“Our Decima Mas is the best underwater navy unit in the world. The top attack group in the Italian armed forces! I wish I had been informed months ago when we began planning our secret operation in the United States.” Said Ciano once Calamai had left the Duce’s private study.
“What? The stuff the ‘commendatore’ is expected to do?”
“Precisely.”
“No, never mix missions, you heard the Admiral.” Said Mussolini impatiently.
“But I worry about that gangster making promises and not delivering in the end. I specifically asked that four names be given top priority and he agreed. Two have been dispatched but the other two remain unpunished. We have given him everything he asked for. Now he must finish the job.”
“Since he’s here in Rome we can easily put pressure on him.”
They discussed peace moves and some initiatives and Mussolini finally came up with his master plan.
“The Germans are now stuck in front of Moscow. They cannot take the city and their supply lines are extended far beyond the limit. Now is the time for Hitler to make a daring peace move toward Stalin. According to my sources the Soviets just might agree to a truce right now. They attempted to contact Hitler in October but that madman refused to talk. How does he think he can defeat a colossus like Russia where nature itself conspires to destroy you? He hasn’t learned the lesson of Napoleon.”
Ciano was repelled by the thought of making peace with the Bolsheviks. He much preferred to hold talks with the Anglo-Saxon Allies instead, especially the Americans since he felt he still had some credit with them and wanted no part of a Soviet deal. But he also recognized the facts, namely that Germany could no longer hope to defeat Russia since it hadn’t collapsed during the first five months of the war as the German high command and Hitler had planned. Like Napoleon, Hitler was just managing to get his best troops frozen to death and then destroyed piecemeal by the Red Army. Mussolini however and for purely political reasons completely contradicted the logic of his own argument by agreeing to commit even more troops to the Russian front, increasing the current forces of 60,000 Italians to a full army corps of 250,000 men; Italy’s best fighting units were to take part in the coming spring offensive.
“Duce, I have been informed that secret discussions have started between the Germans and the Russians in Stockholm. They are talking indirectly but have agreed to a face to face meeting very shortly.”
Mussolini resumed his doodling and asked without looking up at Ciano,
“And how do you know this?”
“Not from the Germans, but from our man in SIM in Sweden who managed to secure the information from Swedish counter intelligence. The Germans are speaking through a cutout with Madame Kollontai, the Soviet Ambassador, who is apparently pressured by Stalin to the point of fearing for her own life. The agent also learned that Stalin has been toying simultaneously with a separate plan to assassinate Hitler. This is all very much in character and yet somewhat confusing.”
The Duce stopped his doodles and looked up at Ciano as if he were a moron,
“It’s not confusing at all!”
Boomed Mussolini dropping his pencil, since browbeating his son in law was second nature to him. He rose to his feet and said,
“Can’t you see what a brilliant move that is? First, Stalin signs a truce, an armistice, whatever he can get that somehow manages to save face and provide him with time. Fine, the shooting ends. Let’s even suppose that the Germans, in a moment of sanity, were to agree to move back to the Brest Litovsk line of 1918, which by the way would be quite an achievement in itself. Then in a masterstroke, using anti-Nazi conservative and monarchist officers, Stalin liquidates Hitler who cannot survive even the slightest failure. He decapitates the Hydra, the malevolent beast. Germany would no doubt be temporarily governed by less powerful Nazis like Göring, to name the most logical successor, and he would be forced to retreat back to the borders of 1940. A Göring will immediately clean house and shoot the annoying strident types like Goebbels who are an embarrassment to Germany anyway. In the meantime, the Axis war against the western democracies goes on and in a second masterstroke, Stalin joins the Axis to finally destroy the Anglo-Saxon bloc. If all this can happen in the next six months, by June-July of the coming year, with Japan we can defeat the United States and Britain. The Japanese have them both fully engaged in the Far East, where the British will be wiped off the map first. We can then commit one hundred German and Italian divisions to take the Middle East and Persia, and link up with the Japanese on the borders of India where a pro-Axis uprising will eliminate the British Empire!”
The Duce’s grandiose visions of victory were enough to make Ciano wonder whether the dictator had finally descended into dementia. Mussolini in his excitement was buoyed by the possibilities he was imagining; in private he often would let himself go into embarrassingly theatrical displays of adolescent enthusiasm for wild schemes and triumphant vistas. He marched back and forth, his eyes rolling as though intoxicated by his own visions with his hands on his hips rocking back and forth in his usual manner.
Ciano suddenly feared Mussolini was about make some rash decision and sought to bring his father in law back to the real world,
“There is another interesting detail about Stockholm, Duce. Apparently this is not at all a foreign ministry operation but rather a personal move coming from Hitler exclusively, with the secret input of the SS and Heydrich in particular. The point man in this case is Waffen SS General Karl Wolff, Himmler’s deputy. Wolff, whom you have met, is an early Nazi fighter and a highly decorated officer who enjoys Hitler’s trust. He wants no one else to handle the discussions. Ribbentrop is to be kept in the dark. They are to meet very soon on the German side of the Russian front, somewhere in the center. Only one top German SS officer and a Soviet counterpart will be present, probably a secret police official acting as Stalin’s personal representative. No diplomats and no military men, just spies and policemen.”
Mussolini was intensely interested. He wondered where Ciano got that information. The Duce threw his bulldog head back, glaring at the ceiling as he paced up and down in a heavy silence with his arms folded on his chest until he remarked enthusiastically,
“It does make sense. Trust Stalin to liquidate his emissary if things go sour, or even if they succeed! Hitler is less likely to behave that way, strangely enough. He is very loyal to his inner circle, something I could never quite understand. The Russians will no doubt be asking for compensation for many things including the millions of civilians that have already been liquidated by the Nazis.”
“Possibly” said Ciano “but that would just be an excuse, Stalin apparently couldn’t care less about the massive liquidation of Poles, Jews and others. He actually considers their disappearance rather convenient. The Germans have managed to kill well over one million civilians both in Poland and in Russia so far, from what I am told, and most of them are Jews, but also many Poles and Gypsies. No matter what our position is, this is not a very “constructive” policy for future relations with Russia in case they do come to terms. There are quite a few Jews within the Soviet leadership right now; whether those Bolsheviks actually care enough about the slaughter of their brethren is another matter. The Nazis present their Jewish policy in a certain way to the German people: resettlement, concentration in special areas etc. but the reality on the ground is very different and they are killing as many Jews as quickly as they can get their hands on them. The entire world will vomit with horror if these events are revealed one day. The systematic massacre is taking place on an immense scale everywhere, down to the smallest village. We Fascists must distance ourselves from such a policy, Duce, whether or not it comes to light, because it will surely spell the end of Nazism for sure and possibly that of Fascism as well.”
Mussolini couldn’t believe his ears and suddenly became furious, his face flushed beet red, he would have enjoyed throwing the impudent Count Ciano from the balcony of his office to the pavement below. How dare he predict the defeat of the Fascist regime and of Nazi Germany! Galeazzo was precisely the one person who had benefited handsomely from Fascism and was the greatest proponent of the Axis when it started! What he was saying now was pure defeatism and Mussolini would have none of it!
He screamed on the top of his lungs banging his fists on his desk,
“No, no, no Galeazzo! This kind of talk will not be tolerated! If you are not convinced that Italy will win this war you do not belong in this government. The entire nation must be fully mobilized on a total war footing. The people must hate, do you understand…HATE the enemy! England and her American protectors is and remains our main enemy. The Jewish-Masonic-Plutocratic clique that is pulling the strings behind its puppets Churchill and Roosevelt! I have spoken with Americans who are in the know, the great poet Ezra Pound among others…and he assured me right here, in this office, that Roosevelt is secretly both a Jew and a Mason! That he has willfully surrounded himself with Masons and Jews! What more do you need? Do you think for a moment that those people will allow you, Galeazzo Ciano, to continue in your glorious position or even to replace me as the Duce? Have you gone completely mad? Or are you so deeply hallucinated by the drugs you ingest that you can’t even tell what is actually happening anymore? You will rise and fall with me and only with me, Galeazzo, remember that!”
He said all this without interruptions, without the usual posturing and long silences where his interlocutor would be kept on edge and then his sentences would fall suddenly, like the knife of a guillotine. Now he was genuinely angry as Ciano had never seen him before. His son in law sat petrified with fear, fully expecting to be arrested on the spot. Mussolini was incensed and Ciano opted to seek immediate forgiveness, fearful that the Duce’s anger wouldn’t quickly subside.
“Duce, I…I apologize; I didn’t intend to sound like a defeatist at all, I was just being…realistic.”
“I know very well where your ideas originate: those high society circles you waste your time with. The elegant princesses who dream of endless parties and the easy life and the plutocratic bourgeois capitalists who require eternal peace to further their filthy business interests! I began as a revolutionary socialist, a Red, a Radical and many times I feel the need to revive that brand of revolutionary fervor with our Black shirts. Do you think Hitler would have accepted that kind of talk from you? Look at what he did to his closest supporter Ernst Röhm! He shot him and his homosexual followers like as many mangy dogs. I should have set my emotions aside and behaved in the same way with the bourgeois and aristocratic defeatists in Italy. The King, the Princes, the Church and the whole rotten pigsty of nobles and upper class snobs should have been forced to taste some of the castor oil medicine as well. Hitler would have had you shot in the basement of this building within the hour, son in law or not, do you hear me? …Shot Galeazzo!”
Mussolini was unstoppable determined to finally speak his mind in earnest, pounding on his desk as he went on,
“Let me tell you how it feels when you’re inside the Wolf’s Den and he has you locked in his claws, and he’s just waiting for you, miserable prey that you are, to say the fateful words. That’s what it feels like to be alone in Hitler’s presence as I have been many times. He is strong because he behaves like a beast. Don’t you think I know that he’s a crazy bloodthirsty savage? I was even told that he became very excited by the sight of fresh human blood when he toured the battlefields in Belgium and France. How insane can you be? I’m just gambling that he might pull this entire adventure off, that’s all. If he doesn’t then we’ll have to draw the necessary conclusions.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Italy and a few others—Finland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria-- shall actively seek a separate accord with Stalin and perhaps even help him along in his plot.”
“To kill Hitler?”
“The Finns, the Bulgarians, the Romanians, the Hungarians and the Japanese most of all, want to put an end to the war in Russia and so do we.”
Mussolini then fell silent and looked at Ciano with his round bulging eyes as he sat at his desk. He meant everything he said and Ciano had better fall in step with the ruthless kind of maneuvering Mussolini was capable of. Hadn’t Hitler told his entourage during one of his interminable late night monologs, “If someone told me Mussolini had turned against me then I would really be concerned.”
What greater compliment could the Duce possibly seek from the Supreme Warlord? Mussolini always enjoyed the idea of being feared by the Devil himself. Fear, he thought, was a constructive feeling, it moves people to do things, and that includes the dictators themselves.