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.Ever since 1942, Guderian had called for more tank pro-duction. We haven t the slightest hope of keeping pace with theenemy s tank production, Rommel pointed out. But we cer-tainly can with their antitank gun production.Suppose the en-emy attacks us in a heavily mined sector and we have built a gunscreen, say, six miles deep.They re going to get bogged down in itand have to gnaw their way ahead inch by inch.And meanwhilewe ll be installing more and more guns behind the screen at thatpoint, faster than the enemy can gnaw his way through.Once ourtroops see that we are capable of holding our ground, morale willsoar sky-high again. Three weeks later, Rommel formally asked for 400 antitankguns for each of his infantry divisions; the High Command hadto refuse, because of material shortages.Rommel s constant presence at the Wolf s Lair caused muchjealousy, particularly from Göring.Apparently the oppositionwas effective.On July 18 Rommel noted: The Führer has beenadvised not to make me C in C in Italy, since they say I m anti-Italian.I assume the Luftwaffe s behind this.Thus my employ-ment in Italy recedes into the dim and distant future again. To406 the trail of the foxhis great disenchantment, Rommel was informed several dayslater that his Army Group B Þö currently setting up its head-quarters in a castle in Austria Þö would move to Salonika, innorthern Greece, to direct anti-invasion operations should theenemy land in Greece or Crete. I am to be Supreme Commanderin Greece for the time being, wrote Rommel, including the is-lands, so that I can pounce on Italy later. He left Hitler s head-quarters on the twenty-third, after a further long private talkwith the Führer.Hitler told him details of his own visit to Musso-lini in northern Italy a few days earlier. The Duce s hands aretied, he said at one point.Perhaps Hitler also disclosed whatagents in Italy had learned Þö that there was a plot to overthrowthe Duce and replace him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio, a bum-bling soldier whose sole job would be to speed Italy s surrender tothe enemy.It was broiling hot when Rommel s plane touched down atSalonika at 11:00 a.m.on July 25.With General Gause, he checkedinto the roomy Hotel Mediterrane and steeled himself for thedreary task Hitler had given him, the inspection of Greece s de-fenses.( The job is not at all to my liking, he complained toLucie.) Precisely twelve hours after his plane landed, the tele-phone rang in the hotel.It was General Warlimont, calling fromthe Wolf s Lair. The Duce has been arrested! he exclaimed toRommel. You are to report back to the Führer s headquarters atonce.Nobody knows what s happening in Italy. At 7:00 a.m.thenext day Rommel s plane took off again.That was the last he sawof Greece.Confusion and uncertainty reigned at the Wolf s Lair asRommel s plane landed at the airfield at noon, July 26.From allover the Reich the leading lights of the Nazi Party, theWehrmacht and the state were flying in.Rommel drove throughthe sentries and minefields to Hitler s conference barracks.Hitler407 david irvingwas still shocked and outraged at the treatment meted out to hisfriend Mussolini.There was little hard news from Rome, butthere were reports of anti-Fascist riots.The king and Marshal Ba-doglio had proclaimed Italy s continued loyalty to the Axis, butHitler did not believe them. We can be clear on one score, hedeclaimed to the thickening crowd around the oak conferencetable. Traitors that they are, they will of course proclaim theirintention of continuing the fight.Of course! But it will be a be-trayal. He smiled contemptuously. We shall be playing the samegame, leading them on, until we suddenly drop like lightning onthe whole bag of them and round up the entire gang. Rommel could guess why Hitler had sent for him.In hisprivate diary he wrote: We assume that Þö despite the proclama-tions of the king and Badoglio Þö Italy is going to pull out of thewar, or at the very least that the British will undertake furthermajor landings in upper Italy. That was the nightmare for Hit-ler: 1,000 miles of Italy separated 70,000 of Germany s finesttroops in Sicily from their home base in the Reich.A leading Fas-cist who had escaped that day from Rome reported that the newregime would probably announce an armistice with the enemy ineight or ten days, and that the British would probably land as farnorth as Genoa and Leghorn.That would doom General Hube stroops in Sicily.Hitler s first instinct was to abandon the battlefield in Sicilyat once and evacuate his troops to the mainland as the British hadat Dunkirk in 1940.They could leave their tanks and heavyequipment behind. Their pistols are all they need.they canmake short work of the Italians with pistols too. He was alsostrongly tempted to adopt rash expedients Þö the Third PanzerDivision would move to Rome; he would arrest the government,kidnap the king, capture Badoglio, smoke out the Vatican andfind out where Mussolini was being held.The situation was not so408 the trail of the foxfar lost that an energetic coup by the Nazis could not set thingsright again, in Hitler s opinion.Goebbels agreed, but his diary criticizes Rommel for taking amore moderate line. Rommel as an experienced soldier is morereserved in his estimate of our possibilities.He would prefer ouroperation to be prepared at greater length, which would make itmore likely to succeed.The Führer puts Rommel in charge of thefirst steps to be taken by the High Command in Italy.Keitel andJodl fight tooth and nail against giving Rommel command overour troops in Sicily as well: they don t want to see him getting toomuch power and too many troops Þö they are envious of him. Rommel wrote in his own diary, after the argument, I mhoping to be sent into Italy soon. On July 27 Rommel summarized Hitler s noon conferencethus: Although there are two Italian armies in upper Italy andthe Italians are obviously planning to betray us, it is not politicallypossible for us to invade yet.But we re preparing everything, andI have been put in charge of the troop buildup. Hitler still re-fused to give the word for German troops to roll southward intoItaly.At the 8:30 p.m.conference the argument went on.Thethick-skinned and rough-tongued Field Marshal Wolfram vonRichthofen Þö commander of the Second Air Force in Italy Þö hadnow flown in from Rome.In his own secret diary he wrote: Eve-rybody is very rude about Kesselring.I counterattack.Some of hisdispatches are admittedly psychologically tactless, but by andlarge they are objective and accurate.I identify myself with them.Rommel knows nothing, thank God says nothing, and is justreveling in feelings of revenge against the Italians, whom he hates.Dönitz is moderate and sensible.Everybody else, especially Rib-bentrop, just repeats whatever the Führer says. The next morning, when Rommel left the Wolf s Lair forMunich, where he was to set up his operations headquarters, he409 david irvinghad Hitler s top secret instructions for the invasion of Italy in hispocket.His first task Þö when the High Command gave the wordÞö would be to secure the mountain passes.If the Italians mannedtheir defenses, they were to be blasted out.Rommel would havetwo infantry divisions (the Forty-fourth and 305th) and thetroops of the mountain warfare school at Mittenwald for the job,and three battle groups of Tiger tanks on loan from trainingunits.To avoid provoking the Italians into reaction, kid glovemethods were to be used at first [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.Ever since 1942, Guderian had called for more tank pro-duction. We haven t the slightest hope of keeping pace with theenemy s tank production, Rommel pointed out. But we cer-tainly can with their antitank gun production.Suppose the en-emy attacks us in a heavily mined sector and we have built a gunscreen, say, six miles deep.They re going to get bogged down in itand have to gnaw their way ahead inch by inch.And meanwhilewe ll be installing more and more guns behind the screen at thatpoint, faster than the enemy can gnaw his way through.Once ourtroops see that we are capable of holding our ground, morale willsoar sky-high again. Three weeks later, Rommel formally asked for 400 antitankguns for each of his infantry divisions; the High Command hadto refuse, because of material shortages.Rommel s constant presence at the Wolf s Lair caused muchjealousy, particularly from Göring.Apparently the oppositionwas effective.On July 18 Rommel noted: The Führer has beenadvised not to make me C in C in Italy, since they say I m anti-Italian.I assume the Luftwaffe s behind this.Thus my employ-ment in Italy recedes into the dim and distant future again. To406 the trail of the foxhis great disenchantment, Rommel was informed several dayslater that his Army Group B Þö currently setting up its head-quarters in a castle in Austria Þö would move to Salonika, innorthern Greece, to direct anti-invasion operations should theenemy land in Greece or Crete. I am to be Supreme Commanderin Greece for the time being, wrote Rommel, including the is-lands, so that I can pounce on Italy later. He left Hitler s head-quarters on the twenty-third, after a further long private talkwith the Führer.Hitler told him details of his own visit to Musso-lini in northern Italy a few days earlier. The Duce s hands aretied, he said at one point.Perhaps Hitler also disclosed whatagents in Italy had learned Þö that there was a plot to overthrowthe Duce and replace him with Marshal Pietro Badoglio, a bum-bling soldier whose sole job would be to speed Italy s surrender tothe enemy.It was broiling hot when Rommel s plane touched down atSalonika at 11:00 a.m.on July 25.With General Gause, he checkedinto the roomy Hotel Mediterrane and steeled himself for thedreary task Hitler had given him, the inspection of Greece s de-fenses.( The job is not at all to my liking, he complained toLucie.) Precisely twelve hours after his plane landed, the tele-phone rang in the hotel.It was General Warlimont, calling fromthe Wolf s Lair. The Duce has been arrested! he exclaimed toRommel. You are to report back to the Führer s headquarters atonce.Nobody knows what s happening in Italy. At 7:00 a.m.thenext day Rommel s plane took off again.That was the last he sawof Greece.Confusion and uncertainty reigned at the Wolf s Lair asRommel s plane landed at the airfield at noon, July 26.From allover the Reich the leading lights of the Nazi Party, theWehrmacht and the state were flying in.Rommel drove throughthe sentries and minefields to Hitler s conference barracks.Hitler407 david irvingwas still shocked and outraged at the treatment meted out to hisfriend Mussolini.There was little hard news from Rome, butthere were reports of anti-Fascist riots.The king and Marshal Ba-doglio had proclaimed Italy s continued loyalty to the Axis, butHitler did not believe them. We can be clear on one score, hedeclaimed to the thickening crowd around the oak conferencetable. Traitors that they are, they will of course proclaim theirintention of continuing the fight.Of course! But it will be a be-trayal. He smiled contemptuously. We shall be playing the samegame, leading them on, until we suddenly drop like lightning onthe whole bag of them and round up the entire gang. Rommel could guess why Hitler had sent for him.In hisprivate diary he wrote: We assume that Þö despite the proclama-tions of the king and Badoglio Þö Italy is going to pull out of thewar, or at the very least that the British will undertake furthermajor landings in upper Italy. That was the nightmare for Hit-ler: 1,000 miles of Italy separated 70,000 of Germany s finesttroops in Sicily from their home base in the Reich.A leading Fas-cist who had escaped that day from Rome reported that the newregime would probably announce an armistice with the enemy ineight or ten days, and that the British would probably land as farnorth as Genoa and Leghorn.That would doom General Hube stroops in Sicily.Hitler s first instinct was to abandon the battlefield in Sicilyat once and evacuate his troops to the mainland as the British hadat Dunkirk in 1940.They could leave their tanks and heavyequipment behind. Their pistols are all they need.they canmake short work of the Italians with pistols too. He was alsostrongly tempted to adopt rash expedients Þö the Third PanzerDivision would move to Rome; he would arrest the government,kidnap the king, capture Badoglio, smoke out the Vatican andfind out where Mussolini was being held.The situation was not so408 the trail of the foxfar lost that an energetic coup by the Nazis could not set thingsright again, in Hitler s opinion.Goebbels agreed, but his diary criticizes Rommel for taking amore moderate line. Rommel as an experienced soldier is morereserved in his estimate of our possibilities.He would prefer ouroperation to be prepared at greater length, which would make itmore likely to succeed.The Führer puts Rommel in charge of thefirst steps to be taken by the High Command in Italy.Keitel andJodl fight tooth and nail against giving Rommel command overour troops in Sicily as well: they don t want to see him getting toomuch power and too many troops Þö they are envious of him. Rommel wrote in his own diary, after the argument, I mhoping to be sent into Italy soon. On July 27 Rommel summarized Hitler s noon conferencethus: Although there are two Italian armies in upper Italy andthe Italians are obviously planning to betray us, it is not politicallypossible for us to invade yet.But we re preparing everything, andI have been put in charge of the troop buildup. Hitler still re-fused to give the word for German troops to roll southward intoItaly.At the 8:30 p.m.conference the argument went on.Thethick-skinned and rough-tongued Field Marshal Wolfram vonRichthofen Þö commander of the Second Air Force in Italy Þö hadnow flown in from Rome.In his own secret diary he wrote: Eve-rybody is very rude about Kesselring.I counterattack.Some of hisdispatches are admittedly psychologically tactless, but by andlarge they are objective and accurate.I identify myself with them.Rommel knows nothing, thank God says nothing, and is justreveling in feelings of revenge against the Italians, whom he hates.Dönitz is moderate and sensible.Everybody else, especially Rib-bentrop, just repeats whatever the Führer says. The next morning, when Rommel left the Wolf s Lair forMunich, where he was to set up his operations headquarters, he409 david irvinghad Hitler s top secret instructions for the invasion of Italy in hispocket.His first task Þö when the High Command gave the wordÞö would be to secure the mountain passes.If the Italians mannedtheir defenses, they were to be blasted out.Rommel would havetwo infantry divisions (the Forty-fourth and 305th) and thetroops of the mountain warfare school at Mittenwald for the job,and three battle groups of Tiger tanks on loan from trainingunits.To avoid provoking the Italians into reaction, kid glovemethods were to be used at first [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]