The discreet arrest of Mussolini, following his interview with King Victor Emmanuel on July 25, 1943, left the Germans with a double problem: find the former Duce, and having found him, rescue him.
The task fell to Otto Skorzeny, a Waffen-S. S. officer running a commando training school at Friedenthal, near Berlin.
When he began his search, Italy was still an ally of Germany. But if the Italians could hold Mussolini until their surrender to the Allies, he could be a trump card in the negotiations.
Skorzeny traced Mussolini to an island prison near Sardinia. He laid careful plans, took aerial photographs, and was about to launch the operation when a final check showed that the Duce had gone. Itwasalucky discovery, for Hitler had warned him that failure would mean dismissal and a public repudiation.
Back in Rome Skorzeny intercepted a code message to the Italian Ministry of Interior; it read: "SEGURITY MEASURES AROUND GRAN SASSO GOM-PLETED. CUELI” Skorzeny had discovered that General Gueli was the official responsible for the Duce’s safety.
The only place in Gran Sasso, a mountainous part of the Apennines, which could house a state prisoner with his guards, was the winter sports hotel of Gampo Imperatore. Built on a 6,000-foot crag, it could only be reached by a funicular railway.
On September 8, Italy surrendered. The operation was now military rather than diplomatic.
Skorzeny established that there was at least a battalion of Carabinieri in the area and a further 250 men in the hotel.
His reconnaisance photographs showed a triangular patch of land near the hotel. Paratroops could not land there (the air was too thin), but gliders might.
The Luftwaffe eventually agreed to provide gliders for the 90 Luftwaffe troops and the 20 men from Skorzeny’s unit.
On the afternoon of September 12 they set off.
The landing zone proved to be a sloping, rock-studded, shelf. But risking destruction Skorzeny shouted to his pilot, "Dive-crash land! As near the hotel as you can.”
With a shuddering, bouncing skid and a rending crash the glider came to a halt.
The soldiers leapt out and raced the 20 yards across to the hotel.
Skorzeny recognised a familiar shaved head at an upper window. "Get back!” he yelled at Mussolini, "Get back from the window.”
By sheer surprise and aggressiveness they overwhelmed the guards without firing a shot.
The Carabinieri crowded in the corridors were too close to shoot, and the Germans barged past them and pushed further into the hotel.
Skorzeny burst into a room, and there, with two Italian officers, was the Duce. As the Germans came through the door, two more climbed up the lightning conductor and through the window.
Skorzeny now summoned the Italian colonel who had been the Duce’s gaoler.
"I ask your immediate surrender. Mussolini is already in our hands. We hold the building. If you want to avert senseless bloodshed you have 60 seconds to go and reflect.”
The bluff worked and the colonel returned with a goblet of wine, for "a gallant victor”.
The return trip was no less
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