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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 7:08:55 PM

Gen.Hoepner

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Toast

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

It's tough for me to explain in english my thoughts.....
I did not wanted to say what you've read through my words. It's not a matter of who was the "DEVIL" and who the HOLY...it's something that concerns honour, loyalty and Chivarlyship ( sp??). You start a war with a side. You end the war, no matters what happens, with THAT side. During a football match you cannot just say: ok, my team is losing...i'd go playing with the winners....TOO EASY!

Actually this is exactly what resposible governments have always done and should do. WWII was so big and traumatic to the world that i think it has made us think this is how wars should be. But the vast histories of wars before and since show us something else: States do not fight to the death. States do not stand by alles when it is not in their self interest. A responsible governmet, representing the true interests of its citizens should sign a peace treaty if it is obvious it cannot win a war. To do otherwise is to prolong your own citizens pain and suffering for no reason. They should also leave alliances when that alliance no longer serves the interests of the country. To do otherwise is to betray your own citizens. History shows us that WWII was an aberration and that is not how wars normally progress. The biggest reason that it progressed as it did was because the inhumanity of the Nazi and the Inperial Japanese regimes precluded any compromise or treaty with those governments. And the people of those nations either would not or could not change those regimes. The Allies had to forceably remove them from power. It seems to me the Italian governemtn did the only honorable thing: get out of a losing war and drop an alliance that was sure to bring the country to ruin only to serve Nazi Germany's interests.

Obviously i could not agree with your view.
Wars aren't just a matter of interests. War is that particular state of human beings where the nature of men is created. War is part of our own being. Men has always fight each other. It is war that creates the Nations, that writes history. And the way fight a war, wether if you win or lose, changes the course of the generations. If you fight with honour, you'll never be a loser, even if you lose. What if the british had surrended after Dunkerque? What if Greece had signed a peace treaty with Persia after Termophilies( Hot gates)? What if the german tribes had agreed to let rome's legions advance in their woods? History would have been different and probably the will of those nations would have been completely changed. We would not have a D-Day, We wouldn't have a Salamis battle, we wouldn't have a Teutobourg roman's defeat....
Japan lost the war like we did, but the spirit , the pride of the japanese Empire hasn't been lost completely. They are proud of being japanese and they love their national flag......while, for us is quite the opposite. That dramatic 8th semptember was a door shut upon our honour, on our national will.
The prove of what i'm saying is the behaviour the different pubblic opinions have of their soldiers. The Americans, The British, the Frenchs...everybody seems to be pround of their guys that take a gun and go dieing defending their country and its interests. We, the Italians, have a very bad attitude with our soldiers. we do not care about National Anthem; we do no care about the national flag...our idea of state has died that day, and probably won't come back

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 7:21:25 PM

Gen.Hoepner

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quote:

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

[
I agree it is strange. I have relatives in Italy, and while i am not really in touch with them, i have other relatives that are in touch. Also, i've read accounts of European post-WW2 history (not a lot, i'll admit) - also no mention that i can recall of this civil war. Lastly, even Italian literature seems to gloss this over. Just finished Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum which talks quite a bit about the conflict between pro-German/anti-German forces, and he did not seem to describe it with that much bitterness, and specifically mentions that when the war was over, everything went back to "normal".

This seems EXTREMELY STRANGE in light of what you have just revealed. Maybe he/his family wasn't that affected, but still seems peculiar...

Umberto Eco is , being an post-war intellectual, one of those men who made their fortunes not only because of his artistic capabilities, but also because of his political orientation. In Italy, for 60 years, only those who declared themself anti-fascist could hope to become someone, both in politics, litterature, and arts in general. The anti-fascist doctrine is not to mention what happened when the allies won the war. In the High school the books DO NOT talk about the genocide of fascist families in late 40s. Not a single word about the "foibes" ( the dreaded holes in the ground where thousands of italians were thrown by the yugoslavian gov. ), not a single word about the american bombs on our cities....believe me: nothing. You can only read how Mussolini was Evil, how the fascism was dictatorship, how good was for us to have lost the war the 8th sept. and how we won the 25th April 45

....

In france it's the same with the "Question VANDEEN". If you try to study or just to get informed of something that the actual regime considers "political uncorretc" you get banned as fascist and damned to the pubblical oblivion, when not to prison.
For my last degree at university, i've made an essey about the Vand�e, trying to show how the french democracy was built upon the blood of 300,000 innocent lives.....during the exam one of the commissioner called me fascist

...and more than 200 years are past by....so probably the more recent scars of the Italian civil war won't be forgotten so easily

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 8:14:25 PM

Terminus

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A general question, Hoepner. In my admittedly less than complete understanding of the Italian civil war, I thought most of the partisan actions took place in the north, since that's where the RSI was. Is that incorrect?

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 8:29:55 PM

Toast

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Civil Wars are always very destrutive and horrible and the wounds from that struggle always take a long, long time to heal. The wounds from the ACW really only healed here in the last thirty years and really because of the extreme mobility of the population. As more and more people moved to the South from the North and Mid-west, the distinct character of the South disappeared and the number of people who considered themselves "Southerns" gradually dwindled. But there are still large pockets of rural areas where there is still bitterness and ill-feeling toward 'Yankees". But even these areas are getting swallowed up by ever expanding suburbia and rows of houses all looking the same with two SUV's in every driveway.

One could also argue that the damage to the German body politic after the First World War was a direct result of the bitter civil war of 1918-1919 and the ability of the Nazi's to rise to power was a direct result of the poison and hatred left over in public life because of this. The reason it didn't have a longer term impact on Germany was the total destruction of the end of WWII and the splitting of the country into two superpower blocks introduced new elements of survival and politics that represented a complete break with the past.

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 8:33:05 PM

Gen.Hoepner

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

A general question, Hoepner. In my admittedly less than complete understanding of the Italian civil war, I thought most of the partisan actions took place in the north, since that's where the RSI was. Is that incorrect?

Yes you're right. The Partisan actions during ww2 started in late 43 in the northern part of Italy, the one still in the hands of Axis. Many historicians, nowdays, admit that these very well known actions were really rare untill late 44, when the "debacle" of the axis was absolutly clear. It's known that till 8 sept 43 there were no partisans in Italy ( well probably dissident, but nothing that can be called partisan activity). That's why it's funny to see all those politicians that say that they or their parents have always been partisans , since late 20s

.
The truth is that many joined partisans when it became clear where the wind was blowing

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 8:35:19 PM

Terminus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner
The truth is that many joined partisans when it became clear where the wind was blowing

Well, that's happened everywhere...

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 8:36:46 PM

rtrapasso

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

A general question, Hoepner. In my admittedly less than complete understanding of the Italian civil war, I thought most of the partisan actions took place in the north, since that's where the RSI was. Is that incorrect?

Yes you're right. The Partisan actions during ww2 started in late 43 in the northern part of Italy, the one still in the hands of Axis. Many historicians, nowdays, admit that these very well known actions were really rare untill late 44, when the "debacle" of the axis was absolutly clear. It's known that till 8 sept 43 there were no partisans in Italy ( well probably dissident, but nothing that can be called partisan activity). That's why it's funny to see all those politicians that say that they or their parents have always been partisans , since late 20s.
The truth is that many joined partisans when it became clear where the wind was blowing

If the civil war took place mainly in the North, that might explain lack of info from my relatives, since they were about as far south as you can go (Calabria.)

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 8:41:44 PM

Terminus

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Another aspect of the Danish occupation history has recently come to light, when it's appeared that at least some of the instances where Danish resistance fighters performed killings of informants and collaborators were in fact personal accounts being settled under the guise of resistance.

I must admit, having had an uncle who was a resistance fighter, I at first found this discussion distasteful in the extreme and not something that should be dug up. But on reflection, it's probably good to get these things out in the open, and not consign them to oblivion, to quote Hoepner.

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 8:50:25 PM

Nikademus

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hmmm....the Marshall plan included Italy didn't it?

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 9:11:55 PM

Toast

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

Obviously i could not agree with your view.
Wars aren't just a matter of interests. War is that particular state of human beings where the nature of men is created. War is part of our own being. Men has always fight each other. It is war that creates the Nations, that writes history. And the way fight a war, wether if you win or lose, changes the course of the generations. If you fight with honour, you'll never be a loser, even if you lose. What if the british had surrended after Dunkerque? What if Greece had signed a peace treaty with Persia after Termophilies( Hot gates)? What if the german tribes had agreed to let rome's legions advance in their woods? History would have been different and probably the will of those nations would have been completely changed. We would not have a D-Day, We wouldn't have a Salamis battle, we wouldn't have a Teutobourg roman's defeat....
Japan lost the war like we did, but the spirit , the pride of the japanese Empire hasn't been lost completely. They are proud of being japanese and they love their national flag......while, for us is quite the opposite. That dramatic 8th semptember was a door shut upon our honour, on our national will.
The prove of what i'm saying is the behaviour the different pubblic opinions have of their soldiers. The Americans, The British, the Frenchs...everybody seems to be pround of their guys that take a gun and go dieing defending their country and its interests. We, the Italians, have a very bad attitude with our soldiers. we do not care about National Anthem; we do no care about the national flag...our idea of state has died that day, and probably won't come back

Since the days of Nation-States war has been an extension of policy by other means. It has nothing to do with honor and chivalry, just the self-interest of nation-states. And since the Industrial Revolution war has become a mass of butchery and destruction with no glory. To romanticize war, the reasons for it and its consequences has always been a grave mistake.

And I would argue that the biggest reason the Allies won and the Axis lost was because the Allies' political leaders pursued the war with my rational thought and less romanticism than Axis leaders and the war leades of the Allies pursued the gols of their political leaders with more of a scientific approach and less of one based on irratinal thoughts of "fighting spirit" and "racial superiority."

If the Italian governemt had not surrendered to the Allies in Sept., 1943, then I think their honor would have been more in question and the government would have definitely been guilty of not looking out for the best interests of its civilians.

If I read your posts correctly (and I have to admit to being as ignorant on this subject as most of the other people on this forum), the problems you bring up have more to do with the civil war and the actions in that conflict than the surrender in 1943. Like I posted before, the wounds of a civil war are deep and take a lot to heal. Mostly it takes time, a lot of time, to heal those types of wound in a nation.

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 9:34:13 PM

Nikademus

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one almost has to wonder what would have happened had Italy fought to the bitter end. Would the civil war still have occured? Or would the utter destruction and mayham made Italy as war weary as with the German population (and to a lesser extent the Japanese)

Which is not to say that Italy's change of government and armistice was the wrong thing to do it wasn't and saved Italian lives....its more of a human nature question. It can be argued that the totality of the 2nd world war combined with an unconditional fight to the finish (in part) combined to bring home the true horror of war to those involved on all sides.

O

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 9:54:53 PM

Gen.Hoepner

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Do not know guys....we always read history from the side we're on. You say that it was a good thing the armistice..that saved italian lifes...i can answer that the civil war, born with that armistice, was ABSOLUTELY worse than any war we'd have fought. There's anything worse than see brothers killing each others?
And, it's quite clear that the million of volounteers that fought with RSI if we had not surrended there would not have been any civil war...probably some partisans activity and counter-partisan actions...but nothing compared to what we had.
I repeat: the key point isn't the armistice or the loss of the war. The real point...what pushed millions of italians against their brothers was the way we sourrended.

I really do not understand how Badoglio can be defended ( and the little King with him ). Even the Allies thought we were selling our honour for nothing....just read what Churchill says in his memories.
One thing is to declare that we've lost and we're not able anymore to fight, stop fighting and accept the inevitable.
Another thing is to say, from one day to the other, that now the friends of yesterday are the enemies of today and viceversa......

Try to immagine for a second if, the British...let's say in 42...when the war was still problematic for you, had made an armistice with the axis and the day after they declared war against the US...... How would you call the brits?
Try to think what did think about us the normal german soldier......i really feel shame. Many of our soldiers thought the same and that's why they said: no, i do not like this way.I keep on fighting with my friends, with my allied. It's not that strange, isn't?
It's important to say that the biggest part of the RSI volounteers were already in the army, while the biggest part of the partisans weren't. The italian Army has been betrayed. Just read J.V.Borghese ( there are many translations in english ) and you'll understand what i mean.

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 9:59:43 PM

Terminus

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No offense Hoepner (I mean that sincerely), but Borghese WAS the commander of the Decima MAS Flotilla; he's not likely to say anything except what you quote him as saying.

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 10:09:08 PM

Nikademus

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

I really do not understand how Badoglio can be defended ( and the little King with him ). Even the Allies thought we were selling our honour for nothing....just read what Churchill says in his memories.
One thing is to declare that we've lost and we're not able anymore to fight, stop fighting and accept the inevitable.
Another thing is to say, from one day to the other, that now the friends of yesterday are the enemies of today and viceversa......

Well, just to be clear, I'm not trying to defend anyone nor am I commenting on the "change of face" that the new Italian government presented to the Allies (and Germans)

On the question of what is worse.....well, whenever one tries to catagorize one kind of warfare or killing vs another, thats a thorny road to go down. For example, the History channel (i know...collective groans) aired a special on the Hitler Youth and the end of the war in Germany. The question was asked, "How terrible was it to send children into the fodder?" "It was criminal to continue the war" etc etc.

I wont claim to have an answer to your question. But my gut instinct was that some of the opinions expressed there were correct in that it was criminal for those in charge to have continued the war to the bitter end long after they knew that defeat was inevitable.

The only "good" that came out of it , as i postulated was that the defeat was so total, that the population had little energy to fight each other and settle scores.

That Italy ended up waging a civil war is indeed a tragedy but would the alternatives have been worse or better? Its hard to say. Sometimes nothing can be.

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 10:50:27 PM

captskillet

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quote:

All the european volounteers ( more than 500,000 ) that served in the waffen ss in the eastern front, did not give a dime about hitler or mussolini or whatever. They fought till the end for an Idea, a dream of glory and a dream of a different europe.

Thats what got me and the Allies worried Gen was the 'dream' your Gov. & the Nazi's had for a 'different' Europe as you call it.......and not even taking the Genocide angle into account (and you will never convince me that by 1943 the a large section of the people of Germany & Italy didn't know something was going on with the Jews & the camps) how can you justify Italy's attack on Ethiopia (they couldn't have invaded Kenya much less pose a threat to Italy) or Greece (unprovoked)...where's the honor in that!!!! You are barking up the wrong tree if you want sympathy from me for a 'civil war' (that frankly I can find no info on and I looked thru 10 pages of Google searches) or civilian casulties that is the result of your country's blind agression and following the freaking Germans around like a lap dog! Your contrymen died in Russia (another of those unprovoked attacks) and Greece and Libya because of Italian & German agression!

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/19/2005 11:16:11 PM

Terminus

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While I agree that some of Hoepner's views (i.e. there were MANY committed Nazis in the European Waffen SS volunteers) are perhaps too simplistic, I don't think he's trying to excuse or explain away the agressive behaviour of Fascist Italy. At least that's not how I read it.

It seems his main point is that there's still an open wound in Italian society due to the split in the country during and after the war, and that it's infected the postwar Italian history. Personally, I find that a little scary; perhaps Italy could have used a thorough "de-Fascistification", like the Germans were de-Nazified after the war; many positions in post-war Germany's civil service were filled by de-Nazified Nazi Party members, because they were the people who knew how to get things done.

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/20/2005 12:54:43 AM

Gen.Hoepner

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It's pretty clear that i'm not able to explain my thoughts here. My english isn't enough to express this complex concepts.
I can just say that Terminus in a certain way has understood me.

About Borghese....he wrote what was the main thoughs of those who decided to keep on fighting and WHY they did chose that way. If you read through his lines you'll see what i mean, and there are thousands of books, diaries and many other sources that can help the reader to understand why there still was somebody with the will to fight the allies here in italy after 43. If you just close the question, saying that they were nazists or fascists and their choice was wrong, you'll never get deep enough to understand what happened in Italy in the last 60 years.

As i said before, i can stop here, cause i simply do not have the proper english to get deep as i'd like to.

Just a thought in reponse of Captskillet.
Our societies now have the "tabu" of war. But, as i said before it all depends on the....mmm..."stair of values" ( hope this is undertsandable ) you're using. Democracy has been brought to the scene by wars...by thousands of innocent lives. And we all love democracy. Roma was built of the blood of the losers, and we all magnify the great Rome. Every single state, every single political subject is born with war. The Europe they were dreaming about ( and i'm talking about the normal citizens, not the leaders ) was an uthopia...exactly like the uthopia of Robespierre and the others revolutionary actors...exactly like the Cromwell ( sp? ) british uthopia of a brand new england...exactly like all the other great dreams of Humanity.

Ok, now i stop here.
Forgive me if i moved your sensitivity about these subjects, that i understand are always difficult to discuss here in a forum.

Never wanted to offend anybody.

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/20/2005 1:26:16 AM

mc3744

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I'm coming in a bit late, but I'd like to add another point of view.

I usually happen to agree with GH, not this time

, at least not entirely.
In specific not on the notion that you should fight till the end with the side you started with.
I cannot agree with this on several levels: theoretical, historical and personal.

1) This implies that you cannot learn. Once you start the wrong path you are supposed to keep marching it, just because you started wrong. Forgive me GH, but I really don�t think it makes much sense.
2) Italy, still today, is at least two different countries. I traveled a lot and lived in Germany too. Life style in Milan is so much closer to Munich or London than it will ever be, for example, to Palermo or Naples. If it is like this today, one can only imagine what it was 50 years ago. Different people, very different people, but only one man to talk for everybody.
3) My grandfather, now deceased, fought in North Africa and in Italy until the armistice.
He fought because to him �king and country� came first, even before his own ideas. He didn�t share the fascist values, but the country called him and he answered, no matter what. I feel the same, but I understand it�s not a rational thing.
However, once given the chance - with the armistice - to choose and follow his own ideals he did so. I don�t defend this position because he was my grandpa, but because I share it.

My grandpa ended up hating the Germans (all of them, quite irrationally), because after the armistice they executed all his war long comrades who refused to surrender to the new enemy (that would be the Nazis, from their point of view). My old man had been wounded by bombers just three days before and was in the hospital, therefore - paradoxically - he managed to see the end of the war thanks to the Allied bombings.

To end the story: I have a wife who is half German, you can imagine how happy my grandpa was!

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/20/2005 1:42:00 AM

Gen.Hoepner

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Hey MC! There's no problem if you have different ideas from mines! We're just talking, you do not have to apologyse!

Well, i think a lot depends on the family you've lived with and the experienced you had.

Both my Granfathers fought the war till the bitter end. One was jailed for 4 years in a British POW camp in Africa...and he had been hating the british with all his forces for all his lifes cause he saw his comrades dying in those Camps.
While the other one fought from 41 to 45. In 43 he decided to follow his honour and remain loyal to what he believed it was his country ( well, there were two italies ya know). He was at Anzio for few days, then after a long hospitalization he went on the Yugoslavia borders to fight against the comunist partisans in the "black brigades"
I've grown up listening to their stories and reading the diary of the latter.

You see...everyone has his own history

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/20/2005 1:47:04 AM

Terminus

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As another example of a country where the war still casts a long shadow, British author Antony Beevor mentions in the preface of his book Stalingrad, how he discussed the phenomenon of Hiwi's (i.e. Soviet citizens in German uniform) with a serving Russian army colonel.

At first the Russian refused to accept the Hiwi's were historical fact, but when Beevor showed him strength returns for the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, the Russian became very quiet and then said "they were no longer Russians".

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RE: 62 years ago today....... - 7/21/2005 3:16:48 PM

Sharkosaurus rex

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I'm sorry to hear your country is still suffering from WWII. When one's country is at war all our emotions are on red alert and it is still hard to turn them off many years later. But turn them off we must- so that the wounds can heal and people can move on again.

But I don't think just because your country was at war you have to stay with one's allies until the end. Once Mussolini took over the foreign office, War, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Interior plus be Comando Supremo at the same time as the leader of the Fascist Party all logic starts to leave the government very fast. How can proper decisions be made under circumstances like these? Also Mussolini wanted to keep his personal honour (and that of the FP) by respecting the Pact of Steel- even though Hitler brazenly violated it twice- once with the invasion of Poland and the second by invading the USSR. Nobody is obliged to sacrifice themselves on the altar of an alliance in such a scenario.

Obviously you know the story better than anyone else here, but when the king sacked Mussolini and the FP I think he was doing the right thing for his country. Also he didn't make the decision just as the bombs were falling on Rome, but much earlier in 1943. But every fresh defeat suffered by the Italian arms put more pressure on the anti-war factions to act. Sicily was occupied by the Allies before the anti-war faction could get its way.

Other countries changed sides well before they were invaded. Rumania and Bulgaria. Finland and Hungary helped empty their countries of Germans but I don't think that crossed their orders. It is always lots of fun until somebody loses an eye.

Italy and Japan were on the Allies side in WWI. Axis in WWII. So maybe they will be Allied again in the Great China War that's coming soon. See it's OK to change sides.

PS. What would have happened if Hitler had died in 20th July Plot? The war would probably ended a couple of months later. Where would the German surrender left their Italian allies? Hilter survived this bombing, but Mussolini was sacked by his king. Similar forces were at work in the background- only one succeeded.

PPS. The Duc de Saint-Simon once said of the Duke of Savoy:"He could never be found on the same side at the end of a war as when it had neen declared, unless he had changed camps twice."

_____________________________

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(in reply to Terminus)

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