf Hitler. It was Hitler, after all, who had predicted the Italian surrender for weeks on end, beginning on the night of July 25. He had argued about it with his subordinates. He had barked at the doubters among the Germans, he had bullied and cajoled them. And yet when the moment finally arrived, it came as a heavy blow.

  Goebbels, who had joined him at the Wolf ’s Lair in the wake of the armistice, noted the depth of Hitler’s reaction. “The Fuehrer anticipated Italian treason as something absolutely certain,” Goebbels noted on September 10. “He was really the only one who firmly counted on it. And yet, when it actually happened, it upset him pretty badly. He hadn’t thought it possible that this treachery would be committed in such a dishonorable manner.”*62 Upset indeed! Why, the Italian surrender was nothing less than a “gigantic example of swinishness,” Hitler told Goebbels.63

  Needless to say, Badoglio’s double cross presented the Germans with a monumental PR dilemma. Italy’s defection was bound to send shudders through the homeland as well as such Nazi satellite states as Hungary and Rumania, which had already been shaken by the fall of Mussolini. In light of these factors, Hitler could no longer maintain his media silence. After dodging the German people for months and ignoring the special pleading by Goebbels and Doenitz, the Fuehrer reluctantly took to the airwaves on September 10. In so doing, he tried to put a Nazi spin on the loss of Italy and minimize its impact at home and abroad.

  “Freed from the heavy burden of expectation weighing on us for a long time,” Hitler said in a sixteen-minute recorded speech, “I now consider that the moment has come again to address myself to the German people without having to resort to lies, either to myself or to the public. The collapse of Italy, which has now taken place, was an event that could have been anticipated for a long time.” It could have been expected, Hitler explained, because there were“certain circles” in Italy that had been working for some time to undermine the Rome-Berlin alliance. “What these men had been aspiring to for years has now been achieved. The Italian leaders of state have gone over from the German Reich, ally of Italy, to the common enemy.”64

  Though the Duce’s domestic foes had tried to undermine his Fascist regime as well as his relationship with Hitler, Germany, by way of contrast, had been a faithful friend of Italy and had repeatedly come to its aid during the war, notably in North Africa and the Balkans. Hitler had allowed Germany to make these sacrifices only because of his admiration for one man: Mussolini.

  The German Reich, and I as its Fuehrer, could only adopt this attitude because it was known that one of the most outstanding men of modern times was at the head of Italy, the greatest son of Italian soil since the collapse of the ancient empire. . . . His fall and the disgraceful insults to which he w
as subjected will be felt with the deepest shame by future generations of the Italian people. . . . I personally was seized with understandable sorrow at the unique historic injustice inflicted on this man, at the shameful treatment meted out to a man who for twenty years lived only for his people and who is now treated as a common criminal. I was and still am happy to describe this great and loyal man as my friend.65

  The speech also included several warnings. One was aimed at Germans who contemplated a regime change in the Reich. “Hope of finding traitors here rests on complete ignorance of the character of the National Socialist State; a belief that they can bring about a July 25 in Germany rests on a fundamental illusion as to my personal position as well as about the attitude of my political collaborators and my field marshals, admirals and generals.”66

  The second warning was for Italy. “The measures decreed for the protection of German interests in the face of events in Italy are very hard. In so far as they affect Italy they are being applied according to plan and already with good results. The example of Yugoslavia’s betrayal had given us in advance a salutary lesson and valuable experience.”67

  This was an ominous reference. As everyone knew, Hitler’s Luftwaffe practically razed the capital of Yugoslavia (Belgrade) when that country’s new leaders attempted to break free of the Nazis. About 17,000 civilians were killed during the Belgrade bombings alone.68 Yugoslavia fell to the Germans within a matter of days.

  * * *

  *Allied resources were being husbanded for the Normandy invasion scheduled for 1944 and were also devoted to the effort in the Pacific Theatre.

  *On September 9, the Allies also landed a small force (the British First Airborne Division) at Taranto, on Italy’s heel. This landing was conducted in the absence of enemy resistance.

  *In fairness, it can also be argued that the Allies made a misstep by clinging stubbornly to the unconditional surrender formula during the summer of 1943. This stance made it difficult to reach a speedy agreement with the Italians and may have undermined their incentive to provide maximum support.

  *By September 14, the Germans had disarmed fifty-six Italian divisions, and another twenty-nine were partially disarmed. They captured 700,000 Italian soldiers along with mountains of war equipment. Lamb, War in Italy, 21.

  *The suspense had become almost unbearable for Hitler. On September 7, the day before the surrender announcement, he had decided to force the issue by giving Badoglio an ultimatum requiring him to explain his suspicious behavior or face the consequences. Hitler had intended to deliver this message on September 9.

  A SIMPLE PLAN

  We didn’t have much time. The Allies had just invaded the Italian peninsula. Gen. Student wanted to mount the operation quickly. So I had my plan ready in a matter of hours.1

  —Major Harold Mors on the Nazis’ final attempt to snatch Mussolini

  THE SURPRISE ANNOUNCEMENT OF ITALY’S SURRENDER DID NOTHING to alter Hitler’s plans to rescue Mussolini. If anything, the changed circumstances forced the Nazis to redouble their efforts. “Each day, indeed each hour of delay,” Skorzeny recalled, “increased the danger of the Duce’s being transferred to still another place of confinement. Then there was that other eventuality which we dreaded most: Suppose the prisoner were handed over to the Allies who had doubtless requested this.”2 Just for good measure, Himmler sent a telegram to Rome on September 9 reminding the would-be rescuers that the liberation of Mussolini was still a top priority, armistice or no armistice.

  These were the days of violence and confusion in the Eternal City. At first, Student and his Second Parachute Division—which, along with the Third Panzergrenadier Division, was facing five Italian divisions in Rome—were too busy trying to subdue their former allies to contemplate a rescue of the Duce. “All considerations and preparations concerning the liberation of Mussolini were temporarily pushed into the background,” Student remembered.3

  On the day of Himmler’s telegram, for instance, the paratroopers had carried out an operation of a different nature: a bold airborne assault on Italian army headquarters at Monterotondo, outside Rome. “I made an attempt to seize the Italian General Headquarters by dropping on it from the air,” Student recalled. “This was only a partial success. While thirty generals and a hundred and fifty other officers were captured in one part of the headquarters, another part held out.”4 By Student’s own admission, the Italians had put up a fierce resistance.5

  But by September 10, the day on which Rome fell and the local situation began to stabilize, the Mussolini task force was already turning its attention back to the Gran Sasso, where they believed the dictator was being held.6 The testimony of Leo Krutoff, Student’s Italian-speaking medical officer, had helped confirm the location. Back on the morning of September 8, before the Axis powers came to blows, he had made an attempt to visit the Campo Imperatore to find out whether the Italians would allow German soldiers to recuperate there.

  Krutoff, who knew nothing of Operation Oak, never made it to the hotel. In fact, as he later informed Student and Skorzeny, he ran into an Italian roadblock before reaching the lower cable car station near Assergi, the small village on the lower reaches of the mountain. He did manage to speak to a few locals from whom he learned that the carabinieri had taken over the hotel recently and stationed a couple of hundred men there. As Student later wrote: “Doubts were hardly possible any more.”*7

  On the evening of September 10, Student made up his mind to spring Mussolini from his lofty prison on the Gran Sasso a few days hence.8 But how was he to accomplish this tricky feat? It would no doubt be a “very risky business,” he thought.9 The Campo Imperatore, after all, was situated on a stark plateau at an elevation of almost 7,000 feet. It was accessible only by way of the small cable car that traveled the 3,000 feet between the hotel and Assergi. (In 1943, there was no useable road connecting Assergi with the hotel as there is today, just a narrow mule track.)10

  The most straightforward option involved sending an assault team up the slope of the mountain, but this plan was rejected for several reasons. A large number of soldiers would be required to surround the plateau to prevent the Italians from escaping with their prisoner at the last moment. Heavy German casualties could be expected. As Skorzeny later pointed out, it would be difficult for a large ground attack to achieve the all-important element of surprise. “Our trump ace should be total surprise,” he wrote, “for, beyond all strategic considerations, we feared the carabinieri might have received orders to kill their prisoner rather than let him escape.”11

  A skydiving commando was also considered. But though Student’s men were experts at paratrooper operations, there was no enthusiasm at Frascati for applying these methods to the Gran Sasso. For one thing, the troops might descend too rapidly in the thin atmosphere. Assuming they did land safely, the unpredictable wind gusts surrounding the plateau would probably scatter the soldiers over a wide area, making it difficult for them to organize themselves quickly for a concentrated attack against the hotel.

  The only method that seemed at all feasible was a potentially hazardous glider landing. Using conventional aircraft was out of the question because there was not a proper airstrip on the Gran Sasso. But it was thought that a dozen or so troop-carrying gliders, which were able to land on almost any surface, might be able to swoop down onto the plateau more or less intact. The sheer implausibility of the idea was likely to provide just the sort of psychological shock necessary for a lightning assault.

  “Our only solution, therefore,” according to Skorzeny, “lay in the landing of several gliders. But was there any ground, close to the hotel, that would permit such a landing?”12 Skorzeny believed that there was. During his reconnaissance mission over the Gran Sasso, he had noticed what appeared to be a small meadow adjacent to the building. With a little luck, he thought, it might be possible to land the gliders there.

  The aerial photos were not much help. Skorzeny’s plans to have them enlarged were foiled by the Allied bombing of Fra
scati, which destroyed the main photography facility. He eventually managed to have the pictures developed, but the prints were only four inches square and resembled a bad batch of vacation snapshots.13 Yet, with a little squinting, one could discern the outlines of the meadow that Skorzeny had spied while dangling outside the Heinkel. After examining the photos, Student made a decision. “By looking at them it was clear that the undertaking, if at all possible, could only be executed using small gliders that were put to the test when taking Fort Eben Emael.”14

  This, of course, was a reference to the dramatic paratrooper mission targeting the Belgian stronghold of Eben Emael at the beginning of the war. By 1943, the operation was already the stuff of legend, having earned the highest admiration of military men around the world. It was General Student and his soldiers who had planned it and carried it out.

  The general concept for the raid reportedly originated with Hitler, who in the fall of 1939 was brooding over his future plans to invade France.15 These called for a fast-moving offensive through Holland and Belgium coupled with a surprise thrust through the Ardennes forest. But Eben Emael, a famous fort located on the Albert Canal, threatened to wreak havoc with his invasion. For the Germans to make speedy progress through Belgium, it was necessary for them to capture the three main bridges over the canal before the enemy had a chance to destroy them. The guns of Eben Emael, nestled snugly in the confines of this large and seemingly impregnable fortress, could quickly destroy the bridges in the event of a German attack.

  Hitler reckoned that a conventional assault against the fort— which was situated on a 150-foot ridge and designed to withstand artillery shelling and aerial bombardment—would take hours or days and would not prevent the Belgian gun crews from bringing down the bridges before his soldiers had a chance to stop them.16 The German dictator, who was generally enthusiastic about unorthodox ideas, believed that glider aircraft might provide the solution.