Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
1
Williamson Murray, The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938-1939. The Path to
Ruin (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 110-18, 396 n. 56, esp.
p. 112 discerned ’a general incompetence’ in Italian military forces during the First
World War and like Knox views the Italian military as the mirror-opposite of the
German. W.D. Puleston, The Influence of Sea Power in World War II (New Haven, CT, Yale
University Press, 1947), pp. 63, 57 observed that ’On paper Italy had a more balanced
and formidable fleet than Germany, but its personnel was not as efficient’, i.e., were
less competent.
2 Gaetano Salvemini, L’Italia vista dall’America (Milan, Feltrinelli, 1969) p. 141; and Gian
Giacomo Migone, Problemi di storia nei rapponi tra Italia e Stati Uniti (Turin, Einaudi,
1971), pp. 115-17, for Salvemini’s approval of a ’gaullist’ response to the Allies because
’Italia liberata significava Italia ubbidiente alle autorità anglo-americane’.
3 Council on Foreign Relations, Studies of American Interests in the War and the Peace, E-C13,
p. 12; E-C11, pp. 36, 47-53; Marco Finzi and Roberto Faenza; Gli Americani in Italia
(Milan, Feltrinelli, 1976), p. 135; Migone, Problemi, p. 135.
39
40
York, Norton, 1944), was even-handed with the Italians compared to writers such as
Norman Kogan, Italy and the Allies, (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1956),
pp. 32-33, who interpreted Castellano’s efforts to negotiate with the Allies ’a classic
Italian reversal of alliances’. For an early Italian reaction to this sort of treatment of
Italy’s performance, see Angelo Gatti, La parte dell’ Italia. Rivendicazioni (Milan,
Mondadori, 1926).
6
John Diggins, Mussolini and Fascism: the View from America (Princeton, NJ, Princeton
University Press, 1972), pp. 316-17. Hughes, Italy, pp. 112-13, praised the Italian
soldier for not ’showing bravery in a futile war for a bad cause’, arguing that ’In his
sober and unheroic fashion, the Italian soldier who fought listlessly, who deserted, or
who surrendered to the enemy, had made the only contribution he could to the
triumph of the Allied cause’. Alexander De Conde, Half Bitter, Half Sweet. An Excursion
into Italian American History (New York, Charles Scribner’s, 1971), p. 237, for some
7
interesting similarities between American and fascist policy.
Giuseppe Mancinelli, Dal fronte dell’Africa settentrionale (1942-1943) (Milan, Rizzoli,
1970), p. 62; also Ugo Cavallero, Comando supremo, diario del capo di stato maggiore
(Bologna, Cappelli, 1948), 15 September 1941 for Gambara’s complaints along the
same lines; and Paolo Caccia-Dominioni, Alamein, 1933-62. An Italian Story (London,
Allen & Unwin, 1966), pp. 106-107, for the German tendency to shift responsibility for
failure to the Italians, and Gause, Bayerlein, and Westphal, who all ’disliked and
41
despised’ Italians in general. For the Italian war effort, see J.J. Sadkovich, ’Of Myths
and Men: Rommel and the Italians in North Africa’, International History Review (1991),
’Understanding Defeat: Reappraising Italy’s Role in World War II’, Journal of
Contemporary History (1989), and ’Re-evaluating Who Won the Italo-British Naval
Conflict, 1940-42’, European History Quarterly (1988).
8
8/13), doc. 476, for
Documenti Diplomatici Italiani Series 8, Vol. 13 (hereafter DDI
Magistrati’s 30 August report that Hitler had asked Henderson if a German-British war
could be avoided, and the bewildered reaction of German leaders when Britain
continued to urge Poland to resist after the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet pact. The
Germans rationalized their blunder by claiming that Mussolini’s letter of 25 August
announcing Italy’s inability to enter the war had emboldened London. See DDI9/3,
docs. 126, 171, 203.
9 Mario Roatta, Otto milioni di baionette, l’Esercito italiano in guerra dal 1940 al 1944 (Milan,
Mondadori, 1946), pp. 156-58, 195-96, for lack of co-ordination in the Mediterranean
and his anger at the niggardliness of German aid.
10 Renzo De Felice, Mussolini l’Alleato (Turin, Einaudi, 1991), II, p. 126.
11
Giuseppe Bottai, Vent’annie un giorno (Milano, Garzanti, 1977), 19 November 1942.
42
war, Britain and France would seek to defeat them in the Mediterranean
before taking on Germany. 16 By mid-September, while G6ring predicted
a short war, Mussolini argued that the British would draw the conflict out
for at least three years, given their strategy of blockade and attrition. In
short, the Italian leader displayed a grasp of British strategy that generally
eluded the Germans, whose recklessness had forced Italy into an embar-
rassing ’nonbelligerancy’ that Mussolini could end only at the peril of
attracting the main weight of the Allied war effort against Italy. 17
Despite German assertions that the fates of Nazi Germany and Fascist
Italy were inextricably intertwined, Bernardo Attolico, the Italian ambas-
sador in Berlin, thought that Germany’s ’absolute lack of any moral
sense’ in dealing with the Poles made entering the war on Berlin’s side
12
8/13, doc. 129; also Donald S. Detweiler, Charles Burdick and Jürgen Rohwer,
DDI
), (New York, Garland, 1987), XIV, B-495, pp. 4-
German Military Studies, (hereafter GMS
6,8-9.
13
8/13, docs. 1, 4, 21, 27, 36, 130, 250; GMS, V 14, B-495, pp. 11-12; and Enno
DDI
Rintelen, Mussolini als Bundesgenosse. Erinnerungen des deutschen Militärattachés in Rom,
1936-1943, (Stuttgart, Hermann Leine, 1951), pp. 68-72.
14 Maurizio Belloni, Uno come tanti (Rome, Faro, 1948), pp. 21-34; Galeazzo Ciano, The
Ciano Diaries, 1939-1943 (New York, Doubleday, 1946), 23 December 1943.
15 Mario Luciolli, Palazzo Chigi: anni roventi. Ricordi di vita diplomatica italina dal 1933 al
1948 (Milan, 1978), pp. 68-71; and Dino Alfieri, Dictators Face to Face (New York, New
York University Press, 1955), pp. 32-3.
16
8/13, doc. 130.
DDI
17
9/1, docs. 155, 249. For Mussolini’s letter to Hitler, see DDI
DDI 8/13, docs. 102, 298;
for events leading up to 1 September 1939, see Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il duce
(Turin, Einaudi, 1981), passim; and Mario Toscano, The Origins of the Pact of Steel,
(Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 1967), passim.
43
Corso Pecori Giraldi - Italy’s military, air, and naval attaches, respectively
-
18
9/3, docs. 137, 376, 492, 578. The leitmotiv of intertwined fates resurfaced every
DDI
time Hitler became desperate. Outraged at German treatment of Poles and Jews,
Attolico advised Rome display ’great reserve’ with Berlin.
19
Op. cit., docs. 126, 137, for Attolico’s observation that like other German leaders,
Göring wanted peace, but could conceive of no alternative to an attack through
Belgium, even though the Italians were trying to make the Germans understand that
doing so would mean delivering the United States to Britain.
20
Op. cit., docs. 640, 657, 661 for Teucci’s report that 67 of 90 Messerschmitts had been
sent to Yugoslavia and for his impression that Berlin had little intention of providing
Italy with a hundred 88 mm anti-aircraft batteries, or machinery. Also DDI 9/5,
doc. 771, for German negotiations to sell Polish aircraft engines to Belgrade in October
1940.
21
9/3, doc. 694; and Roatta, Baionette, pp. 148-52, notes that the Germans took part
DDI
in operations ’not to collaborate but rather to direct them’, thereby creating problems
for Italian staff officers and field commanders.
22 8/13, docs. 389, 407, 463; DDI
DDI 9/1, docs. 81, 103, 118, 199; and DDI 9/3, docs. 95,
111, 226, 326; Attolico and Magistrati reported that high-ranking members of the
armed forces had hoped to avoid war, and that an admiral had even suggested that to
avoid bloodshed, Hitler trade Memel for Danzig.
23 9/3, doc. 567, for Lieutenant-Colonel Damiano Badini’s analysis, which notes
DDI
Germany’s lack of trained reserves, cadre, and heavy artillery. For analyses by Mario
Roatta and G. Roero di Costanze, Italy’s military and air attaches in Berlin in 1939, see
National Archives Microfilm (NAM), Reel 109, Frames 74-77, Mario Roatta, Berlin, 15
October 1939, and Reel 383, Frames 886-87, G. Roero di Costanze, Berlin, 25
September 1939. Roatta and Roero di Costanze were most impressed by Germany’s use
of air, not armour, and by the drive and initiative of the ’young’ German officer corps
rather than the ’traditional’ tactic of ’enveloping on the wings’ with deep thrusts by
armoured and motorized columns, many of which would have been annihilated by a
stronger enemy.
44
there than expected.24 Its forces bogged down in Norway and encounter-
ing stiffer resisance than expected in Belgium, Germany ignored even
modest Italian requests for materiel and seemed as interested in dividing
the Balkans with the USSR as in defeating France.25
Because German meddling in the Balkans in spring 1940 threatened to
create a ’delicate’ situation for Italy, Attolico urged Rome to ’speak even
more cearly than has been done up to now’ with Berlin, and Mussolini
railed against ’the meddlesome and overweening nature of the Ger-
mans’. 21 Germany’s refusals to honour its economic accords with Italy
gave a hollow ring to Ribbentrop’s promise of aid, should Britain attack
Italy, and prompted the Italian ambassador to wonder ’What trust, in
effect, an Italy at war, or about to be, could have in a German ally? 27 It
was an easy question to answer. Because he could not count on his ally,
Mussolini knew that he could not wage a long war when he made his
decision to enter the war, but in May of 1940 he fully expected a
negotiated peace. Explaining his strategy of assuming the defensive to
Badoglio on 30 May, he noted that ’I am inventing nothing new: I am
copying the Germans and the French, who stood toe to toe for six months
without doing a thing’.28
24
9/4, docs. 100, 115, 130. The Italian military attaché also noted that if the attack
DDI
showed German decisiveness and an ability to organize, the objective was marginal,
since the Danubian basin and western borders were the keys to victory. OKW evidently
25
thought the war might last another four years.
Op. cit., docs. 694, 706, 726, 163, 164, 188, 228, 277, 371. According to Renzetti, Hitler
had forced the German generals to go to war. Göring had suggested that Italy take over
US oil fields in Hungary and occupy Greece, but a German publication ran an article
in February depicting the Balkans as Germany’s ’economic space’.
26
DDI9/3, docs. 718, 721, 727; DDI 9/4, docs. 37, 40, 50, 99, 115, 116; Stato Maggiore
dell’Esercito and Ufficio Storico, (hereafter SME/US), Verbali delle riunioni tenute dal
capo di SM generale (Rome, SME/US, 1983), I, n. 3.
DDI
27 9/4, docs. 153, 288, 291, 323, 491, 527, 528, 678. German meddling was partly the
function of its need for food to feed the Low Countries, Denmark, and Norway, which
supplemented German coal, iron, and steel production, but were a drag on the Italian
economy, because Berlin appropriated southeastern Europe’s agricultural production
to feed them.
28
SME/US, Verbali, I, n. 5; DDI
9/4, docs. 642, 646, 668, 669, 679, 680. Mussolini had no
intention of attacking in the Balkan-Danubian region because he did not want to
jeopardize Italy’s supplies of raw materials.
29 Leonardo Simoni (Michele Lanza), Berlino. Ambasciata d’Italia, 1939-1943 (Rome,
Migliaresi, 1946), 24, 25, 28, 29 June and 1 July 1940, noted that the Germans would
have preferred the British to the Italians as allies. In February 1940, Giacomo Carboni,
Memorie segrete, 1935-1948. ’Più che il dovere’ (Florence, Parenti, 1951/55), pp. 45-58
and 63, found the German high command pessimistic and Halder particularly
45
defensive when Carboni alluded to German bad faith in provoking the war, which
confirmed the Italian’s ’long-standing contempt’ for the ’disloyal character’ of
Germans. According to Carboni, Mussolini doubted the Germans would win, but got
conflicting information from Marras and Colonel Giuseppe Bodini.
30 Rintelen, Mussolini, p. 78; and Alfieri, Dictators, pp. 41, 72-73, for Hitler’s distrust of
Italians.
31
9/4, doc. 151, for Hitler’s parochial
Alfieri, Dictators, pp. 21-24, 28-29, 168; and DDI
vision of fighting Britain ’from Narvik to the Spanish coast’.
32
9/5, docs. 60, 65, 76, 83, 85, 91, 93, 95 and 114. Mussolini limited his demands
DDI
only after Ciano’s message of 19 June from Munich that Hitler wanted terms mild
enough to preclude a government-in-exile and the flight of the French fleet to the
British. The fascist leader thus modified his earlier, more comprehensive demands in
order to accommodate his ally, on whose goodwill even the armistice with France
depended. See De Felice, Alleato, I, pp. 118-36, who thinks Mussolini put off his
demands until Britain was defeated.
33
Germany was especially interested in bauxite and in Italian workers, who were treated
by them like slave labour, e.g., DDI9/5, docs. 16, 608.
DDI
34 9/5, docs. 161, 200, 288, 584; Carboni, Memorie, pp. 95-102, for German lies about
the ease with which they attained victory in France, a campaign followed closely by SIM
(Servizio Informazioni Militari). National Archives Microfilm, Series T-821, Reel 130,
Frames 895ff., M. Roatta, 10 July 1940 and M. Marcatili, 21 July 1940; Frames 503ff.,
E. Marras, 26 May and 23 July 1940. Hitler told Alfieri that German forces needed a
rest after the French campaign, and he was evasive regarding an invasion of Britain,
explaining that such an action involved ’numerous fronts’ and was therefore
’complex’. In the mantime, he encouraged the Italians to settle accounts with Greece
and Yugoslavia and to attack Suez. Marras played down the difficulty of taking the
Belgian forts, and Hitler dismissed the British as hopeless in the attack, badly
commanded, and contemptuous of their French ally, thereby providing an interesting
counterpoint to Ribbentrop’s earlier observation that British troops in Norway had
behaved as abject cowards.
35
9/5, docs. 311. 341.
DDI
46
None the less, their inability to finish off Britain led many Germans to
worry that they would ultimately lose the war.36 Mussolini considered a
German invasion of Britain to be purely ’hypothetical’, and Lanza noted
it was unlikely, owing to tension with the USSR and repeated postpone-
ments, apparently due to bad weather.37 Even Hitler’s assurances to
Ciano that he was ready to ’deal the (final) military blow’ to Britain were
quickly followed by explanations that weather had again delayed the
invasion.38
Repeated delays caused consternation in Rome, especially since the
reasons for the delays were not clear because, as Ciano complained, ’the
Germans keep us in the dark about everything’.39 At the same time, the
Italians were amused at the contrast between Germany’s dithering and
Britain’s air offensive, which had disrupted production in the Ruhr valley
and shaken civilian morale in Berlin. Commenting on a scandal involving
two high Nazi officials and a ’minor’, Lanza noted that while the Germans
might ’blindly obey’ the Nazis, they actually ’despised’ them because they
were ’all petty individuals, ignorant, vulgar, greedy and immoral’.4° If
nothing else, Berlin’s failure of nerve enhanced Italian prestige in the fall
of 1940, because while Hitler made excuses, Italian forces advanced into
Egypt and expelled the British from Somaliland.41
Despite German assurances they were doing well against the Royal Air
Force (RAF), Quirino Armellini, Assistant Chief of Italy’s General Staff,
considered a German invasion unlikely, and Lanza guessed - correctly -
that Berlin might instead be planning to attack the USSR.42 On 18 August
Keitel remarked that ’bad weather’ might delay an invasion of Britain
until mid-October, and two days later Alfieri reported that the Germans
would not risk an invasion, owing to the failure of the German Air Force
(GAF) to destroy the RAF. 43 As Armellini noted, ’No one knew what the
36
Op. cit., docs. 242, 244, 252, 264, 272, 252; and Simoni, Berlino, 13, 15, 19 and 20 July
1940. Although the GAF was preparing to mount massive air attacks on Britain, Göring
rejected offers of IAF units, noting that Italy could help most by fixing the Royal Navy
in the Mediterranean. A week later Ribbentrop told Ciano that an invasion of Britain
was not imminent. It thus seemed that the Germans were awaiting Italy’s attack on
August 1941, for Keitel’s remark to Mussolini that Cairo was more important than
London. Alfieri, Dictators, pp. 77-80, noted Keitel’s claim on 17 August that weather
had delayed Sealion, as well as remarks by Raeder and Hitler later that the enterprise
had simply been too risky to attempt.
Armellini, Diario, 21 and 28 August 1940; GMS, VIII, C-065 1, 12 August 1940, for
44
OKW’s appreciation of the importance that Britain attached to the Mediterranean; and
GMS C-065 j, 30 August 1940, and C-065 1, 2 September 1940, for Berlin’s
understanding that Graziani would attack only if Sealion was executed; and GMS III,
C-065 1, 12 August 1940, for OKW’s belief that Britain’s will to fight would be broken
by springtime. By not invading, Berlin may also have been trying to paralyse Italy in
order to wait for a negotiated settlement.
45
9/5, docs. 475, 507, 513, for Brauchitsch’s observation that the latest date for
DDI
invasion would be mid-October; and Simoni, Berlino, 26 and 28 August 1940, for
Göring’s boast to Giuseppe Teucci that the GAF needed only five days of ’good
weather’ to destroy the RAF, and German assurances to Alfieri that the air offensive,
which was about to begin in earnest, would be followed by invasion and certain victory
even though Lanza concluded that Berlin’s request on the same day that IAF (Italian
-
Air Force) units be sent to Belgium as quickly as possible meant that GAF losses over
Britain had been heavy.
Armellini, Diario, 28 and 31 August 1940; De Felice, Alleato, I, pp. 176-77; and DDI
46 9/5,
doc. 516. At Vienna Hitler claimed that if the weather cleared the GAF would be able
to defeat the RAF in two weeks, but Ciano doubted that this would occur since the
Germans had not only been notably diffident toward Russia and stressed the difficulties
involved in invading Britain, but had also finally admitted that the war would likely last
through the winter.
Hitler had never believed in Operation Sealion, and interservice rivalries had delivered
47
the coup de grâce to the operation. GMS, VII, C-059, for Warlimont’s opinion, shared by
Halder, Blumentritt and von Wedel; also GMSVIII, C-065j, 13 August 1940, for the
decision to pursue Sealion only after all other alternatives had failed; and 23
September for interservice rivalry. Simoni, Berlino, 1, 2 and 16 September 1940; Ciano,
Diary, 14 September 1940, for Marras; and DDI 9/5, doc. 600; Mario de Monte, Uomini
ombra. Ricordi di un addetto al servizio segreto navale, 1939-1943 (Rome, Nuova Editoriale
Marinara Italiana, 1955), pp. 158-63 for Canaris.
48
Italian victory in Egypt. But if Badoglio and Mussolini saw the Medi-
terranean as the ’baricentre’ of the conflict in September, lack of Axis
a time when the German army was idle, triggered an Italian attack on
Greece and distracted Rome’s attention from Africa just as Germany’s
failure to invade Britain allowed London to reinforce Egypt. In short, it
was German timidity that botched the Axis war effort in 1940; German
arrogance that led Hitler to order his staff to begin planning an invasion
of Russia even before he had cancelled the invasion of Britain; and
German duplicity that kept Mussolini in the dark and generated suspi-
cion. Repeated assurances that the war would soon be over by Ribbentrop
and Hitler made them appear ridiculous, especially when set against the
fear of most Germans that the victories of 1940 would prove as pyrrhic as
those of 1914.55
September 1940; and Rintelen, Mussolini, pp. 101, 104. Marras had asked for anti-tank
guns, trucks, and prime movers.
59
GMS, VIII, C-065 j, 26 August 1940, and VII, C-065 e, pp. 8-9, 17-18. The Germans set
1 December as a departure date, assuming three months would be needed to transport
an infantry and an armoured regiment with supporting units. DDI 9/5, doc. 677;
Ciano, Diaries, 4 October 1940. Hitler spent agood deal of his time with Mussolini at
the Brenner on 4 October proffering lame excuses for Germany’s failure to invade
Britain. In need of more IAF units on the English Channel, Hitler offered support for
an Italian attack on Suez in return for them.
50
priorities for the Axis were Suez and Gibraltar, but the Germans were
evasive regarding their plans to invade England and the effect Axis air
attacks would have on Britain. Far from reassured, Marras and the Italians
interpreted such an attitude, coming as it did with the deployment of
German units to Romania, to mean that Germany was considering an
attack on the USSR and was deliberately appropriating Italy’s sphere of
influence. 60
Such suspicions were reinforced by Berlin’s unwillingness to live up to
its contractual economic obligations, and Ciano remarked to Lanza that if
the war was long, Italy would not fight for Germany. Although Hitler still
believed in ultimate victory, most Germans were obsessed with the
ephemeral victories of 1914 and increasingly saw defeat as the most likely
result of so many inconclusive victories in 1940. The arrival of Italian air
units in Belgium on 1 October had further depressed the Germans, who
saw Italian aid as a sign of how desperate the situation was. 61
In Rome, Mussolini struggled to redress the imbalance created by
Germany’s initial victories, which had given Hitler control of France and
a chance to win over Spain; and OKW’s failure to invade Britain, which
was free to focus its efforts against Italy. 62 But the Italians were
fully
occupied in Greece, and a bitter Mussolini compared Italy’s check there
to Germany’s earlier failure against Britain. 63
Obsessed with safeguarding the newly won prestige of the German
armed forces and sensitive about their failures, in early 1941 Hitler,
Ribbentrop and Mackensen were anxious to avoid putting German troops
’in a risky situation’. According to Alfieri, fearful of ’a failure’, the
Germans would not invade Britain until they could be assured of
complete control of the air. 64 Marras added that German forces were
simply unsuited to attack the British Empire, although perhaps capable of
holding the Soviets at bay. 65 In short, Berlin had no intention of fighting
the British, and Lanza’s impression by the spring of 1941 was that they
either considered the war lost or hoped for a stalemate ’indefinitely’
prolonged. 66
60
DDI9/5, doc. 719; Simoni, Berlino, 13, 15-17, and 18 October 1940.
61
Simoni, Berlino, 28 September and 1 October 1940; also Ciano, Diaries, 16 July and 11
62
August 1940.
In mid-September, Ribbentrop had asked Italy to help to get Spain into the war in
order to seize Gibraltar. DDI 9/5, doc. 617. Mussolini’s attack on Greece must be seen
in context, not as some sort of aberrant action by an imbecile. For his letter to Hitler,
which justified the attack on Greece by referring to the meeting at the Brenner, see Op.
cit., doc. 753, and for Lanza’s suspicion that the Germans ’lost’ the letter, 24 October
1940. Cesare Amé, Guerra segreta in Italia, 1940-1943, (Rome, Gherardo Casini Editrice,
1954), p. 85, for SIM’s reports in early January 1941 that Britain was moving troops
from the home islands to Africa.
63
Armellini, Diario, 30 November 1940.
64
DDI9/6, doc. 791.
65
Simoni, Berlino, 28 January 1941, noted that the Germans had suffered ’parecchi
scacchi’ in the theatre and were ’irritatissimi’; and DDI 9/6, docs. 457, 469, for German
caution and Marras’ impressions.
66
Simoni, Berlino, 1 and 3 March 1941. Also DDI 9/6, docs. 296, 463, 469, for Alfieri’s
report of ’Mormorii, barzellete politiche, senso generale di depressione’, and Marras’
impression Germans saw the failure to defeat the RAF and to invade Britain as a
51
By late March there were strong hints that Hitler was using Franco’s
refusal to enter the war to justify ignoring the Mediterranean, but
considering some sort of action against the USSR.67 In April, Hitler
informed Mussolini that a quick victory in the Balkans was essential so
that Germany could relocate its forces to the ’East’, where the situation
was ’malsicura’. A German minister confided to Lanza that Germany
could not indefinitely tolerate a Bolshevik regime in the USSR and that
everything had ’been prepared for a long time’ to eradicate it. 68
The Italians understood the need to invade Britain and to keep the
USSR neutral, but German efforts to scuttle an Italo-Soviet rapproche-
ment indicated that they did not do SO.69 In May rumours of an attack on
the USSR pullulated in Germany, one of Lanza’s sources warning that an
attack on the USSR was imminent, another noting that the Germans
expected to ’exterminate’ the Soviets in three months .70 And Alfieri
informed Ciano that a ’good source’ had reported that armoured units
en route from the Balkans were to be ready to move ’at any moment’
against Russia. 71
Although Rome continued its trade talks with Moscow, by late May the
Italian ambassador, Augusto Rosso, was relating rumours that war
between the USSR and Germany was imminent. Rosso’s efforts to find out
more from the German ambassador, Schulenberg, were futile, but in
early June Italian sources reported that a massive military buildup along
the Soviet frontier was almost complete.72 On 12 June Rosso reported that
the evacuation of German families confirmed unofficial warnings that a
German attack was ’imminent’, and he obtained permission from Rome
to do likewise. 73 The transfer of Kesselring’s 2nd Air Fleet to Poland and a
reduction in shipments of coal and oil to Italy indicated that major
operations were about to get underway, despite denials by German
officials.74 By 13 June, the Italian military attach6 in Slovakia was counting
a military convoy passing to the east every seven minutes, and six days
later Schulenberg warned Rosso that war would break out in two or three
days.75
’check’, but did not think that they could be beaten either. The Italian general staff
considered it imperative to focus the Axis war effort on the Mediterranean after
Germany’s failure to invade Britain.
9/6, docs. 661, 778 for massing of forces to the east and for Spain, whose entry
DDI
67
into the war Hitler and Berlin had botched.
Simoni, Berlino, 29 April 1941; and DDI
68 9/6, doc. 865.
Simoni, Berlino, 5 and 16 January 1941; and DDI
69 9/6, docs. 414, 446, 470.
70 Simoni, Berlino, 3-4, 7-8, 13, and 15 May 1941.
71
9/7, doc. 144.
DDI
72
Op. cit., docs. 152, 170, 181, 188, 225, 231, 235, 243, 254, 257, for trade talks; for
Formentini’s reports from Bucharest indicating that an attack might be imminent; and
for Cicconardi’s report from Helsinki that Finnish and German troops were massing at
the same time that the Soviets were
building up their forces around Moscow. Also
Cavallero, Diario, 15 and 21 June 1941.
73
DDI
9/7, doc. 251, 252.
Simoni, Berlino, 3, 5, 7, 10,
74 and 11June 1941. Lutze, SA Chief of Staff, assured Renzetti
that there would be no war with Russia, but a German naval attaché in Budapest put
the start of operations anytime after 15 June.
Simoni, Berlino, 13 June 1941; and DDI
75 9/7, doc. 275.
52
None the less, the likelihood that Germany would be stalled in Russia
through the winter, not only gave Britain a free hand in the Medi-
terranean, but made the public even more hostile toward Italian workers,
who were taking the place of Germans called up for duty in the East.85
Also Mussolini - livid over German treachery and incensed at the
treatment meted out to Italian workers - was concerned over the military
repercussions of Hitler’s blunder. 81
Predictably, the Germans were slow to realize that they were over-
matched in Russia, although by mid July the wife of one German
diplomat in Rome was referring to Hitler as an ’idiot’, and Ame foresaw a
very long and hard war in the East.87 Civilian morale deteriorated
noticeably as German forces in Russia stalled, and one German veteran
commented that the Germans had finally found a worthy opponent (einen
ebenbürtigen Gegner) . Many recalled the ephemeral victories of the First
World War and interpreted each setback as a step toward final defeat.88
That things had gone seriously wrong by early August was clear from
Ribbentrop’s claim that the slow pace of the advance was calculated to
save German lives and his observation that not even the capture of
Moscow would end the war.89 The Russian front was obviously biting into
Germany’s supplies of fuel and war material, and while Goebbels played
up victories in the Ukraine, it was clear that the Wehrmacht had been
unable to destroy the Red Army.9° According to Marras, some Germans
doubted that the Axis could win the war and blamed the ’delay’ in the
East on Hitler’s decision to attack Yugoslavia. At best OKW hoped to
reach the Volga and Caucasus by winter, then go over to the defensive
until 1942 to await a strategic thrust up from the Middle East. German
forces had already suffered 500,000 casualties, and the GAF could gain no
more than parity against the Red Air Force.91
85
DDI doc. 438; also Ciano, Diaries, 9 and
9/7, 11 July 1941.
86
Ciano, Diaries, 7 and 16 July 1941; and Bottai, Diario,7 June 1941, who noted that
Mussolini had told the Council of Ministers that he would send no more workers to
Germany, since Italians were not Sklavenvolk and Germans Herrenvolk.
87 Ciano, Diaries, 18 July 1941.
9/7, docs. 444, 445. Alfieri noted that while an Italian saw a lost battle as a lost
DDI
88
battle, the German viewed it as a portent of ultimate defeat.
89
Op, cit., doc. 452; and Simoni, Berlino, 4 August 1941, for Ribbentrop’s discussion of
efforts to stabilize a ’winter line’.
9/7, doc. 472, for Alfieri, who noted that the public was still awaiting the ’final
DDI
90
battle’ against ’the principle enemy, England’; and Simoni, Berlino, 14 and 15 August
1941.
91
DDI9/7, doc. 501.
92
Op. cit., doc. 506.
54
solution in the east before winter. Despite having seized large areas of the
USSR and destroyed Timoshenko’s armies, the Germans had not broken
the Soviet will to fight and were unable to liquidate the Eastern Front and
free a hundred divisions for use elsewhere.103 As an amused Ciano noted,
Ribbentrop now made ’a big jump’ from confident predictions of
imminent victory to a timid guess that the war might end in 1943.104
Italian sources reported that failure to secure victory in 1941 had
triggered a heated debate within both OKW and the government over
whether to continue the offensive, and if so, whether to move against
economic and military objectives in the south or ’political’ objectives in
the north. To what extent repeated German excuses that ’soft’ ground
precluded movement was an effort to cover their indecisiveness was not
clear, but the Italians perceived a serious split between Brauchitsch and
Halder on one side and Keitel and Hitler on the other. 105 Additional
evidence of chaos within the German high command in early November
came from Otto von Bismarck, who told Anfuso that the German
military
considered the war in the east lost, and from reports that Ernst Udet had
killed himself after being dismissed because he insisted that the GAF,
built for a short war, could not match Allied air power.106 According to
Bottai, Hitler had even confided to Ciano that Soviet resistance had been
a brutal surprise, admitting that he would have hesitated to attack had he
known what tough opponents the Russians would be. 107
Predictably, despite a propitious opening, the German offensive against
Moscow quickly stalled, owing to low-level Soviet air attacks and - of
course - bad weather.10’ So desperate did the situation appear by mid-
December that rumours circulated of a ’pronunciamiento’ by German
generals.l°9 The disastrous situation in the east was particularly embar-
rassing to Berlin because as racially inferior Russian troops routed
German armies outside Moscow, well-disciplined Italian forces stymied a
superior British opponent in Africa, where Auchinleck’s offensive barely
102
Simoni, Berlino, 24 and 25 October 1941; DDI
9/7, docs. 666, 681; and Ciano, Diaries, 18
and 20 October 1941.
103
9/7, docs. 681, 775. Alfieri speculated that premature announcements of victory
DDI
might have been a ploy aimed at Britain because German ’dirigenti’ feared that they
would lose their gains if the war was not ended quickly. He thus worried that if unable
to deal with London, Berlin would create a German-dominated fortress Europe, in
which Italy’s role remained uncertain.
104
Ciano, Diaries, 27 October 1941.
105
9/7, docs. 701, 717; and Simoni, Berlino, 2 and 9 November 1941.
DDI
106
Simoni, Berlino, 10 November 1941; and Ciano, Diaries, 6 November 1941.
107 Bottai, Vent’anni, 1 November 1941.
108
9/7, doc. 828; and Simoni, Berlino, 20, 22, and 30 November 1941.
DDI
109
Simoni, Berlino, 4, 6, and 10 December 1941.
56
everywhere.&dquo;5
To the amusement of Ciano and Mussolini, the Germans suddenly
became almost cordial, as they invented excuses for their failures and
Hitler rallied against the ’weather’. 116 As in 1940 when the Germans
elicited Italian air units to help in the offensive against Britain after it was
clear that the GAF was inadequate to the task, so in 1942 Hitler now asked
Romania and Hungary, as well as Italy for more army units to use in
Russia, to the dismay of Marras, who asked for clarification. But unlike the
Romanians and Hungarians, who balked at sending more units to the
east, Mussolini overcame his bitterness at German efforts to blame Italian
units for their failures and assured Hitler that he would ready new
divisions for Russia. But the fascist leader also dismissed both Hitler
and FDR (F.D. Roosevelt) as ’big jackasses’ .118
110
Ciano, Diaries, 26 and 28 November, 7 and 17 December 1941.
111
Simoni, Berlino, 5, 8, 10, and 18 December 1941. DDI
9/8, doc. 57, for Alfieri’s censure
of Hitler for the débâcle outside Moscow because the Nazi leader had forced the
military to attack and his demoralization of the army by replacing key generals, and for
friction between regular army and SS units.
112
9/8, doc. 54; Simoni, Berlino, 21, 23, and 31 December 1941.
DDI
113
Ciano, Diaries, 20, 22, and 27 December 1941; Cavallero, Diario, 15 September and 2, 8,
and 16 December 1941.
114
9/8, docs. 52, 62, 76, 84.
DDI
115
116
Op. cit., docs. 111, 146; also Simoni, Berlino, 7 and 14 January 1942.
Ciano, Diaries, 1 January 1942; DDI 9/8, doc. 80. That Germany’s setbacks were
reminiscent of those suffered by Italy for in Greece a year earlier made their search for
excuses all the more interesting, especially since bad weather had also been crucial in
117
Italy’s débâcle in the Epirus.
Simoni, Berlino, 8 and 23 January 1942; DDI 9/8, docs. 57, 126, 155, 180, 181; and
Ciano, Diaries, 6 and 15 January 1942 for the bitterly anti-German Magyars.
118
Ciano, Diaries, 13 January 1942.
57
It was now the minor powers who rushed to rescue the Germans, who
were desperately trying to supply 95,000 men in a Soviet pocket at Lake
Ilmen. Despite optimistic German assessments, Marras predicted that
Russia would be ’the tomb of the German army’; Alfieri reported that the
Germans were desperate enough to use gas against Soviet troops; and
Bismarck told d’Aieta that Germany’s inability to advance not only
hindered a deal with the Anglo-Saxons but was also ’a disaster for the
white race’ because it allowed Japan to humiliate Anglo-American forces
in the Pacific.119 Ciano underlined how ridiculous the Germans had
become in late February when he noted that ’every time the Germans
issue a communique that everything is going well on the eastern front,
they get a thrashing’.’ 20
While Mussolini was pleased with Germany’s setbacks, they left Italy to
occupy and pacify the Balkans, a task made more difficult by German
refusals to cooperate with the Italians and by brutal German occupation
policies which stimulated partisan resistance. German policies also made
it difficult for the Italians to attract others to the banner of a ’New Order’
and stymied Rome’s efforts to seek a separate peace with Moscow.121
Perhaps De Peppo caught the mood in Europe best when he reported
from Ankara that, ’The Turkish ideal is that the last German soldier will
fall upon the last Russian corpse’.122
In the spring of 1942 Pavolini found Berlin depressed, the Nazi regime
in crisis, and jokes about Hitler’s incompetence making the rounds in
Berlin.’2s The German soldier had learned to fear his Soviet counterpart
and to dread the expansive steppes, while heavy losses and returning
veterans had triggered premonitions of disaster in the German public,
even though by early April the Eastern Front was quiet and the German
Army apparently ’solid’ again.124 But few Germans foresaw a chance for
victory over the Soviets in 1942, and while Alfieri hoped Mussolini would
talk more frequently and plainly to Hitler, Lanza and Luciolli wanted the
ambassador to urge the Duce to find a way out of the war and free Italy
from its duplicitous and incompetent ally.125
119 Lanza reported the use of poison gas by the Germans at Kerch in May. DDI9/8, docs.
257, 337, 343; Simoni, Berlino, 21 February, 8 March, and 9 May 1942; Ciano, Diaries, 24
February 1942; and Belloni, Uno come tanti, p. 47.
120
Ciano, Diaries, 26 February 1942.
121
Cavallero, Diario, 4 February 1942; DDI
9/8, doc. 263. To feed the Greek civilian
population as well as the 600,000 men and 100,000 animals of their own occupation
force, the Italians used 34 merchant and 22 naval vessels daily in early 1942. Ciano,
Diaries, 24 March 1942 for Luciolli’s comments on Germany’s alienation of Europe.
122
9/8, docs. 368, 369, for Amè’s report that the
Ciano, Diaries, 11April 1942; also DDI
German population was suffering, families falling apart, and the social fabric fraying;
Luciolli’s report on the dismal situation in Germany.
123
Ciano, Diaries, 19 and 26 March 1942. Amé reported a depressed German public and a
By late April, when the Italians met Hitler and Ribbentrop at Salzburg,
Alfieri doubted that the Germans could even occupy the Caucasus, and
while some hoped for a negotiated peace, others saw the war dragging
through 1942. 126 Even the Japanese military attach6 had publicly la-
mented German ineptitude, and Ciano observed that the courteous
welcome accorded the Italians at Klessheim castle indicated that things
must be very bad in Russia because, ’The courtesy of the Germans is
always in inverse ratio to their good fortune’. Hitler proved to be merely
an inept boor. With his armies being bled white in the east and his cities
being hammered by RAF bombers, the Nazi leader blamed his problems
on inadequate logistical support, a loss of nerve by ’very many’ German
’K7ieg ist schon gewonnen’, but insisted in English that ’We cannot lose this
war,.132
But few Germans were even this optimistic, and in September Lanza
had begun to detect popular revulsion with Hitler. After the Allied
landings in North Africa, he noted that ’the Germans give the impression
of having completely lost their head’.133 This indeed seemed to be the
126
9/8, docs. 435 and 497 for the lukewarm reaction to Hitler’s speech.
DDI
127
Op. cit., docs. 492, 493, 495, 506, 507 for Jodl and Keitel, who stressed the role played
by winter weather and the T-34 (sic KV), and for more realistic appraisals by
=
finally decided he was, the German general staff were childish militarists
who followed the Pied Piper of Linz in his arrogant aggression and
connived in his racist brutalities.144
committed by their German allies. Hence our impression that the Italians
were singularly incompetent. Yet it is clear that the Germans committed
as many blunders as their ally and showed themselves to be woefully
declaring war in June 1940, then competing for spheres of influence and
territory with his ally.147
The irony, of course, was that the Germans did not trust the Italians
either, but they were in a position to monopolize Europe’s economic
resources, and the consequences of their mistakes and prejudices were
more profound than the results of Italian errors and mistrust.148 How
difficult dealing with the Germans could be was illustrated by Italian
efforts to obtain a license to produce the German Mark III and IV tanks,
which they wanted to replace their M13/40 medium tank. Negotiations
dragged on from June 1941 until March 1942, when the Italians dropped
the idea because they would have had to pay a high price for the license
and then produce tanks for the German army as well as for their own.
How long-lasting the effects of German errors could be was made clear in
January 1942 when Keitel, owing to the demands of Germany’s front in
Russia, reneged on a promise to cede 250 captured Belgian anti-tank guns
to the Italians, who needed them desperately in North Africa.149
Part of the problem was that the Axis had few organizations with which
they could co-ordinate their war efforts. Staff talks were sporadic rather
than regular and usually conducted as adjuncts to diplomatic conversa-
tions. As a result, such meetings rarely went beyond an exchange of views,
a bit of boasting by both sides, and vague agreements on what should be
done. The Italians, who hoped for more from such encounteres from the
Germans, were thus repeatedly disappointed, to the point of feeling
betrayed. For example, when the Axis leaders and their general staffs met
at the Brenner on 4 October 1940, the Italians thought that they had
arrived at an understanding regarding spheres of influence in the
Balkans, only to learn a week later that Berlin was sending advisers to
Romania, a move that clearly infringed on what Rome saw as its sphere of
influence. Organizations such as the armistice commission in France were
largely confined to busying themselves with administrative matters be-
cause both sides used personal contacts and other diplomatic channels to
deal with Vichy, Croatia, and other states. There was therefore no more
and Italy were fighting parallel wars, neither was interested in co-
operating with its ally so much as it was in undercutting a competitor. The
strategic errors, tactical mistakes, and diplomatic blunders of one’s ally
were therefore translated into expressions of ridicule and accusations of
150 For example, Lucio Ceva, ’Altre notizie sulle conversazioni militari italo-tedesche alla
vigilia della seconda guerra mondiale’, Il Risorgimento (1978), ’Appunti per una storia
dello Stato Maggiore Generale fino alla vigilia della "non belligeranza" (giugno
1925-luglio 1939)’, Storia contemporanea (1979), ’La campagna di Russia nel quadro
strategico della guerra fascista’, Il Politico (1979), ’L’incontro Keitel-Badoglio del
novembre 1940 nelle carte del generale Marras’, Il Risorgimento (1977).
151The minutes of the meetings are contained in SME/US, Verbali, I-IV. For the German
decision to take over the Italian war effort, see Josef Schröder, ’L’ Allemagne et ses
alliés’ and ’Les prétensions, allemands à la direction militaire du theâtre italien
d’opérations en 1943’, Revue d’histoire de la deuxième querre mondiale (1972 and 1974).
152 Vittorio
Zincone, ed., Hitler e Mussolini. Lettere e documenti (Milan, Rizzoli, 1946) has
provided some top-level correspondence, and works by scholars like Lucio Ceva, De
Felice’s Alleato, and such publications in the SME/US Verbali and collections of
diplomatic documents have provided an insight into relations between theatre
commanders, general staffs, and diplomats, there is little on the relations between
Italian and German soldiers, although what little there is seems to paint a picture of
arrogant Germans and resentful Italians. For an example, Ceva, Africa settentrionale,
passim, esp. pp. 173-9.
153 De
Felice, Alleato, I, pp. 199-274, for Axis competition for control of the Arabs, which
effectively destroyed any chance that they might be used effectively against the British.