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Chapter Five THE END OF MUSSOLINI

‘At this moment you are the most hated man in the country’

King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy

to Benito Mussolini

19 July 1943

Pope Pius XII spent most of the day gazing at the sky through binoculars as wave after wave of Allied bombs pounded his beloved city. From a window in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace he watched as 300 bombers blitzed the south-eastern part of the capital. The attack killed nearly 1,500 people and injured many thousands more. As the Bishop of Rome, he had long feared and indeed predicted this moment. So grave were the Pope’s fears that back in June 1940, on the day that Italy entered the war, he had lobbied Sir D’Arcy Osborne to ask the British not to bomb Rome. The British government agreed to do its best to avoid damaging the Vatican City, but they could not guarantee that their bombers would avoid the surrounding area.

Weeks before this first air raid on the city, Osborne met the Pope and the prospect of an aerial bombardment was raised again. This time the Pope was reported to be ‘worried sick’. He had every reason to be concerned. When the bombs came they tore through university buildings, houses, and struck the medieval basilica and the railway yards in San Lorenzo. The church there was held sacred as the burial place of Pope Pio Nono. The explosions also shook the earth at Campo Verano cemetery, where Pius XII’s brother and parents were buried. Late that afternoon, as the smoke still hung in the air and the light faded, the Pope did something he had not done since the summer of 1940. He called for a car and decided to leave the confines of the Vatican.

Shortly before 5.30 p.m. a black Mercedes, decked out in the papal colours, left the Vatican City and took the Pope and one of his deputies, Monsignor Montini, across the city. They arrived at San Lorenzo to view the damage and meet the victims. Dressed in his skullcap and flowing white cassock, the Pope embraced the crowd that surrounded the car. Held back by policemen and troops, the people shouted ‘Long live the Pope.’ Amid the rubble and close to the bodies which had been pulled from the buildings, he knelt and prayed. He said the De Profundis and for two hours he talked with and walked among the survivors. As the Pope talked, Monsignor Montini handed out cash to the homeless and the bereaved. When the two men returned to the car, Pope Pius’s clothes were marked with blood.

Back in the Vatican, the Pope took stock of what he had witnessed and heard. The city that he regarded as his own was shocked, bewildered and angry. The day marked a turning point in the war. The Eternal City was wounded and Romans were paralysed with fear. Many wondered when more Allied air attacks would happen and others were frightened that the Fascist police would use the opportunity to launch more raids on those who opposed them politically. Their predictions proved correct.

The police believed an illegal radio was transmitting within the city and eventually it was traced to the home of one of Rome’s ancient families. Princess Nina Pallavicini, a widow who was opposed to Mussolini, lived in the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, near the Quirinale. Within hours of the Allied bombs ripping through the city a raiding party came looking for the princess and the radio. Fortune favoured the young woman and she heard the visitors arrive. She quickly prised open a window at the rear of the house and jumped to the ground and ran for her life. She hurried through the streets to the Vatican, where she asked to see her friend Hugh O’Flaherty. The monsignor took her in and hid her in the German College. The princess was the first person to be offered long-term sanctuary by O’Flaherty and would become one of the most useful members of the Escape Line. She would spend the remainder of the war making false documents for Allied escapees and would often escort them around Rome.

Princess Nina was soon joined by another fugitive keen to escape the clutches of the authorities. Private Gino Rosati, a member of the Royal West Kent Regiment, listened to the sounds of the bombing of Rome in his cell in Regina Coeli prison, where the Italian authorities held many Allied prisoners. Born in England to Italian parents, Rosati had joined the British Army and seen action in North Africa at El Alamein in September 1942. He had been wounded and was transferred to Naples before being taken to Rome. Ironically his name may have aided the British soldier’s escape. In the Italian capital he was placed in the political prisoners’ section because the authorities were convinced he was an Italian citizen. Wearing British Army battledress, he had managed to slip past the guards and get outside the prison complex. He encountered a friendly Italian soldier who generously showed him the way to St Peter’s Square.

He was taken into the barracks of the Vatican gendarmerie, where he was interrogated by an officer and then handed over to Sir D’Arcy Osborne. It was essential to establish, through close questioning, the bona fides of escaped prisoners who sought sanctuary in Vatican territory. In Rosati’s case, his name may have initially raised suspicions that he was a spy. But Osborne, ever conscious that he could become the victim of an Italian or German police trap, satisfied himself that the young soldier was genuinely on the run and allowed him to stay in the British legation.

As a servant of the Church, O’Flaherty knew he had to keep his activities clandestine and could not publicly do anything which might undermine the neutrality of the Vatican. As the British government’s representative to the Vatican State, Osborne also knew he had to tread a fine diplomatic line. He was an official guest of the Pope, so his work with escaped prisoners had to remain hidden, and it made practical sense to remain distant from the everyday running of the group. Nevertheless, one evening he told O’Flaherty he could offer some assistance. ‘I will help you personally with funds as far as I am able, but I cannot use official funds, even if I could get enough, and I must not be seen to be doing anything to compromise the tacit conditions under which I am here in the Vatican State.’

Osborne’s financial support was accepted gladly. But the diplomat went further by volunteering the services of his butler. John May became the unofficial liaison officer between the monsignor and the minister. Fluent in Italian, with a wealth of contacts across Rome, May was an ideal choice and in the months ahead it was his job to source supplies for escapees and to identify those Swiss Guards who were ready to turn a blind eye to the escape operation, which was still in its infancy. May and O’Flaherty started to work in tandem, and soon many more escapees would arrive on their doorstep.

Kappler’s men continued to closely watch Hugh O’Flaherty and Sir D’Arcy Osborne, still convinced that they were passing information on to the Allies. But Kappler’s surveillance of the Vatican temporarily took a back seat when he became involved in one of the most dramatic twists of the war. For some time Italians had voiced criticism of Mussolini’s regime. Across the country people were hungry and in the south many were close to starvation. There was little support for Mussolini’s regime and within days of the Allied bombing of Rome his colleagues turned on him when the Fascist Grand Council met and voted by 19 to 8 to have him removed as leader. The next day King Victor Emmanuel knew he had to act. He sent a message to Mussolini and called him to a meeting at the royal residence.

Rome was bathed in sunshine as the Fascist leader made his way to Villa Savoia. At 5 p.m. his driver swung the car through the iron gates leading into the royal grounds and stopped in front of the steps of the house. Their host was waiting near the entrance, dressed in the uniform of the Marshal of Italy. The two men shook hands and walked slowly inside.

In the familiar surroundings of the drawing room they began to talk, first about the weather and about the Grand Council’s vote. Mussolini dismissed the vote, saying it had no legal standing and he remained confident of his position.

Then the King struck. Turning to his guest, he said, ‘At this moment you are the most hated man in the country. I am your only remaining friend. That is why I tell you that you need have no fears for your safety. I will see you are protected.’

Mussolini listened in silence and was now pale. When at last he spoke again, he intoned quietly, ‘Then it is over.’ He said the words several times. The meeting ended, the two men shook hands, and outside Mussolini was placed in a waiting ambulance, which quickly left the royal estate. The twenty-one-year Mussolini era had ended. The King was now in charge.

Mussolini was replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio, formerly Governor General of Libya. Now in his seventies, Badoglio had enjoyed a long career as a soldier and had led the Italians to a military victory in Ethiopia. He was an odd choice. He had no political experience but had a reputation for being a ditherer and was an alcoholic. However, within hours he had established a temporary administration made up of generals and civil servants. Badoglio may have performed this task with a touch of Schadenfreude, since Mussolini had sacked him in 1940.

As the former Fascist leader was experiencing his first evening in protective custody, the King announced on the radio to the Italian nation that he had accepted Mussolini’s resignation. Badoglio also went on the airwaves, to proclaim that the war against the Allies would continue and the alliance with Germany would continue.

Hitler was sitting in the conference room in the ‘Wolf’s Lair’ when he heard the news. The building, tucked away in dense evergreen forest in East Prussia, was an inner sanctum where the Führer met members of his high command. When he learnt what had happened in Rome, he was furious. The coup had caught him unawares and, while he knew there was anti-Mussolini feeling across Italy, he had not believed it would be acted upon. Moreover he distrusted Pietro Badoglio, fearing correctly that he was preparing to negotiate a peace deal with the Allies. Hitler suspected that the Americans and the British were in some way involved in the Mussolini coup. In addition he judged that further Allied landings on the Italian mainland could prompt an Italian surrender and that therefore it was essential to organize a countercoup in Rome and seize the city. Hitler was in a race against time.

He spoke on the telephone to senior commanders, held meetings and read briefing papers, then started to put together a plan which he would christen ‘Operation Oak’. On paper it looked straightforward, but in practice it would prove very different. The mission consisted of three stages: Mussolini would be found, he would be restored to power, and the German–Italian alliance would be strengthened. First, the former Fascist leader had to be traced. Twenty-four hours after the kidnapping Hitler hand-picked the man to lead Operation Oak. Otto Skorzeny, a young Austrian commando captain, six feet four inches tall and well built, was his choice.

Skorzeny set up his headquarters in the ancient town of Frascati, a picturesque suburb of Rome about ten miles from the capital. Known for its vineyards, it was also home to the General Headquarters for German troops in Italy and housed the offices of Marshal Albert Kesselring, the Supreme Commander of the Southern Front, in charge of military operations in the Mediterranean region and North Africa. For the next six weeks it would also be the command centre of Skorzeny’s secret mission.

Skorzeny needed local help and called on the services of Herbert Kappler and Eugen Dollmann. Like Kappler, Dollmann was an SS man and had lived in Rome for a number of years. The two were rivals and did not get on with each other. Dollmann, a colonel, was highly rated by Himmler and was his personal representative in Rome. Kappler may well have been envious of Dollmann, who was better educated and also was the favourite of General Karl Wolff, the commander of the SS in Italy.

When Skorzeny told Himmler he needed help in Rome, Kappler and Dollmann were volunteered. The two SS men were summoned from Rome to Skorzeny’s headquarters in Frascati to have dinner with him.

After they had eaten, Skorzeny explained to his guests what his plans were. Privately both Kappler and Dollmann thought the mission was flawed. They saw Fascism in Italy as finished and believed there was little point in bringing Mussolini back into power. However, they kept their thoughts to themselves. When Skorzeny met them both at Kappler’s office some days later, Dollmann had considered being honest with the commando captain. ‘Once again it would have been heroic of me if I had told the State Security Bureau’s agent flatly what I thought of his plans for Rome, but I naturally refrained from doing so,’ he would later record in his diary.

Like his colleague, Kappler kept quiet, but eventually he made an attempt to change Skorzeny’s mind. He flew to meet Heinrich Himmler and expressed his reservations. He said that the operation planned by Skorzeny was pointless and advised Himmler that Mussolini would only be able to return to power by ‘the strength of German bayonets’. It was a pointless trip. As Reichsführer-SS, Himmler was Skorzeny’s boss and one of the most important men in the Third Reich. He was committed to the plan.

So Operation Oak began in earnest, with a reluctant Kappler an important part of it. With a small staff Kappler could not offer manpower to Skorzeny’s operation. But what he could provide was good local knowledge and a wide range of contacts. Skorzeny provided forged banknotes, and with these Kappler was able to tempt his spies to sell information about Mussolini’s movements. For the next few weeks seeking out the former Fascist leader would become the police attaché’s priority.