Masters of Battle by Terry Brighton

Author:Terry Brighton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141921334
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2009-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

Immediately news of the landings reached Hitler, he asked to see Rommel. The two men dined together on the evening of 4 September and agreed that the Italians could not be trusted and would soon change sides. Rommel wrote proudly that ‘The Führer agrees to my Italian campaign plan, which envisages a defence along the coastline.’

He returned to Munich to arrange the transfer of his headquarters to Lake Garda in northern Italy. On the afternoon of 8 September a radio station in Rome announced that an armistice had been agreed between Italy and the Allies. At 1950 the German High Command telephoned Rommel with the code‐word ‘Achse’. This was confirmed at 2020: ‘Marshal Badoglio agrees accuracy of Allied radio broadcasts about Italian surrender. Achse takes immediate effect.’

For the last five weeks he had been infiltrating troops into northern Italy and by now he had eight divisions under his command. His Achse orders were to disarm all Italian troops and transfer them to Germany as prisoners‐of‐war. Resistance in Milan and Turin was quickly put down. In Florence there was a short exchange between German and Italian tanks. Rome was seized and placed under the command of General Stahel.

From Lake Garda Rommel commanded the defence of the northern half of Italy’s western coastline: ‘Everything available is to be inserted along the coast itself; no reserves are to be held.’ He attempted to prevent the looting of Italian homes by the SS and complained to Sepp Dietrich, the SS Corps commander; Dietrich knew of his interest in stamps and responded by sending him a looted collection. German troops under Kesselring, who commanded the southern half of Italy, had seized control of crucial defence installations along the western coast where secondary Allied landings were expected, and six German divisions stood ready to press the enemy back into the sea.

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