Summary of Robert M. Edsel's Saving Italy

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The meeting between Hitler and Mussolini took place on July 19, 1943, at Villa Gaggia, near the town of Feltre, some fifty miles north of Venice. It was Hitler’s last trip to Italy. Mussolini had no interest in forming an alliance with Germany, but he was impressed by Hitler’s consolidation of power and the remarkable turnaround of German industry.

#2 In 1943, Italy was almost out of resources, and the German High Command urged Hitler to take control of all Italian ground and air forces. Mussolini tried to explain Italy’s situation to Hitler, but he could not bring himself to admit that his country had been exhausted by the war.

#3 On a clear summer morning in 1943, the entire Northwest African Strategic Air Force flew over Rome to bomb the Littorio and Ciampino Airdromes and the railway marshaling yards at Littorio and San Lorenzo.

#4 The pope had left the safety and isolation of Vatican City to visit the victims of the second Allied bombing attack of Rome on August 13, 1943. He returned late that evening with his white cassock stained with dirt and blood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822526327

IRB Media

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Insights on Robert M. Edsel's Saving Italy

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The meeting between Hitler and Mussolini took place on July 19, 1943, at Villa Gaggia, near the town of Feltre, some fifty miles north of Venice. It was Hitler’s last trip to Italy. Mussolini had no interest in forming an alliance with Germany, but he was impressed by Hitler’s consolidation of power and the remarkable turnaround of German industry.

#2

In 1943, Italy was almost out of resources, and the German High Command urged Hitler to take control of all Italian ground and air forces. Mussolini tried to explain Italy’s situation to Hitler, but he could not bring himself to admit that his country had been exhausted by the war.

#3

On a clear summer morning in 1943, the entire Northwest African Strategic Air Force flew over Rome to bomb the Littorio and Ciampino Airdromes and the railway marshaling yards at Littorio and San Lorenzo.

#4

The pope had left the safety and isolation of Vatican City to visit the victims of the second Allied bombing attack of Rome on August 13, 1943. He returned late that evening with his white cassock stained with dirt and blood.

#5

Mussolini’s resignation did not change the fact that Italy was still an ally of Nazi Germany. The United States and the United Kingdom had every intention of conquering Sicily and then attacking the Italian mainland. The war in Italy, even without Mussolini, was just beginning.

#6

The Battle of Kursk in the Soviet Union in early July put Hitler’s forces on the defensive. The news worsened with the early morning commencement of the Allied bombing of Hamburg, Germany. Losing Nazi Germany’s most important ally at this low moment would deal a significant blow to the morale of the German people and its fighting forces.

#7

Hitler decided not to send a special detachment of troops into Rome, but he did issue an order for crack German paratroopers to rescue Mussolini. With the Duce at his side, he calculated, a newly formed Fascist state would be announced.

#8

Hitler had threatened to enter the Vatican and seize the pope, and many in the German high command were against it. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, General Erwin von Lahousen, and others in Canaris’s circle shared anti-Nazi sentiments and had been involved in various plans to remove Hitler from power.

#9

On August 4, six days after meeting with Amè in Venice, Canaris and Lahousen flew to Rome to meet with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Luigi Maglione. They discussed the