2023-07-28 06:59:04
Time.news – In the last week of July 1943 i tedeschi they are actively busy in the hunt for Mussolini according to orders given directly by Hitler. Eugen Dollmann, honorary colonel of the SS, official interpreter of the Führer for the Italian language, unofficial diplomat well introduced in all Roman circles, on July 27 is invited to dinner by the Feldmaresciallo Albert Kesselring at its headquarters in Frascati.
«Serious in the face, even gloomy, the marshal I introduce myself laconic to others two dinersil General of the Student Paratroopers […] and a young captain of the air force, Skorzeny. At Kesselring’s table the conversation was of usually very animatedbut that evening the air was like a cemetery.
Dinner by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring
Student, who was suffering from a severe head wound, didn’t say a word, and Skorzeny he didn’t do that look me up, almost devouring me with his eyes and in the well-known inquisitorial style of the Gestapo, which contrasts very vividly and most suspiciously with his uniform and with the generally cheerful character of the airmen. After dinner, the marshal told me that the two officers wanted to speak to me alone, about a very serious matter.
We moved to another room and there an oath was taken to remain silent until death, as it was a Reich secret. The two had the task of informing me of a piano del leader which in a short time should have dropped ministers, the crown and members of the royal family into their hands.
Student, very briefly, immediately gave the floor to the other, who presented a fun and childish project […]. Until that moment, in Rome they only knew about the thing Kesselring, the marshal [Wolfram von] Richthofen, then also in Frascati, and me. Nothing was to be said at all to Ambassador von Mackensen and his associates […]. I declared myself incompetent to express an opinion on an action of a marked military and police nature, and proposed that he consult Kappler, Himmler’s technician and trustee in Rome».
Kappler in the footsteps of Mussolini
Kappler he immediately believes that his police powers have been invaded, but cannot argue with Hitler’s order. And from that moment he puts on on the scia Of Mussolini. So far all the news stops at 6pm on July 25th. THE Italian secret services under the leadership of General Giacomo Carboni they literally made it disappear while they transferred him to Ponza.
Versions, indiscretions, reports attributed to diplomats, to authorities of the Italian government and the Vatican, to generals are artfully circulated: the’ex Duce would be hospitalized in a military hospitalhidden a Roma, transferred to neutral Portugal and Nord Africa under Allied control. The Swiss authorities on July 29 must deny that he has crossed the border.
Fanciful rumors about Mussolini’s whereabouts
A Madrid source asserts that Mussolini is not in Spain but in Viareggio. There fancier news arriva from Stockholm, when it is claimed that he was arrested while trying to reach the Reich; a dispatch from Bern confirms instead that he is a prisoner of the Royal Army, but naturally does not say where. From Rome the news spread that Mussolini was retired with his family at the Rocca delle Caminate.
A note dated Bern hits the mark, which makes di Mussolini and Prisoner of the army, without however indicating where. Both Kesselring and Mackensen try to get the information from the Italians, without any success. Himmler, always very sensitive to esotericism, brings together astrologers, fortune tellers and seers in Berlin in a guest house of the Sicherheitsdienst plant on Lake Wannsee and the outcome of that meeting is that he is “in a place surrounded by water”.
Meanwhile, the Chief of Police had infiltrated Kappler’s entourage with the young official of his secretariat, Raphael Alianello: the German was convinced that he was receiving confidences and information, and instead it was the Italian who collected them on behalf of Carmine Senise: «I made him want to get on Kappler’s ribs more than ever, especially in the evening hours, and when the Germans for abundant drink offerings are usually easy to open their hearts. Alianello assolse his task very well and was able to win Kappler’s trust to such an extent that the latter confided to him, in great secrecy, that the coup had been decided, but he was waiting for the opportunity to carry it out; he also promised him that at the decisive moment he would give him news by telephone, in an agreed form, which Alianello also brought to my knowledge ».
On July 29, the former Duce turns 60 in Ponza
Kesselring on 29 July he formally asks Badoglio to see the Duce to personally deliver the birthday gift Of Hitler, the complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche in an exclusive edition and with a dedication by the Führer («Adolf Hitler seinem lieben Freunde Benito Mussolini»), but Badoglio replies that he would have done so himself, and will keep his word, however late.
Il July 29th Mussolini turns sixty and Göring’s telegram reaches him in Ponza, delivered to him by a carabiniere who has purposely arrived from Rome.
#years #Duces #birthday #Ponza