Hitler

entire government, the King, the Crown Prince, Badoglio, the ‘whole bunch’. In two or three days there would then be another coup. He had Göring – ‘ice-cold in the most serious crises’, as he had repeatedly stated at midday, the Reich Marshal’s failings as head of the Luftwaffe temporarily forgotten – telephoned and told him to come as quickly as he could to the Wolf ’s Lair. Rommel was located in Salonika and summoned to present himself without delay. Hitler intended to put him in overall command in Italy. He wanted Himmler contacted. Goebbels, too, was telephoned and told to leave immediately for East Prussia. The situation, Goebbels acknowledged, was ‘extraordinarily critical’. Ribbentrop, still not recovered from a chest infection, was ordered up from Fuschl, his residence in the Salzkammergut near Salzburg. Soon after midnight, Hitler met his military leaders for the third time in little over twelve hours, frantically improvising details for the evacuation from Sicily and the planned occupation of Rome, and for the seizure of the members of the new Italian government.
    At ten o’clock that morning, 26 July, Hitler met Goebbels and Göring, just arrived in FHQ. Ribbentrop joined them half an hour later. Hitler gave his interpretation of the situation. He presumed that Mussolini had been forced out of power. Whether he was still alive was not known, but he would certainly be unfree. Hitler saw the forces of Italian freemasonry – banned by Mussolini but still at work behind the scenes – behind the plot. Ultimately, he claimed, the coup was directed at Germany since Badoglio would certainly come to an arrangement with the British and Americans to take Italy out of the war. The British would now look for the best moment for a landing in Italy – perhaps in Genoa in order to cut off German troops in the south. Military precautions to anticipate such a move had to be taken.
    Hitler explained, too, his intention of transferring a parachute division, currently based in southern France, to Rome as part of the move to occupy the city. The King, Badoglio, and the members of the new government would be arrested and flown to Germany. Once they were in German hands, things would be different. Possibly Roberto Farinacci, the radical Fascist boss of Cremona and former Party Secretary, who had escaped arrest by fleeing to the German Embassy and was now
en route
to FHQ, could be made head of a puppet government if Mussolini himself could not be rescued. Hitler saw the Vatican, too, as deeply implicated in the plot to oust Mussolini. In the military briefing just after midnight he had talked wildly of occupying the Vatican and ‘getting out the whole lot of swine’. Goebbels and Ribbentrop dissuaded him from such rash action, certain to have damaging international repercussions. Hitler still pressed for rapid action to capture the new Italian government. Rommel, who by then had also arrived in FHQ, opposed the improvised, high-risk, panicky response. He favoured a carefully prepared action; but that would probably take some eight days to put into place. The meeting ended with the way through the crisis still unclear.
    The midday military conference was again taken up with the issue of moving troops to Italy to secure above all the north of the country, and with the hastily devised scheme to capture the Badoglio government. Field-Marshal von Kluge, who had flown in from Army Group Centre – desperately trying to hold the Soviet offensive in the Orel bulge, to the north of Kursk – was abruptly told of the implications of the events in Italy for the eastern front. Hitler said he needed the crack Waffen-SSdivisions currently assigned to Manstein in the south of the eastern front to be transferred immediately to Italy. That meant Kluge giving up some of his forces to reinforce Manstein’s weakened front. Kluge forcefully pointed out, though to no avail, that this would make defence in the Orel region impossible. But the positions on the Dnieper being prepared for an orderly retreat by his troops to be taken up before winter were far from ready. What he was being asked to do, protested Kluge, was to undertake ‘an absolutely overhasty evacuation’. ‘Even so, Herr Feldmarshall: we are not master here of our own decisions,’ rejoined Hitler. Kluge was left with no choice.
    Meanwhile, Farinacci had arrived. His description of what had happened and his criticism of Mussolini did not endear him to Hitler.