Hitler's Strategy : Defeat doesn’t exist… when it’s censored | UNCENSORED

We will defend our island, where ever they cross us, in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight. We shall never surrender. We were suddenly and deliberately attacked and they were rather childish to do, and that they were going to bomb everybody else, and nobody was meant to bomb them. January 10th, 1942. In the Wolf's Lair near Rastenburg in East Prussia, Adolf Hitler welcomed Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu. The troops of the Allied powers faced the Red Army on the Eastern Front and had fought together on the Volga River that winter. The pictures of January 1943 were set against the background of the catastrophe at Stalingrad. Two Romanian armies had been sent to the Eastern Front at Hitler's request. In 41, early 42, they asked the Romanians, now do a little bit more. And those things were gone now. There were huge losses. And Stalingrad had quite a big political effect. Hitler, of course, had to try to keep his allies fighting, of whom Romania was actually the most important because the Romanians had the most soldiers on the Eastern Front. The meeting of the Führer and the Romanian leader served another purpose. At a time of imminent defeat at Stalingrad, it was necessary to demonstrate confidence publicly. It had a very great effect in showing the German people that we still had allies because the anti-Hitler coalition was growing bigger and bigger. And more and more Germans were asking themselves how they were supposed to manage against this huge coalition which by now spanned half the world. However, for the soldiers of the Axis powers in Stalingrad, there was no justification for the display of optimism. The battle for the industrial and armament center had been raging since August of 1942. After heavy bombardment by the Luftwaffe, German units advanced into the city. Despite initial successes, however, the offensive came to a halt. The Wehrmacht's war in the Soviet Union was, after all, a war of movement, a war in huge spaces, a war that actually didn't take place in cities at all. The Germans had no regulations at all for fighting in cities. And now these units come into this city, an industrial city destroyed by German air raids, and they were not prepared for that. It was very bloody. It should have been stopped, but Hitler persevered. And so battalion after battalion was wasted there. The Sixth Army was receiving fewer and fewer supplies and was slowly bleeding to death in the ruins of the city. By mid-October, its commander-in-chief, Colonel General Friedrich Paulus, had only about 25,000 combatants left out of a quarter of a million soldiers. And they faced an enemy fighting fanatically. What happened there was pretty dramatic, how people were really sent into the fire and burned up. Even the Germans noted in their reports, shaking their heads, at points there were already masses of dead or destroyed tanks. Even then, the generals sent their troops into the fire again and again. It has to be said, with many Soviet military leaders, there was a complete contempt for the life of their own soldiers. Hitler had estimated just eight days for the so-called Operation Heron, the capture of Stalingrad. An insane miscalculation, because even after weeks of fighting, the city could not be completely taken. The Red Army brought in reserves from the east and repeatedly threw fresh forces into the battle. In mid-November, the Soviets launched a counter-offensive called Operation Uranus. It succeeded in encircling the Axis soldiers. Here, we see propaganda film intended to show the moment when the circle around Stalingrad closed. And while an army was headed for downfall on the Volga, some 3,000 kilometers to the west, there were celebrations. January 12th, 1943, Reich Marshal Hermann Goering had invited guests to his Cotten Hall estate in Brandenburg to celebrate his 50th birthday. Goering was the most decorated German soldier of the Second World War, which many were not aware of, because the Grand Cross, which he received in July 1940, was above the Knight's Cross and was awarded only to him. And he also had a rank, the Reichsmarschall, which was above Feldmarschall, which actually didn't exist. And that's interesting and important in that sense, because the order and the rank made it clear what Goering was. He was the number two man in the country, the designated successor to Hitler. The birthday boy had pompously announced that his Air Force would supply the trapped troops in Stalingrad with ammunition and food, even though he must have been aware of the hopelessness of that undertaking. He despaired, and he then tried to score points with Hitler again by saying, yes, I'm supplying the Sixth Army in Stalingrad, and that didn't work. So he got hit on the head, and he didn't see any way to stop it. So we have records of his meetings with his staff, and he understood what was at stake. He knew how difficult the situation was, but then he always said that in the end, I have to go to Hitler now and I have to sell it to him, give me better news. And it went so far that people put in writing how difficult the situation was, and he tore up that document. While Göring was feeling sorry for himself, the trapped soldiers received only pathetic slogans of perseverance instead of the hoped-for rations by air. A speech by the Air Force chief was broadcast all the way to the Volga, and must have sounded like sheer mockery to the infantrymen. The situation in the surrounded city continued to deteriorate. Cold, epidemics, and hunger took their toll. At the beginning of January, the daily ration for a soldier in the Stalingrad cauldron was barely 50 grams of bread, no more than a slice. A German soldier noted, the truth is the knowledge of the hardest struggle in a hopeless situation. Misery, hunger, cold, renunciation, doubt, despair, and horrific death. That's all I'll say about it. Despite the increasingly hopeless situation, surrender was out of the question for Hitler. Defiantly, he ordered the city to be held at all costs. At the end of January, he appointed Friedrich Paulus, commander-in-chief of the 6th Army, as field marshal. The hope was that an officer of such rank would choose suicide rather than surrender. Friedrich Paulus was disillusioned by the fact that all attempts of his to get his permission from Hitler to surrender at Stalingrad in order to save lives was rejected by Hitler. And at that moment, he actually felt betrayed and abandoned. And for this dictator to still take a bullet in the head, that's where he said, no, doing that would mean I would take the responsibility. And the responsibility for the death and failure in Stalingrad is not mine, but Hitler's. And he simply didn't want to take the responsibility. He didn't want to take the responsibility for this defeat, to wear that hat. On January 31st, Friedrich Paulus, the highest ranking German officer up to that time, went into Soviet captivity. A few days later, the last Axis units in the city surrendered. After more than five months, the Battle of Stalingrad was over. GERMAN NARRATOR READS First of all, there was shock. It was only written down in the diaries or in the secret morale reports that the people were shocked. They couldn't imagine it. An entire army had perished, sacrificed. In those days, defeats were associated with symbols, with the surrender of armies, with the surrender of countries. And the defeat of Moscow was not connected with the surrender of any army, with any symbolic act. The Germans were repulsed, and they lost 200,000 soldiers. But this didn't appear in any statistics. Stalingrad was the first symbolic place where the Wehrmacht suffered a defeat. It couldn't be hidden. The Battle of Moscow could be retouched a little. Stalingrad couldn't. About half of the trapped soldiers died during the battle. Only a few tens of thousands were lucky enough to be flown out. In February, the remaining 100,000 men were dragged into captivity. Of that amount, only about 6% survived and returned to Germany years later. On the German side, of course, the blame for the defeat at Stalingrad was aimed primarily on the Allies. But of course, it was wrong to shift the blame onto the Allies, which Hitler did. That's why he said in the summer of 1943 that he wanted to carry out the summer offensive only with German troops, so that something like Stalingrad wouldn't happen again. But of course, critical mistakes were also made on the German side. And even without the Allies, the outcome certainly would not have been different. The mood in Germany was devastating. In mid-February, Joseph Goebbels addressed a select audience in Berlin's Sportpalast. His speech was broadcast on the radio. Goebbels' speech in the Sportspalast was definitely a key event. Because at a critical moment, he tried to finally commit the masses to total war. Total war also meant radical, comprehensive social mobilization of all available resources. The Minister of Propaganda asked 10 rhetorical questions, which were ecstatically received. The interesting thing, however, was that he actually spoke in a style that would have been more appropriate, let's say, in the spring of 1945, or even the fall of 1944, because living conditions for Germans in February of 1943 weren't so bad at first. It was before the Allied air offensive on the Ruhr or on Hamburg. Yes, there was bombing, but the really bad stuff was yet to come. The Fronts were far away in Russia. Germany dominated France. German soldiers were also in Tunisia. The, let's say, average Berliner who was listening was certainly in a different mood in February 43. And Goebbels, of course, knew what was coming and had more information. So in that respect, it was a speech that was actually much too radical for the atmosphere that prevailed in Berlin at that time. A few months earlier, the German public was still used to hearing success stories. The Wehrmacht had advanced as far as the Caucasus. One, two, three, four. It's getting more and more. A Bolshevist encirclement force. Well thought out. Gun towards Gamswan. Largest distance. Faster, faster. Alarm at the Pass was the title of a propaganda film that was supposed to document the alleged success. Hans Ettel, who had previously made a name for himself as Lenny Riefenstahl's cameraman, shot the film with mountain troops on location. Now you can be ashamed. We will salt the way in. The German advance, however, soon only succeeded on celluloid. The vast gains of territory in the Caucasus, initially aided by Soviet retreats, resulted in significant supply problems of fuel and ammunition. The overstretched supply routes contributed to the Wehrmacht having to withdraw from the mountain range between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea from the turn of the year, 1942 to 1943. Therefore, when Alarm at the Pass was finished, Goebbels refused to release the film to theatres. In other areas of the Eastern Front, the situation continued to deteriorate for the Wehrmacht and its allies. After the victory at Stalingrad in early 1943, the Red Army tried to use this momentum for themselves. In the southern section of the Eastern Front, the Red Army launched two major offensives, Offensive Stern and Offensive Sprung. Initially, with Offensive Sprung and then also with Stern, Stalin tried to cut off the entire southern wing of the German Eastern Front and liberate Crimea and destroy all of the German forces in the south of the Eastern Front and advance to Dnieper. In many places, the Wehrmacht had no choice but to retreat. Here was the official language of the situation in the propaganda, a lesson in whitewashing. Kharkov was also targeted by the Red Army. The city had been under German control since October of 1941. Idyllic images of the occupation belie the reality. For example, most of the Jewish population had been murdered. In mid-February 1943, the Red Army recaptured the city, but the Wehrmacht did not admit defeat. Then the Germans managed to bring in reserves and recaptured Kharkov in a counteroffensive in March of 43, and then managed to roughly recapture their initial starting position from the summer of 42. But those were very critical days when it wasn't clear whether the Germans would even succeed in stopping the Soviets again, or was that now a Napoleonic catastrophe? Napoleon, who retreated from Moscow once, also no longer found a way to stop, but at some point, that then degenerated into a retreat, and that danger certainly existed in February of 43, and the Germans could have stopped that with a counteroffensive. They could stabilize the front line and then thus conclude these winter battles. The success at Kharkov temporarily belied the balance of power in the southern section of the Eastern Front, and German soldiers were all too willing to be blinded. The morale of the soldiers was stabilized once again because the soldiers said to themselves, well, we're still superior. We're tactically superior to the Soviets. We're actually also superior in terms of weapons, and the Führer knows what he's doing, and they were still optimistic. The morale reports also said that even in the spring, the soldiers who rode from the front line or came on leave from the front line were actually more optimistic than the public. They also reassured the people and said, no, we're superior. In the capital of the Reich, the long-awaited success on the Eastern Front was exploited to great public effect. Adolf Hitler appeared on Heroes Memorial Day in front of the Zeughaus on Unter den Linden, along with representatives of the Luftwaffe, the Army, and the Navy. Hermann Göring, Wilhelm Keitel, Karl Dönitz, as well as Heinrich Himmler. The holiday had been specifically postponed so that the Führer could announce the recapture of the then fourth-largest city in the Soviet Union. It was the Führer's first public appearance since the fall of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad. We are devoted to our homeland and our people and are burning with hatred against our enemies. The German army is becoming more and more like a fighting nation. The dead of this Second World War will not be lost, but will live on in our ranks forever as unforgettable heroes and pioneers of a better age. Hitler also gave a speech on Heroes Memorial Day, but a very short one. I think it was only a quarter of an hour long or so. Nothing at all compared to the usual pre-war speeches of three or four hours. And we know that from the moot reports of the security service that moviegoers were terribly disappointed because while it was shown in the newsreel, no original recordings were played of Hitler or how his voice sounded. At the time, there really clung to it. How does the Führer look? They also watched his face closely in the newsreels. Is he positive? What is he saying? How does he say it? And then the newsreel announcer only summarized what Hitler said, and they were all terribly disappointed. And Goebbels tried for months to persuade Hitler to give a public speech again, to finally give the people hope again. Hitler didn't want that at all. He always said, first we need victories again. In that situation, he didn't want to do that. Further disappointments were to follow. For example, in the North African theater. Since February of 41, German units have been fighting there alongside the Italians. For a long time, Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps had been a source of success. The tank general had previously made a name for himself in the Western campaign against France and was now presented by Nazi propaganda as a brilliant army commander. The image of the strategically skilled Desert Fox was very popular throughout the Reich. Günter Hallen is only 19 years old. As a gunner of a Pak, he shot seven British tanks under the most difficult conditions. Whoever is such a man, will always be such a man. On your occasion, of course, I expect that from you. But ever since the Allies landed massive forces in North Africa at the end of 1942 in what was called Operation Torch, which opened a second front in the rear of the Afrika Korps, the troops of the Axis powers were increasingly on the defensive. At first, Berlin did not recognize the signs of the times. Hitler forbade withdrawing troops from Tunisia. On the contrary, he continued to pump more troops in there. That was typical of Hitler. There is this Nazi will to preserve, defending at all costs to the last grenade. Despite the increasingly hopeless military situation, the Afrika Korps put up fierce resistance. Here are pictures taken by US front-line cameramen of tough fighting near Tunis. Personnel consequences on the German side came only later. Rommel was in North Africa until the beginning of March 1943 and was then recalled because defeat was clear and the regime didn't want to see one of the most popular generals go into captivity. And besides, they still needed him for propaganda in the further course of the war. The Allies now had four times as many tanks in North Africa as the Axis powers and had air supremacy. In mid-May 1943, the German-Italian units under Rommel's successor, Colonel General von Arnim, formed Army Group Afrika and surrendered near Tunis. That then ended in a military catastrophe compared by some to the magnitude of the defeat at Stalingrad. 250,000 German and Italian soldiers went into captivity. Militarily, the defeat in Tunis was the second very serious defeat for the German Reich after Stalingrad. It became clear that it had lost the initiative on several fronts and their important ally Italy was on the verge of collapse. Thus, another of Hitler's military ventures came to an abrupt end. In addition to hundreds of thousands of soldiers going into captivity, there were at least 30,000 casualties on the side of the Axis powers. On May 20th, the Allies celebrated their victory with a military parade in Tunis. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied Commander-in-Chief during Operation Tord, and later the U.S. President, attended the triumphal procession. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill later wrote in his memoirs, Increased efforts in the German armaments industry helped compensate for the growing military superiority of the Allies. Albert Speer had been responsible for armaments manufacturing since February of 1944, had reorganized it. In addition to weapons, Speer, who was equally popular with the Fuhrer and the people, was primarily concerned with his image. Albert Speer, one can say, was first and foremost a man of staging and propaganda, not the least of which was the staging of himself. So we first had a so-called home front propaganda, which systematically referred to the production wonders and the achievements of the German armaments industry, and which then very soon also became intoxicated with its own successes. But Albert Speer actually succeeded in significantly increasing output in certain armament sectors. The increases were due to the systematic importation of foreign workers to the Reich, which was further accelerated under Speer. Thus, men and women from the occupied territories toiled in German factories for the insane idea of final victory. Hundreds of thousands suffered from malnutrition and mistreatment or worked themselves to death. Forced laborers were quite central to the German armaments industry and for this war machine in general. Just imagine that in 1944, there were 7.6 million forced laborers in the German Reich, and they kept the armaments industry and industrial war production going. This meant that the use of forced laborers was a central element of the National Socialist war ideology and war economy. They were becoming increasingly important and were being brought into the Reich at ever greater expense because they were a substitute, a cheap substitute for the conscripted Germans who were in the Wehrmacht. Forced labor was, on the whole, a program that was changing quite dramatically. In the overall tendency, one could say that with the way in which warfare had become more radicalized and how the military tactical situation had also deteriorated and became more acute, that to the same extent, the ruthlessness with which forced laborers had been treated became more and more acute. Speer also displayed particular creativity when it came to presenting his production figures. It's also important to emphasize that Albert Speer always argued with growth rates that were indeed immense. But he liked to refer to certain base dates when production was particularly active. When production was particularly low and that these rates of increase were particularly impressive. And he really avoided ever stating absolute production figures and possibly relating them to the production process potential of their opponents. Of course, the German economy didn't come close to what the Americans in particular and also what the Soviets produced. Even if it was possible to increase the economy enormously, this was helped strongly by the assembly line procedure. On the German side, there was only one factory making tanks, the Nibelungen factory, which worked with an assembly line method. For the Americans, this was standard and the Germans simply couldn't match it. This fact was neglected in Nazi propaganda. Instead, they emphasized the alleged superiority of their own weapons. In the summer of 1943, Albert Speer and Joseph Goebbels attended a staged tank race, the result of which was probably already set before the start. The tanks were tested. The Panther, compared to an American General Lee. In the middle, the American tank. Over a steep concrete obstacle. The American tank didn't force it and confirmed again the statements of our opponents that our tanks and weapons were superior to theirs. The completed tanks were urgently needed to at least partially compensate for the Wehrmacht's heavy material losses. Many combat vehicles left the factory for the Eastern Front, where new offensive plans were now being made after the recapture of Kharkov in March of that year. Everyone was aware that the forces were not enough for a large scale offensive as in 1941 and 1942, but there was a frontal advance around the city of Kursk. So we could start an offensive, gain ground and demonstrate that you could still attack and keep the initiative. About 120 kilometers of the frontal advance around the city of Kursk protruded into the German lines. It was to be straightened as part of an offensive that was given the code name Citadel. Operational order number six from April of 1943 stated, every leader, every man must be imbued with the decisive importance of this attack. The victory at Kursk must act as a beacon to the world. About 900,000 men were pulled together for this on the German side. They were opposed by at least 1.4 million Red Army troops and they were prepared when the German attack started in early July. Within this frontal arc, the Red Army had created a defense system with a total of six defense belts and these defense lines, which were riddled with anti-tank trenches with mines. Hundreds of thousands of mines were laid and thousands of kilometers of trenches were dug with anti-tank bases and so on. It was actually a very difficult system to penetrate. In the coming days, the largest tank battle of the Second World War unfolded at Kursk. The shortcomings of the German armaments industry under Albert Speer quickly became apparent. At the time, the Germans had an enormous number of tanks, but they had no spare parts. It would have been better, if you will, to actually produce three tanks and produce three tanks as spare parts. But Speer preferred to produce five tanks and only one as a spare. And by the first day of the attack of Operation Citadel, one heavy tank division with Tigers had so many failures due to mines, but no spare parts. Right on first day, it wasn't possible to repair all tanks. And that was a consequence of Speer's policy, always to impress only with production figures, but nothing behind it in resources, where one could say, we have enough spare parts, enough mechanics. All right, we're covered. Even if we have failures, we can balance it out. In the Battle of Kursk, the tank units had to fear not only the Red Army, but also the vulnerability of their own combat vehicles. In addition to Type 4 models, newer tanks, such as the Panther, were also used. However, they had numerous technical shortcomings. A member of the 1st Division of the SS Panzer Regiment 2 noted, we had to take these cripples into action with, of course, quite clearly expected results. Propaganda studiously concealed such experiences. The work is done. The crew is returning to the front with their combat vehicles. In the Battle of the Front Arc, the Wehrmacht faced an almost inexhaustible reservoir of Soviet units. After initial moderate gains in space, the large-scale offensive came to a halt. After about two weeks at the latest, the German offensive was over and the Soviet side was on the counter-offensive. And then the second phase of the Battle of Kursk was at least from the German point of view purely characterized by heavy defensive fighting, that you try to hold the front arc of Aurel as long as possible, at least to cover the retreat. In mid-August, the Red Army recaptured Kharkov for the second time that year, the fighting that went down in history as the Battle of Kursk thus came to an end with immense losses on both sides. During the 50-day Kursk battle, the Red Army lost about 7,000 tanks. That means broken, burned out, exploded. About 7,000 tanks. The Wehrmacht had about 1,200 tanks, and so you have a loss ratio of one to six. With airplanes, the loss ratio was about one to five. On the German side, you had a total of 650 destroyed aircraft. On the Soviet side, at least 3,000. But the most difficult thing, however, was to determine the personnel losses. On the German side, they were about 200,000 men. On the Soviet side, at least 1.2 million. As a result of the tank battle of Kursk, it became clear, no matter what they did, no matter how many Soviet tanks they shot down, no matter how many soldiers they captured or died in the Red Army, they couldn't win this militarily. And this raised the question, what were the Germans supposed to do? They couldn't really do anything anymore because they couldn't destroy more than 6,000 tanks in a few weeks. Any other army would have had its back broken, not so the Red Army. And so it became clear in Operation Citadel that the Germans could do whatever they wanted. This had become a material war which the Germans couldn't win. Operation Citadel was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. From then on, more and more, the Red Army took the initiative. On the 26th of August, a few days after the end of the battle of Kursk, it launched a new offensive. The high command of the Wehrmacht, meanwhile, had been faced with new developments in another theater of war for several weeks. On July 10th, 1943, the Allies landed in Sicily. At that very moment, Operation Citadel was about a week old. And at that moment, Hitler actually lost his nerve a bit. He then contributed to the attack being stopped a few days later, and he wanted to move his Waffen-SS divisions all the way from the Eastern Front. In the end, only one Waffen-SS division, the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, was moved to northern Italy. But of course, it showed the interaction of the individual theaters of war. It was a continental war that the Germans faced there. Different fronts, France, the Mediterranean, the Soviet Union, and they were interconnected and interlocked with each other. And the Allies had the upper hand in mid-43. They had the initiative, and they could determine where to attack. For the landing, the Allies had pulled together over 100,000 troops, including soldiers from the 1st U.S. Infantry Division, the Big Red One. The tradition-rich unit had previously fought in North Africa and was now helping bring Sicily under Allied control in about a week. Everywhere, Americans, Canadians, and British were encountering the legacies of fascist rule. Destroyed war equipment was repurposed by local youth in the blink of an eye. The fall of Sicily caused consternation in war-weary Italy, which quickly turned into revolutionary sentiment and led to personnel consequences. Mussolini was deposed by the Fascist Grand Council on July 25th, 1941. There was also the King Victor Emmanuel III, and so Mussolini was no longer the Duce. Pietro Badoglio became the new prime minister. Officially, the general emphasized that he wanted to continue fighting alongside the Third Reich, but Italy and the Western powers were unofficially approaching each other. Secret peace negotiations were opened. During the fight for Sicily, about 4,600 Wehrmacht soldiers were killed. Over 13,000 were injured. Those who could not be cared for locally were transferred home. Clinics for the treatment and rehabilitation of the wounded were set up throughout the Reich, like here in Bielefeld in Westphalia. A doctor filmed the progress of his patients. At the moment when more and more fatally wounded people streamed back from the front, it became clear to everyone that this would not have a good ending. Of course, the propaganda in the Reich tried to glorify that. Television was still in its infancy, but it was used for propaganda. For example, many clinics had TV sets where the wounded could see their fellow sufferers. Willpower and willpower dominate fate. This is the solution to our severe war injuries. Their future is being taken care of, and in addition to the natural, purely physical healing, through a grip-safe surgery, the main task of the doctor must be to help the amputee overcome the mental obstacles that the wound brings with it. The amputees go through an obstacle course, 100 meters long, with severe obstacles. In the beginning, an amputee that requires quick reaction ability. Courage is part of that leap. Whoever gets stuck here. Like the weasel. Whether the camera accompanied war-disabled people on an obstacle course or at a dance class, the motto was always, everything's not so bad. It's not true, it's not going at all. Yes, fabulous! I would never have dreamed of that. When I was seriously wounded in Russia, that I would dance again. Did you like to dance in the past? No, I never danced. I only learned it now as an amputee. But you have amputated both legs. Yes. But it makes you happy. Yes, life is beautiful. The staged images seem cynical from today's perspective, but in the cold logic of the regime, the images made sense. The cleverness of the Nazi propaganda was that they showed that they didn't say, didn't pretend that no one was killed. They also didn't pretend that there were no wounded. No, there were. You could see them in the streets. They were openly shown. But they were also made into heroes. They had sacrificed themselves. They had also paid their price. And we also recognized that. Society recognizes that. That's why we also showed them in the newsreel, as well as invalid soldiers in a convalescent home and so on. And with that, Nazi propaganda created a piece of honesty. If you didn't show that, if you only made beautiful pictures of healthy soldiers, then it would have become untrustworthy because everybody saw them on the street, the limping people. And propaganda must always, in order to be effective, contain a piece of truth. On the 8th of September, the previously negotiated ceasefire between Italy on one side and the U.S. and Britain on the other became public knowledge. The armistice with Italy has been concluded. It is a great victory for the United Nations, but it is also a great victory for the Italian people. After years of war and suffering and degradation, the Italian people are at last coming to the day of liberation from their real enemy, the Nazis. American and British troops began landing on the Italian mainland in early September near Salerno. In Berlin, preparations had been made for this eventuality. Fall Axis was the code name of the operation, which now responded to the Allied landing operation. And the Germans made many mistakes, but one thing they could do was to react quickly to new situations. They initiated Operation Axis and managed to disarm hundreds of thousands of Italian soldiers and relatively quickly confronted the advancing Allies. The Allies had to fight their way north with great difficulty. Only months later was a U.S. cameraman able to shoot this footage in the Campagna region. In the meantime, the other side achieved a brief success. Since his deposition, Benito Mussolini had been held prisoner in a hotel in Abruzzo. The Germans learned about it and the idea now on the German side was to free Mussolini. There was a command operation. German command landed near the mountain hotel. And the interesting thing was, why didn't the guards actually just shoot Mussolini? Why didn't they fight the German paratroopers? Today, we know that the official Italian government said, well, then let the Germans have Mussolini and quite deliberately gave the order not to shoot. In mid-September, Hitler received the liberated Ally at the Wolf's Lair. The Duce was to preside over the so-called Republic of Salo on Lake Garda and, as Hitler's puppet, lead a fascist counter-government of Italy. In April of 1944, it would perish along with its leader.