Nazi rescue of Mussolini a US model for Zelensky

On July 25, 1943, Benito Mussolini, after being voted out of power by his own Grand Council, was called to a conference with King Vittorio Emanuele in the Villa Ada park at the special bunker known as the Villa Ada Savoia.

The King told Mussolini that the new Italian prime minister would be General Pietro Badoglio. Tired, unshaven and shaken, Mussolini walked out of the meeting only to be arrested by Carabinieri troops.

He would be held at different hiding places until he was transferred to the Hotel Campo Imperatore, Emperor’s Field Hotel (Albergo di Campo Imperatore) in the Apennine mountains.

Under Hitler’s personal orders, a German team made up of Nazi paratroopers (Fallschirmjäger) and a team drawn from the Waffen SS assembled in 10 gliders at Rome’s Pratica di Mare Air Base where they were towed to within striking distance of the hotel.

On September 12, 1943, the gliders carried an Italian general whose role was to convince Mussolini’s jailers not to fire on the Nazi rescue force. Four days before, the Italian government signed an armistice with the Allies, an event closely tracked (via communications intercepts) by Nazi intelligence. Allied forces had already taken Sicily and were lodged in southern Italy.

Hitler ordered his army to not only free Mussolini but also to take Rome, which they dutifully did. As this happened, the new government headed by Badoglio and the King escaped Rome and joined the allies at Bari, on the Adriatic in the south of the country.

The Germans established a military line of defense called the Gustav Line. Mussolini was flown out of Italy, first on a Storch light aircraft, and then transferred to more long-range aircraft that first took him to Vienna and, after a refresh, on to