‘And when I got back to Maderno,’ says Elena, ‘I did not go straight to Mussolini but visited him as usual when I always did. He asked what I had been up to and I told him, “A friend of yours visited me, and together we went to Gorizia.” And all he said was, “Ah yes, Corinaldesi is an intelligent young man.” But it had been an adventure. The risk involved, the fact that we were on a secret mission for the Duce. I was young, and it was all very exciting.’
Despite the awe in which she held her father, Elena was all too aware that Mussolini was now an isolated figure. ‘Italians thought that he was separate from the government,’ she says. ‘That was the way I saw it too. He used to refer to himself as a prisoner on this accursed lake.’
He was, however, living in something of a gilded cage. The Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano had belonged to a wealthy Milanese business family before being requisitioned. Overlooking the beautiful Lake Garda, with the mountains rising behind, it had over thirty sumptuously decorated rooms. A curving driveway and a number of carefully positioned trees hid the house from the road. German SS – rather than Italian – troops guarded the gateway, while further SS men patrolled the grounds and stood sentinel at other posts around the property. All servants and any visitors were vetted and checked by the SD – the Sicherheitsdienst – while even the Duce’s housekeeper was German. All telephones were tapped. Mussolini could say or do almost nothing within the villa without the Germans knowing about it.
Responsible for these draconian measures and for placing Mussolini there in the first place was General of the Waffen-SS and Highest SS and Police Führer in Italy, Karl Wolff, a smooth-talking charmer and highly intelligent senior Nazi. There were supposed to be four principal Germans running the show in Italy. First, there was Kesselring who, as Commander-in-Chief of Italy, was the most powerful man in the Axis-controlled half of the country, and to whom all others were subordinate. Immediately under him there was the German ambassador to the RSI, Rudolf Rahn, who, Iago-like, hovered over the Duce as his political ‘adviser’, a euphemism if ever there was one. Then there was General Rudolf Toussaint, ‘Plenipotentiary General of the German Wehrmacht to the Italian Fascist Government’. And finally there was the aptly named Wolff.
In reality, however, Kesselring tended to meddle little in specifically civilian or political affairs, especially while he had the military campaign to run. Rather, the day-today governing of Italy was left to Ambassador Rahn and Wolff, whose power was so complete and expertly executed that General Toussaint’s authority was continually and increasingly undermined. Both men, with Kesselring’s blessing, made sure the authority of not only Mussolini but also the Neo-Fascist government was kept to a minimum, and that every decision made by the RSI was carefully monitored. As Rahn had pointed out to Kesselring in October 1943, ‘the government consists of men who are willy-nilly bound to Germany, and above all, if need be, we have the means of intervening. In addition, we have delegates in each Ministry, whose task is precisely to bring our wishes before the Ministries.’60
It was Wolff, however, who ran the police and security forces for all Axis-controlled Italy. There were SS police and SD units throughout northern Italy. Sub-units of the SD included the Gestapo and the Security Police – or Sipo* – but there were also in Italy units of the military counter-intelligence and espionage service, the Abwehr. Under Wolff’s command and control were a large number of SS police troops, Wehrmacht – German army – units, and also the 140,000 members of Ricci’s Fascist militia, the GNR. With these highly visible and intimidating forces at his fingertips, it is no surprise that Wolff ’s authority and power in Italy should have been so obvious. It says much about Wolff ’s position that it was to him that Mussolini had turned just hours before his son-in-law had been due to be executed. ‘What would you do in my position?’ the Duce had asked him. Wolff had told him he should remain firm. To do otherwise, he suggested, would do much harm to his reputation with the Führer.
13 May 1944 was Wolff ’s forty-fourth birthday. Thin-lipped, and with a wide, receding forehead, and pale, grey eyes, he nonetheless had a genial, humorous-looking face that enhanced his natural charm. After serving as an infantry officer in the First World War, Wolff studied law, later ran his own advertising agency, and then joined the Nazis and SS in 1931. He rose steadily through the SS hierarchy, becoming an increasingly close confidant to Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, commander of the SS. From June 1939 he had been Himmler’s Chief of Staff and representative in Hitler’s military headquarters, a post he still officially held, despite his move to Italy, and despite incurring Himmler’s wrath in February the previous year for divorcing his wife and marrying Countess Ingeborg Maria von Bernstorff; at least he and the Duce had a love of women in common. By the autumn, however, Himmler had forgiven his friend and approved the elevated title of ‘Highest SS Chief’ rather than just ‘Higher SS Chief’ – a distinction shared by only one other SS supremo, General Prützmann, who held the same post in the Ukraine.
Wolff ’s HQ in Italy was just a few miles south of Gargnano in Fasano, another small town on the banks of Lake Garda. The interior of the villa was noticeably calm and tasteful. Opulent carpets lined the corridors; plain-clothed young women – SS secretaries – discreetly passed by before disappearing into a different room. Wolff ’s own office was filled with comfortable chairs, a small table, and a well-stocked cocktail cabinet. Works of art hung on the walls, while the room glowed with soft, subtly positioned lighting. Wolff himself spoke with a gentle, yet husky voice. Like that other Nazi ‘charmer’, General Reinhard Heydrich, Wolff understood the benefits of winning others over, of putting people at ease and becoming a trusted confidant.
Wolff was also prepared to take risks. Just three days before, on 10 May, the Highest SS and Police Chief in Italy, wearing a civilian suit, had had an audience with Pope Pius XII at the Vatican, in which he had asked for the Pontiff ’s help in making contact with the Allies with a view to opening peace negotiations. Although no one had witnessed the conversation, there were a number of people – including Germans – who had helped set up the meeting, and were aware of Wolff’s reasons for wanting the audience.
Little came of the talks, but Wolff had begun playing a dangerous game, making peace feelers – however tentative – without higher authority. His motivation, however, had been simple. He had begun to doubt that Germany could win the war, but hoped it could in some way dictate the peace that would follow. So Wolff, the arch-Machiavel, wanted to find a way out – a way in which Germany could end the war while there was still a chance of bargaining. The battle had only just begun again on the ground, but one of the most powerful men in Italy hoped words, rather than more bullets and bombs, might end the bloodshed. And if that was the case, he might have a chance of surviving the judgement day that would inevitably follow.
* Both Gestapo and Sipo are abbreviations: the former for Geheime Staatspolizei, the German secret state police; the latter for Sicherheitspolizei, the Nazi security police.
Breaking the Gustav Line 17–18 May 1944
Near a village not far from Route 6, the Via Casilina, and about fifteen miles behind the front line stood rows of pup tents, trucks, jeeps, and canvas stores belonging to the Canadians of the Perth Regiment. They were infantrymen, part of the 11th Infantry Brigade, but attached to the Canadian 5th Armoured Division. All knew they would soon be joining the battle they had heard raging to the north-west.
Since listening to the opening barrage and seeing the night ripped apart by the