When news of Benito Mussolini's removal from the leadership of Italy reached Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Führer was furious. His Axis ally had apparently been betrayed by disloyal elements in Italy's government and armed forces. In retaliation, Hitler considered a direct invasion of Italy, the kidnapping of the Italian royal family, the arrest of the new Italian government, and even an attempt to imprison the Pope.
After he still managed to dissuade him from these actions, Hitler was still determined to find Mussolini and rescue him from the hands of the new Italian government, which undoubtedly intended to put the Duce on trial for the crimes committed during his time in power in Italy. A trial extremely dishonourable in Hitler's eyes. However, the problem was that Hitler did not know exactly where Mussolini was being held, and even the Italian agency was powerless here. It took a long time to find out. Finally, an accidentally intercepted radio message led the Germans on the trail of the former dictator. As it turned out, he was regularly transported from place to place, and at the moment Mussolini was being held at the Albergo Rufigo, a luxury hotel in Gran Sasso in the Abruzzi Mountains north of Rome. The hotel was quite secluded, and its location at 2,130 metres above sea level added to the security measures already in place.
Hitler enlisted the help of SS Major Otto Skorzeny, a reckless officer with a reputation as ‘the most dangerous man in Europe,’ and commissioned him to devise a plan to rescue Mussolini from his mountaintop prison. For this purpose, Skorzeny assembled a squad of 90 specially selected paratroopers and decided that the best option for the rescue was to land his men from light and low-profile Aeroplan's, crush any enemy resistance, and then fly Mussolini to safety aboard a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch.
On 12 September 1943, German airborne troops seized the railway line that ran from the valley up the side of the steep mountain on top of which Mussolini was being held, ensuring that no Italian reinforcements would interfere with the rescue operation. Skorzeny's paratroopers landed precisely near the hotel, took Mussolini's jailers by surprise and captured them, escorting the stunned and infirm Duce to the waiting aircraft.
However, the weight of the pilot, Skorzeny and Mussolini, all accommodated in one aircraft, exceeded the machine's carrying capacity. When the plane reached the edge of the nearest cliff, it crashed to the ground. Seconds before hitting the ground, the pilot managed to maintain control and the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch began to gain altitude. A short time later, the aircraft landed safely at a Luftwaffe airfield. Mussolini then boarded a Heinkel He-111 bomber to fly to the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's headquarters at Rastenburg in East Prussia.
Hitler greeted his friend warmly, but was shocked by Mussolini's appearance. He was no longer the smug, stolid leader of Fascist Italy. He was a refugee without a country. The Nazis sought to capitalise on what little pro-fascist sentiment remained in Italy and installed Mussolini as leader of the puppet Italian Socialist Republic, in the town of Salo on Lake Garda in northern Italy. Only a few people supported the former Duce, whose days were already numbered.
As for Otto Skorzeny, he surrendered to American forces in Salzburg in 1945. Since then he has been imprisoned first in Dachau and then in Darmstadt. His war crimes trial on charges of torturing American prisoners ended in acquittal, but Skorzeny was still imprisoned. In exchange for his freedom, he agreed to co-operate with American intelligence, turning in many former Nazis.
