: Hello, Göring... Did you get the news?
Well, there’s still no direct confirmation but hardly
any doubt about it the Duce has quit. Badoglio’s
stepped into his shoes.... It’s a fact, Göring, beyond
shadow of doubt. What’s that? I don’t know, we’re
trying to find out.Göring suggested they wind up the eastern front altogether.
Hitler interrupted him:
That’s utter nonsense. That goes on, and how! They’d
better believe it, that’s going on! I just wanted you to
know. You’d all better get over here as fast as you can.... What? I don’t know. I’ll tell you later. But assume
that it is correct.
Arriving at the Wolf’s Lair the next morning, the Reichsmar-
schall found a rare Cabinet-level meeting in progress with Hitler
and Grand Admiral Dönitz, the new commander in chief of the
navy, as well as Ribbentrop, Speer, Goebbels, and Bormann.
Grim but composed, Hitler told them he was convinced, despite
the new Badoglio regime’s assurances, that Italy was plotting to
surrender. Accordingly he planned to switch the crack SS Leib-
standarte “Adolf Hitler” Division immediately from Russia to
Italy. He would evacuate Sicily forthwith “just like Dunkirk,”
he said and allow these seventy thousand crack troops of the
Hermann Göring Panzer Division and the st Paratroop Divi-
sion to leave behind their heavy weapons if necessary. “They can
deal with the Italians with their small arms if need be,” he added
contemptuously. He would also switch the nd Paratroop Divi-
sion from southern France into Italy. When ready, he would
pounce on Rome, arrest the government and king, and “take
out” the Vatican too “Lancing the whole abscess,” as he put it.