In 1943, Germany suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad, and since then it has been gradually defeated, and Italy, which is also an Axis country, was also attacked by allies in Sicily, with shortages of materials in Italy, soaring prices, and political turmoil. On the morning of July 25, 1943, after receiving the Japanese ambassador, Mussolini got up and went into the palace to see the king of Italy, but he did not know that he had gone to the net, because after the conversation, the king put him under house arrest, and on the same day he made a national speech accepting Mussolini's resignation and forming a new government.
Mussolini wore a black-shirted military uniform
Things have come to this point, and everything seems to be going very well. But there were no impermeable walls in the world, and it didn't take long for the news to reach Hitler's ears. When Hitler learned of this news, he was worried, because Mussolini's downfall was definitely a huge blow to the current situation. In private, Mussolini was the godfather of fascism, the revolutionary mentor of Hitler's fascist cause. For the public, after the fall of the fascist government in Italy, the new government is likely to fall to the side of the Allies, which is tantamount to stabbing Hitler in the back, Hitler will never allow such a thing to happen, so the rescue of Mussolini is imminent, Hitler named the operation "Operation Oak" classified as top secret.
Hitler planned to rescue Mussolini
In order to rescue Mussolini, Hitler brought in a group of young officers to talk, and the question was how do you think of Mussolini as a person? The officers said fascist mentors, nazi friends, and only Skolzner in the corner said, I'm Austrian. Hitler quickly looked at the tall officer who was 1.9 meters and said that Skolzner stayed, and everyone else should go out. Why did Hitler single out Skorzner?
Because Hitler himself was an Austrian, they all knew that Italy had stolen a large area of Austrian land after turning to the Allies during World War I, and it was very likely that Italy would rebel against water and damage Germany again, so it was necessary to rescue Mussolini and maintain the fascist regime in Italy. Hitler then gave Skorzner the task of rescuing Mussolini, and he asked Skolzner to find Mussolini and lead a commando team to rescue him. Skolzner knew that the task would be very difficult, but if the operation was successful, he would become famous in one fell swoop, so he gladly accepted the difficult task, and the operation to rescue Mussolini began.
Skolzner and Hitler
？ To this end, Skolzny sneaked into Rome to gather intelligence, but surprisingly, the middle and high levels of Rome did not know exactly where Mussolini was, and by asking familiar Italian officers for three weeks, Skolzner also learned only some details, that is, Mussolini was stuffed into an ambulance and sent to the gendarmerie camp that day. But at this time, three weeks have passed since the day of the incident, Mussolini is no longer in the gendarmerie camp, in the three weeks, how many times Mussolini has been transferred, and where has he been sent, at this time looking for the missing Mussolini is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Although he had no clue, Skolzny did not give up. He kept asking for information, and finally got an unexpected discovery from a familiar fruit merchant. On the same day, when Skolzner went to talk to the fruit merchant, the fruit merchant inadvertently revealed that the maid from her family had not come to work for a long time because she was going to marry a policeman on Poncha Island. Skolzne was suddenly alert, why would a policeman suddenly be very busy, could it be that Mussolini was imprisoned on the island of Poncha? He then hurried to the Italian naval officer, who confirmed that he had indeed seen Mussolini being transported by warships from the port of La Spezia to the island of Puncha.
Mussolini was transferred several times
Knowing that Mussolini was on the island of Puncha, Skolzner drew up a plan to go to The Island of Puncha to rescue Mussolini, but at this time germany did not even have a warship in the Mediterranean region, and could only take an Italian warship to the island of Puncha, which required them to act under the eyes of the Italians, which undoubtedly increased the difficulty of rescue. Fortunately, he soon received a new message that Mussolini had been transferred to a small village in Sardinia on 6 August, and the original plan had been cancelled. Subsequently, Skolzny led a reconnaissance of Sardinia, through which he learned that Mussolini was no longer in the small village before him, and was transferred to the naval base in Puerto Maddalena in Sardinia. And according to past experience, Italy will use warships to transfer Mussolini again. Therefore, the rescue of Mussolini must be carried out as soon as possible, after planning, Skolzny decided to use the form of airborne assault on the port to rescue Mussolini, in order to ensure the success of the operation, he also took a plane to the base to observe, but unfortunately at this time, just when he was conducting aerial reconnaissance, three British fighters attacked him and directly destroyed the aircraft, fortunately, the aircraft was forced to land at sea, Skolzner was not in danger of life, but broke three ribs.
Skolzner was attacked by British warplanes
On August 29, he rushed into the harbor in a landing craft to rescue Mussolini. In order to ensure that the operation was foolproof, the night before the operation, Skolzne said to the guards of the naval base that I had heard that Mussolini was dead, but the guards said that Mussolini was not dead, and that he had seen Mussolini being taken away by a seaplane. This meant that the rescue plan had failed again, and mussolini had been completely lost, and Skolzner regretted it. It was not until one day in early September that the Germans intercepted an Italian telegram stating that the guards near Mount Sasso were laid out. Skolzner perceives that there is a large hotel at the top of the mountain, which is likely to be where Mussolini was imprisoned. So he lied that he wanted to make a reservation, called the hotel front desk for consultation, but was told by the hotel that there was a military exercise nearby And the hotel was closed. He sent other men to the Empress Hotel, but was stopped at the foot of the hill by Italian gendarmes, and Skolzner finally confirmed that this was where Mussolini was being held.
Where Mussolini was held
However, after aerial reconnaissance by the German army, it was found that the hotel was built on the top of a cliff, and only a cable car of more than 100 meters was connected to the bottom of the mountain, and it was impossible to land here. But the attentive Skolzner noticed that there was a triangular clearing behind the hotel where planes could land. On September 12, the operation officially began. Skolnes led 10 gliders directly over the hotel. But when he was about to land, the pilot suddenly found that the triangular flat ground that had been scheduled to land was actually covered with strange stones, and Skolzner ordered the pilot to find a place close to the hotel to land, and finally the plane landed smoothly 40 meters away from the hotel steps.
Skolzner landed successfully
Skolnes pushed out of the plane to persuade the Italian general Soledi to surrender, and the Italian soldiers surrendered without firing a shot, and the smooth progress of the matter surprised Skolzny. He asked the German soldiers who landed behind him to look after the Italian prisoners of war and rushed into room 201 on the 2nd floor, where Mussolini was inside. Skolnes said to Mussolini, Chief, it was the Fuehrer who sent me, and you are free. Mussolini closed his mouth happily and cried out loudly, I knew my friend Hitler would come to my rescue. At this point, the rescue of Mussolini was a success, but how to take Mussolini away became a problem.
German Stork
Just as Skolzner was worried, he suddenly found a Stork reconnaissance plane appearing over the hotel, piloted by The German ace pilot, Captain Gerlach. Skolzny asked Captain Grach to take him and Mussolini away, but the power of the plane did not allow for short-track take-offs, and only Mussolini could be taken alone, and Skolnes thought he must go back, otherwise the credit for rescuing Mussolini would be the work of someone else. So he came up with a way to get German soldiers and Italian prisoners of war to grab the tail of the plane, and when the plane increased to a certain speed, they let go together and use inertia to make the plane take off smoothly. Finally, a funny scene occurred, the Germans and the Italians grabbed the tail of the plane together to help fly, and when the plane successfully took off, the Germans and the Italians cheered excitedly together.
Skolzner succeeded in freeing Mussolini
In the end, Skolzner succeeded in bringing Mussolini back to Berlin, and he also managed to grab the headlines of major European newspapers overnight, becoming a household name.