Hitler's Raid to Save Mussolini

by Greg Annussek

  When the Duce exited the Hotel Imperatore, he was introduced to Major Mors, who had arrived in the cable car. Technically, Mors was in charge of the entire rescue operation.151 “He was unshaven and looked ill,” Mors remembered. “He said he was glad that it was the Germans who rescued him and not the English. He told us not to shoot anybody.”152 The Germans eventually let most of the Italian soldiers go free.

  Mussolini then found himself staring into the lens of a whirring movie camera. The propaganda-savvy Germans had brought along a cameraman, by way of the cable car, to document for posterity the triumphant scene on the Gran Sasso.153 In the newsreel footage released afterward, the Duce could be seen standing in front of the hotel wearing a dark overcoat, which was too big for him, and black felt hat, flanked by a dense crowd of smiling German soldiers.154 Mussolini himself looked tired and wore a faint smile.

  He then walked across the windy plateau and stepped into the Stork. As he strode toward the plane, the German soldiers, as well as some of the Italian carabinieri, raised their arms in the Fascist salute and chanted “Duce!”155 Mussolini took his place in the second seat, right behind the cockpit. Skorzeny wedged himself into the luggage space behind the Duce. It was a tight squeeze.

  At 3:00 P.M. or so they were ready to depart.156 It was to be an aircraft-carrier-style takeoff: The improvised “runway” was just a downward slope about two hundred yards long, and at the end of it was a deep chasm.157 Gerlach applied full power to the single 240- horsepower engine of the Stork, but the machine did not budge.158 On the pilot’s instructions, some German soldiers were holding on to it so that Gerlach could build the rpms.159 Finally, at his signal, the men let go of the Stork and it sprang down the hill to the cheers of the soldiers. The aircraft was jostled roughly as it rolled over half-buried stones that could not be removed.160

  About two-thirds of the way down the slope, a narrow ditch ran directly across the Stork’s path. At the last moment, Gerlach yanked back on the stick and the plane rose a few inches, tipping slightly to the left before slamming back onto the ground. “The left wheel of the landing gear struck the soil violently once again,” wrote Skorzeny, whose two hands were gripping the steel frame. “The plane gave a slight nosedive and there we were at the edge of the plateau. Swerving towards the left, the machine seesawed in the void. I closed my eyes. All my efforts had been in vain! I held my breath, awaiting the inevitable, horrible crash.”161

  “There was still some shouting,” Mussolini remembered of the final moments of takeoff, “some waving of arms; and then came the silence of the upper air.”162 Radl, who was standing guard over the Duce’s luggage, watched anxiously as the Stork rolled down the slope, hopped over the ditch, and then disappeared beyond the edge of the plateau: “My knees fail. Completely,” he remembered. “My legs are gone. I feel myself falling.”163

  Radl collapsed onto the luggage. An eerie silence then swept through the crowd as they listened for the sound of the Stork.164 “Everything is in vain,” Radl thought to himself. “They crashed.”165 The Stork did, in fact, plummet straight into the abyss. But instead of trying to pull the nose up, Gerlach, demonstrating nerves of steel, consciously put the plane in a terrifying nosedive in order to achieve the airspeed necessary to gain control of the craft. Within a few seconds he was able to level the plane out. “As I opened my eyes,” Skorzeny recalled, “Gerlach got the plane under control and slowly raised it to a horizontal position.”166 Radl and the other onlookers were elated when they suddenly saw the Stork reappear on the far side of the chasm. Student later called the takeoff a “masterpiece” of piloting.167

  Once he had regained control, Gerlach descended into the valley and set a southwesterly course for Rome, skimming the treetops to avoid detection by enemy aircraft.168 The passengers of the Stork could finally emit a collective sigh of relief. (Due to the strain on the craft, the engine was not functioning properly, but Gerlach kept that piece of information to himself.)169 Without thinking, Skorzeny placed a hand on Mussolini’s shoulder.170 “Now, indeed,” Skorzeny later wrote, “we could consider his rescue accomplished.”171

  It nearly was. After flying for about an hour, Gerlach made a neat two-point landing at Pratica di Mare, the left wheel having been damaged during takeoff.172 “Then the plane stopped,” Skorzeny wrote. “Everything had worked wonderfully well; we had had much luck from the beginning to the end of our adventure.”173 Student later grumbled, “It had almost turned into a catastrophe because Skorzeny insisted on flying in the same plane with them.”174

  Skorzeny and the Duce promptly boarded a Heinkel 111 and set off for Austria. Stormy weather near Vienna caused the pilot some difficulties in locating the city, but he finally managed to touch down at Aspern airport at about 11:00 P.M.175 The two men then proceeded to the Hotel Imperial, where they had arranged to spend the night; the next day, they planned to fly on to Munich, where Mussolini would be reunited with his wife.176

  Soon after they arrived at the hotel, the switchboard began to light up with calls. All the major players in the Third Reich, it seemed, were anxious to offer Skorzeny their congratulations and to verify that the news was true. Close to midnight, a local SS colonel appeared out of nowhere, produced a handsome-looking medal, and hung it around Skorzeny’s neck.177 It was the Knight’s Cross. It belonged to the colonel, but an elated Hitler had ordered him to present it to Skorzeny as a symbolic gesture.

  Hitler himself then came on the line. “Today, you have carried out a mission that will go down in history,” he told Skorzeny from the Wolf ’s Lair. “You have given me back my old friend Mussolini. I have given you the Knight’s Cross and promoted you to Sturmbannführer [major].”178 It was the first time that this prestigious decoration had been earned and awarded on the same day.179 Himmler, Goering, and Marshal Wilhelm Keitel (chief of OKW), also spoke to Skorzeny that evening.180

  As for the Duce, he thanked Hitler briefly by telephone, but said that he was exhausted and went directly to bed.181 “He informed the Führer that he was tired and sick,” Goebbels noted, “and would first of all like to have a long sleep.”182 While Mussolini slumbered, Skorzeny reportedly walked off with the dictator’s diary and personal papers.*183 These were eventually copied, translated into German, and presented to Hitler.184

  No one bothered to ask the newly liberated Duce for his permission.

  * * *

  *The command of the glider assault team is another matter of dispute between Skorzeny and the paratroopers. Student and Mors later maintained that Berlepsch was designated as the commander on the mountain. According to Skorzeny, he and Berlepsch had a sort of joint command, Skorzeny assuming control of the attackers until such time as he entered the hotel, after which the command fell to Berlepsch.

  *The manager of the Hotel Imperatore, who was there at the time, claimed that Soleti had a gun pressed against his ribs.

  *The number of gliders that actually landed on the plateau is uncertain. According to Skorzeny, only eight did so. The others, he claimed, had either failed to leave Pratica or had dropped out while in flight.

  **At some point during the raid, a nervous paratrooper apparently fired off a few rounds. These may have been the shots that Skorzeny heard.

  ***It should be noted that eyewitness accounts of the raid vary in some respects. For a slightly different version of events, see the hotel manager’s account in Iurato and Antonelli, “With Mussolini at the Campo Imperatore,” 250–253.

  *According to the Italian writer Marco Patricelli, two of the Italians injured in the valley died of their wounds. See Patricelli, 90–91.

  *In contrast to General Student’s account, Skorzeny claimed that the Germans had discussed three possible plans for bringing Mussolini back to Rome. According to Skorzeny, flying the Duce off the mountain was the third, and least desirable, option.

  *Among these were the Pontine and Sardinian Musings, extracts of which appear earlier in this book.

  EPILOGUE

  THE AFTERMATH<
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  THE RESCUE OF MUSSOLINI—WHICH WAS NATURALLY VIEWED AS A jailbreak by the Allies and the Badoglio regime—became an instant and enduring classic in the annals of special operations and surprised a war-weary world, most of which had no inkling as to the depths of Machiavellian intrigue that were animating the European Axis powers during the summer of 1943. Even today, despite its being one of the most dramatic stories of World War II, the dissolution of the Rome-Berlin alliance remains one of the lesser-known chapters of the war, at least in the popular mind.

  One day after the Gran Sasso operation, the Nazis broadcast the news of the Duce’s rescue in a matter-of-fact statement that highlighted the role played by Skorzeny and the SS. “Members of the armed SS Guards and Secret Security Service,” read the announcement as reported by the New York Times, “aided by members of parachute troops, today carried out an undertaking for liberation of the Duce. The coup de main was a success. Mussolini is at liberty and his delivery to the Anglo-American Allies, which was agreed [sic] by the Badoglio government, has been frustrated.”1

  Though Hitler deeply regretted the Italian surrender, he could console himself with having saved the Duce’s skin and given a sorely needed boost to German morale.2 More important, he had reinforced Italy with enough German troops during August to defend the peninsula for some time to come. “Taken with the German success in occupying the greater part of Italy and holding the Allies well south of Rome,” wrote Hitler’s biographer Alan Bullock, “the restoration of Mussolini could be presented as a triumphant ending to the crisis which had threatened in the summer [of 1943] to leave the southern frontiers of the Reich directly exposed to Allied attack.”3

  Nazi-controlled Paris radio predicted ominously, though overoptimistically, that the Duce’s liberation would pave the way for a resurgence of Fascism in Italy: “Mussolini is now free to take Italy in hand again and lead her along the road from which Badoglio tried to make her swerve, free to take vengeance for insults that have soiled the Italian flag, free at last to take a stand again with his army on the European side. Italy has again found her leader.”4 Japan, Hitler’s Axis ally in the Far East, offered its hearty congratulations. “The whole Japanese nation,” its information bureau informed the world, “was overwhelmed with joy” at the news of the Duce’s rescue.5

  The story was naturally viewed with more cynicism by the Allied press, which was quick to point out that the Nazis had little else to crow about. “The serio-comic thriller—‘The Rescue and Liberation of Benito Mussolini’—was told, retold and heavily embroidered today by the German radio,” read an article in the New York Times on September 14, “which turned with apparent delight to this new subject after weeks of labored explanations of Nazi defeats in Tunisia, Russia, Sicily, and Italy.”6

  The same article noted dryly that the Germans had made friendship a central theme in their propaganda: “A feature of Berlin’s story earlier in the day was that the kidnapping of Mussolini from his Italian guards was made possible through the personal friendship and Fascist brotherhood of Adolf Hitler, who, in his speech Friday [September 10], waxed heavily sentimental over the former dictator of Italy. The German propagandists said it was understood that ‘Hitler himself prepared the plan for freeing his friend’ and gave the orders for carrying it out.”7

  There is no evidence that Hitler helped to develop the Gran Sasso operation, but he certainly lit a fire under the would-be rescuers and followed the ups and downs of Operation Oak with intense interest. The article continued: “One of the first acts of Mussolini, they said, was to telephone Hitler. They added that it was ‘difficult to express in words the feelings which animated Hitler and Il Duce during this historic conversation.’”8

  It fell to Winston Churchill to explain how the big fish had gotten away. “We had every reason to believe that Mussolini was being kept under a strong guard at a secure place,” he told the House of Commons on September 21, “and certainly it was very much to the interests of the Badoglio Government to see that he did not escape. Mussolini has himself been reported to have declared that he believed that he was being delivered to the Allies. This was certainly the intention, and is what would have taken place but for circumstances entirely beyond our control.”9

  Churchill, who never underestimated the importance of propaganda and had employed it to great effect during the darker years of the war, was also inclined to tip his hat: “But the stroke was one of great daring, and conducted with a heavy force. It certainly shows there are many possibilities of this kind open in modern war. . . . The Carabinieri guards had orders to shoot Mussolini if there was any attempt to rescue him, but they failed in their duty, having regard to the considerable German force which descended upon them from the air, and would undoubtedly have held them responsible for his health and safety. So much for that.”10

  The Nazis hailed Skorzeny as the star of Operation Oak, a role that suited the cocky Austrian to a tee. With Hitler’s blessing, he took to the German airwaves shortly after the rescue operation and announced to the world that he was the man who had liberated Mussolini. The newly promoted major was also draped with prestigious medals and decorations. He received the Knight’s Cross from Hitler and the Air Force Medal in Gold from Goering.11 The Duce presented him with the Order of the Hundred Musketeers.12 (Radl, Skorzeny’s deputy, was promoted to captain.)13

  “The Gran Sasso raid naturally transformed this unknown Captain [Skorzeny] into the hero of the hour,” recalled Wilhelm Hoettl, an SS intelligence officer who had helped plan the Cianos’ escape in August. “But he has to thank Dr. Goebbels for the fact that his fame has spread so far and survived so long. For propaganda purposes Goebbels was greatly in need of some German success and Skorzeny was to provide a mighty dramatic one.”14

  Goebbels himself was ecstatic. “The liberation of the Duce is the great sensation at home and abroad,” he wrote in his diary a few days after the raid. “Even upon the enemy the effect of the melodramatic deliverance is enormous . . . the entire German people . . . are profoundly happy.”15 He added: “There has hardly been a military event during the entire war that has so deeply stirred the emotions and evoked such human interest. We are able to celebrate a firstclass moral victory.”16

  But not everyone was in the mood to rejoice. As Skorzeny was enjoying his new celebrity status, General Student and Major Harold Mors were stewing. They believed that Skorzeny and his SS commandos were hogging all the credit for what they maintained was essentially a Luftwaffe operation—one that was planned and executed by German airborne forces. As they saw it, the simple fact that Skorzeny and Radl had landed on the Gran Sasso before any of the paratroopers—contrary to the prepared plan—had allowed the SS to grab the Duce as well as the glory.

  Though just about everyone who played a role in Operation Oak received honors of one sort or another—including Herbert Kappler, Mors, Gerlach, Meyer (Skorzeny’s glider pilot), and many of the Luftwaffe officers and pilots who participated in the rescue— it was Skorzeny who received the lion’s share of the credit.* According to Student, Mussolini never even bothered to thank him or the paratroopers for their role in the operation.17

  “It sounded more or less as if Skorzeny and his SS-commando performed this sensational mission by themselves,” remembered Student, who received the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross about two weeks after the rescue (he had already earned a Knight’s Cross earlier in the war).18 When Mors attempted to lodge an official complaint, Hitler turned a deaf ear. He preferred to shine the spotlight on Skorzeny and the fanatically loyal SS, the one organization in which Hitler still believed he could trust.19 However, this did not stop Student and his paratroopers from returning to the Gran Sasso with a camera crew to restage the rescue on film from their point of view.20

  In a slightly comical footnote to history, the American novelist John Steinbeck also made a brief appearance in the Mussolini rescue saga. As the Allies were struggling to establish a foothold at Salerno in the wake of the Italian surrender,
Steinbeck was snooping around on the island of Ventotene, where he believed he had come close to bagging Il Duce. “Accompanying a British American tank force that recently took Ventotene island off Naples (on Sept. 9),” reported the New York Times on September 13, “Mr. Steinbeck said he missed Mussolini there by less than twelve hours.”21

  As was seen earlier, the Duce was never imprisoned on Ventotene, though the island had captivated Hitler during the first half of August. (Steinbeck’s investigations also determined, correctly this time, that Mussolini had been imprisoned on Ponza as well.)

  Two days after his liberation, Mussolini was reunited with Hitler— who, during their ten-year relationship, had played the roles of protégé, mentor, and savior in turn—at the Wolf ’s Lair in East Prussia.* The triumphant reunion of the two dictators was captured by German newsreel footage, which was broadcast throughout the Third Reich and beyond. In jerky black-and-white images, Hitler could be seen greeting the Duce enthusiastically as the latter stepped off a Junkers 52 at an airport near Rastenburg. Mussolini, who was wearing a darkcolored suit and a fedora, resembled a tired businessman after a lengthy flight. The two men shook hands for a long time and exchanged what appeared to be warm words. Hitler reportedly had tears in his eyes.22

  The mood behind the scenes was less convivial. Hitler had expected the Duce to be brimming with diabolical energy, but instead he seemed depressed and unresponsive. To begin with, the German dictator exhorted his friend to exact swift revenge on Galeazzo Ciano and the other traitors of July 25 who had voted against Mussolini in the Grand Council of Fascism. A handful of these men had fallen into German hands, and Hitler was determined to make an example out of them.