By this time, reports were coming in of anti-fascist demonstrations on the streets of Rome. There were evident signs, too, of marked unease and uncertainty among the German population. Nazi supporters were shocked at Mussolini’s overthrow. Illegal opposition groups saw a ray of hope. The notion that something similar could take place in Germany ‘can be heard constantly’, according to the SD’s soundings of popular opinion: ‘the idea that the form of government thought in the Reich to be unshakable could in Germany, too, suddenly be altered, is very widespread.’189 Goebbels’s propaganda machine faced problems. As Goebbels recognized, he could not tell the truth that ‘it was a matter of a far-reaching organizational and ideological crisis of Fascism, perhaps even of its liquidation’. Knowledge of what was happening in Italy ‘could in certain circumstances incite some subversive elements in Germany who perhaps believed they could contrive the same with us that Badoglio and company have contrived in Rome’. Hitler did not think there was much danger of that. But he commissioned Himmler just the same to suppress any indications with maximum ruth-lessness.190
The midday military conference was again taken up with the issue of moving troops to Italy to secure above all the north of the country, and with the hastily devised scheme to capture the Badoglio government.191 Field-Marshal von Kluge, who had flown in from Army Group Centre — desperately trying to hold the Soviet offensive in the Orel bulge, to the north of Kursk — was abruptly told of the implications of the events in Italy for the eastern front. Hitler said he needed the crack Waffen-SS divisions currently assigned to Manstein in the south of the eastern front to be transferred immediately to Italy. That meant Kluge giving up some of his forces to reinforce Manstein’s weakened front. Kluge forcefully pointed out, though to no avail, that this would make defence in the Orel region impossible. But the positions on the Dnieper being prepared for an orderly retreat by his troops to be taken up before winter were far from ready. What he was being asked to do, protested Kluge, was to undertake ‘an absolutely overhasty evacuation’. ‘Even so, Herr Feldmarshall: we are not master here of our own decisions,’ rejoined Hitler.192 Kluge was left with no choice.
Meanwhile, Farinacci had arrived. His description of what had happened and his criticism of Mussolini did not endear him to Hitler. Any idea of using him as the figurehead of a German-controlled regime was discarded.193 Hitler spoke individually to his leading henchmen before, in need of a rest after a hectic twenty-four hours, retiring to his rooms to eat alone. He returned for a lengthy conference that evening, attended by thirty-five persons. But the matter was taken no further.194 Next day, he was still determined to act without delay, ‘whatever it might cost’. He preferred ‘generous improvisation’ to ‘systematic work starting too late and allowing things in Italy to become too consolidated’. But Rommel was sceptical about the planned military operations.195 So were Jodl and Kesselring.196 Within a few days, Hitler was forced to concede that any notion of occupying Rome and sending in a raiding party to take the members of the Badoglio government and the Italian royal family captive was both precipitate and wholly impracticable.197 The plans were called off. Hitler’s attention focused now on discovering the whereabouts of the Duce and bringing him into German hands as soon as possible. In the meantime, he left for him in the possession of Kesselring a copy of the collected works of Nietzsche as a sixtieth birthday present. Evidently, he presumed that the Duce, once located, would have the time and inclination to reflect on the ‘will to power’.198
