Italian campaign (World War II)
| date | July 10, 1943 to May 2, 1945 |
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| place | Italy |
| output | Allied victory |
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1940–1945: Air raids on Italy
1940: Attack on Taranto
1943: Operation Husky - Invasion of Italy ( Baytown , Avalanche , Slapstick ) - Armistice of Cassibile - Fall of the Axis
1944: Battle of Monte Cassino - Operation Shingle - Position of Goth
1945: Spring Offensive
The Italian campaign was a campaign of the Allies against the Axis powers in and around Italy during the Second World War . It began with the invasion of Sicily in 1943 and lasted until the end of the war in Europe in 1945 . He was led by the Allied Forces Headquarters , which was responsible for all operations in the Mediterranean theater of war . It is estimated that between September 1943 and May 1945 over 60,000 Allied and 50,000 German soldiers died in Italy. With approx. 320,000 allied and over 330,000 German total losses, i. H. including the wounded and missing, Italy was one of the most costly theaters of war in Western Europe.
Strategic background
Even before the victorious conclusion of the Tunisian campaign in May 1943, especially at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, there had been differences of opinion among the Western Allies of the anti-Hitler coalition about the strategy to be pursued vis-à-vis the Axis powers . While Britain , particularly Winston Churchill , favored a strategy of gradually weakening the Axis powers through sea-based operations on the periphery of German power, the United States favored a direct approach of building a bridgehead in northwestern Europe and fighting the main German forces. This strategy assumed a victory over the German submarines in the battle of the Atlantic .
The dispute was fierce on both sides, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff argued for the establishment of a second front in north-western Europe at the earliest possible point in time, while their British counterparts advocated a Mediterranean strategy. The Americans believed that it was necessary to invade France to end the war and rejected anything that detracted from that goal. The British, on the other hand, saw the presence of large numbers of soldiers trained for amphibious operations in the Mediterranean as an argument for a swift but limited operation in this theater of war.
Ultimately, at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943 , the political leaderships of both countries agreed on an invasion of France in early 1944 and limited operations against Italy in 1943. This included Roosevelt's desire for American troops to be active in Europe and expressed his predilection for the idea of getting Italy out of the war. Italy's withdrawal from the war would bring the Allied naval forces, mainly the Royal Navy , dominance over the Mediterranean and relieve their lines of communication with India and the Far East from pressure from the Axis powers. In addition, the Axis Powers would be forced to withdraw troops from the Eastern Front to defend Italy and southern France.
For the German side, the goal of the next Allied operation was very difficult to predict. In addition to an invasion of Sicily, amphibious landings in Spain , Greece or Sardinia were also expected. Two successful deception maneuvers by the British had also contributed to this: Operation Mincemeat , in which supposedly important documents were leaked to the Germans by means of a corpse disguised as an officer, and Operation Barclay , in which the presence of an Allied army in the eastern Mediterranean was simulated. As a result, extensive troop shifts were carried out by the German high command, which ultimately contributed to the success of the Allied landing on Sicily.
Italy had become an uncertain ally for Germany after the debacle in Tunisia in May 1943. In large parts of the population, but also in higher circles of the military and politics, an opposition to a continuation of the war on the side of Germany developed. This was due also Allied air raids at in Italian cities.
course
Invasion of Sicily
- Operation Corkscrew
Just days after the surrender of the Axis forces in Tunis began on May 18, 1943 two-week aerial bombardment on the fortress-like developed Italian island of Pantelleria , the Operation Corkscrew (dt. Corkscrew ). The aim of the company was to occupy the island and thus to win a base near Sicily for the Allied air forces. On June 11, the invasion by a British division took place and the defenders surrendered without a fight. Within a day the neighboring islands of Lampedusa and Linosa were also in Allied hands.
- Battle for Sicily
The British-American-Canadian invasion of Sicily began on July 10, 1943 with amphibious and air landings in the Gulf of Gela ( 7th US Army under George S. Patton ) and south of Syracuse (British 8th Army under Bernard Montgomery ). The island was defended by the Italian 6th Army under Alfredo Guzzoni , supported by around four German divisions under the command of Hans-Valentin Hube . The original Allied plan was for the British to advance along the east coast to Messina while the Americans were to protect the left flank. When the British advance was halted by heavy resistance in the hills south of Mount Etna , Patton went beyond the plan and in a far-reaching operation first took Palermo , then cut off the northern coastal road and, supported by smaller amphibious landings on the north coast, opened up Messina, which he finally reached shortly before the first British units. The German and Italian troops were unable to prevent the island from being conquered, but they managed to withdraw the most important units to the mainland (→ company training course ), which was completed on August 17th. The Allies gained experience in carrying out amphibious landings as well as large airborne operations and coalition warfare.
- Mussolini's fall
Another consequence of the victory in Sicily was the disempowerment of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini , who was deposed at a meeting of the Grand Fascist Council on the night of July 24th to 25th and replaced by Pietro Badoglio . Soon afterwards he began secret armistice talks with the Allies. Mussolini was initially exiled to the island of Ponza and later to the Gran Sasso .
Invasion of the mainland and fall axis
On September 3, 1943, the day of the Cassibile Armistice between Italy and the Allies, troops of the British 8th Army landed at Reggio Calabria ( Operation Baytown ). The ceasefire was announced by Eisenhower on September 8th via radio, German troops began to disarm the Italian army in Italy and the occupied territories in France and the Balkans ( Axis case ). On September 9th, the 5th US Army landed in the Gulf of Salerno and built a beachhead (→ Operation Avalanche ). On the same day, other British forces landed at Taranto ( Operation Slapstick ). On the following days, the German 10th Army under Heinrich von Vietinghoff carried out violent attacks on the American bridgehead near Salerno, while the British who landed further south were able to advance rapidly. After the withdrawal of the 10th Army, the Allies were able to occupy the important ports of Naples and Bari and the airfields near Foggia by the beginning of October , which were subsequently expanded into an important base for the Allied air forces (→ Foggia Airfield Complex ).
In the case of the Axis , German troops occupied northern and central Italy and the previous Italian occupation areas in the Balkans until mid-September and imprisoned the Italian troops standing there, with several thousand Italian prisoners of war being killed, especially in Greece (including in the massacre on Kefalonia ). The reactivated Army Group B under Erwin Rommel carried out the operation in northern Italy, in southern and central Italy the OB South, renamed OB Southwest from November 1943, Albert Kesselring was responsible. About 600,000 disarmed Italian soldiers were then held in camps by the Germans as " military internees " and used as forced laborers .
The Italian fleet left its bases on September 9, heading for La Maddalena near Sardinia to avoid confiscation or destruction by the Germans. The German Air Force succeeded in sinking the battleship Roma and several other ships at sea. The fleet then changed its course to Malta , where it was interned by the British. Sardinia, like French Corsica , was evacuated by the Germans between September 10th and October 5th, and the troops and materials that had been released were relocated to central Italy.
On September 12, German special forces carried out Operation Eiche to liberate Mussolini. This called on September 23 in Salo , the Italian Social Republic ( Republic of Salo ), which is using its own armed forces ( National Republican Army , Marina Nazionale Repubblicana , Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana , National Republican Guard ) on Germany's side on the war and the actions against the resistancea involved. Before that, on September 10th, the Germans had established the "operational zones" of the Alpine Foreland and Adriatic Coastal Region in northern Italy . Behind the front running in central Italy, there was subsequently a partisan war against the Italian resistance, in which German units carried out numerous serious massacres (→ German war crimes in Italy ). On October 13, the Badoglio government declared war on the German Reich, which the Allies had demanded as a condition of the armistice.
Battle south of Rome
At the beginning of October, Adolf Hitler was convinced by his Commander-in-Chief Albert Kesselring that the defense of Italy had to take place as far south as possible. In this way, the geographical conditions of central Italy should be used as well as possible, and the Allies should also be denied access to airfields that are ever closer to Germany. Hitler was also convinced that a task that was too easy for Italy would open the way for the Allies to invade the Balkans , from where the German Reich obtained essential raw materials such as oil , bauxite and copper .
In November 1943, the new German 14th Army was set up, which was responsible for the defense of Rome . At the same Kesselring, was the fact the Air Force , belonged to the commander of the Army Group C appointed.
The Germans built several lines of defense in the difficult terrain determined by the Apennines and numerous rivers that spring from these rivers, which the Allied troops had to overcome one after the other. These included the Volturno Line , the Barbara Line , the Bernhardt Line and the Gustav Line . The latter in particular was stubbornly defended by the German troops and for a long time could not be overcome by the 5th US Army in the west of the Italian peninsula. Although the Gustav Line in the east at Ortona was broken by the British 8th Army at the end of 1943 (→ Battle of Ortona ), no further action was taken due to snow storms and drifts.
On January 22nd, a corps of the 5th US Army landed in the rear of the German front near Anzio (→ Operation Shingle ), which was supposed to serve to overcome the Gustav Line. Despite the success of the landing, this goal could not be achieved at first because a quick advance inland did not take place. The bridgehead tied up German forces and prevented their use on the Gustav Line.
Between January and May 1944, four major Allied offensives took place on the Gustav Line, collectively known as the Battle of Monte Cassino . It was not until the last offensive ( Operation Diadem ) at the end of May that the Allied troops, which included British, American, Canadian, Polish, (colonial) French, New Zealand and Indian units, achieved the breakthrough between February 15th by an Allied Air raid on the heavily destroyed mountain monastery of Montecassino and the sea. However, the Allies did not succeed in cutting off the withdrawal of the 10th Army, instead they concentrated on taking Rome, which was declared an open city by the Italian government in 1943 and now shortly before the arrival of the Allied troops by the German occupiers was. On June 4, US troops took control of the city.
Fight for the position of the Goths
After the fall of Rome and the invasion of Normandy in early June, many experienced American and French units, the equivalent of seven divisions, were withdrawn from Italy to prepare for the landing in southern France (→ Operation Dragoon ). In July 1944, the first units of the Brazilian expeditionary force arrived in Italy, but they could not completely replace the lost troops. The Allied armies followed the German troops until they met the Goths near Florence in August .
In a major offensive ( Operation Olive ), which began on August 25, the Allied armies managed to break through the Goths on Rimini and Bologna . A decisive breakthrough was prevented by the two German armies. Churchill had hoped that a breakthrough in autumn 1944 would open the way for the Allied armies through the so-called Ljubljana Gap to Austria and Hungary and the unhindered occupation of all of south-central and south-east Europe by the Red Army , which followed the Lviv-Sandomierz - and Jassy- Kishinev operation that would prevent the badly defeated Wehrmacht. His proposal was sharply rejected by the American chiefs of staff, who recognized its possible importance for the post-war order , but did not see it in accordance with the overall interests of the Allies. In the winter and spring of 1944/45, partisan activity increased sharply in northern Italy. The struggle against the organs of the social republic at times took on the form of a civil war .
The continuation of the Allied offensive in early 1945 was prevented by bad winter weather, which hindered the use of tanks and aircraft, and by the withdrawal of British troops to Greece and Canadian troops to Western Europe, as well as the high losses in the fighting the previous autumn. The Allies adopted an "offensive defense" strategy while preparing for the final offensive in better weather and soil conditions. In the winter of 1944/45 the battle of Monte Castello for the approaches to Bologna took place with the participation of the Brazilian expeditionary corps and the 10th US mountain division .
Spring offensive 1945
The Allied final offensive began on April 9, 1945 with massive artillery fire and air raids on the German positions. By April 18, troops of the British 8th Army had broken through at Argenta and in an attempt to trap the defenders of Bologna, were sending tanks through the gap to meet the US IV Corps advancing from the Apennines . On April 21, the Polish 3rd Carpathian Division , the Italian Combat Group Friuli and the 34th US Infantry Division entered the city. The 10th US Mountain Division , which had passed Bologna, reached the Po on April 22nd , the 8th Indian Division of the 8th Army the following day.
On April 25th, the so-called Liberation Day of Italy , the partisans declared a general uprising. On the same day the British 8th Army crossed the Po and advanced towards Venice and Trieste . Parts of the 5th US Army began the advance towards the Austrian border and on to Milan . On its left flank, the US 92nd Division advanced on Genoa , while on the right flank the Brazilian division surprised the German-Italian army of Liguria with its rapid advance on Turin .
At the end of April Army Group C, which had lost almost all of its combat strength, was in retreat on all fronts and had few options other than surrender. General von Vietinghoff, who had led the Army Group since March, signed the surrender of the German armies in Italy on April 29th, and the fighting ended on May 2nd.
See also
literature
- Gregory Blaxland: Alexander's Generals: The Italian Campaign, 1944-45. W. Kimber, London 1979. ISBN 0-7183-0386-5 .
- Trumbull Higgins: Soft Underbelly: The Anglo-American Controversy over the Italian Campaign, 1939-1945. Macmillan, New York 1968.
- Michael Carver : Was in Italy, 1943-1945. Pan Macmillan, 2004. ISBN 0-283-07294-6 .
- WGF Jackson: The Battle for Italy. Harper & Row, London 1967.
- Gilbert Alan Shepperd: The Italian Campaign 1943-45: A Political and Military Re-assessment. Barker, London 1968 ISBN 0-213-76404-0 .
- John Strawson: The Italian Campaign. Secker & Warburg, London 1987. ISBN 0-88184-368-7 .
- Edmund Theil: Fight for Italy: From Sicily to Tyrol, 1943–1945. Langen Müller Verlag , Munich 1983. ISBN 3-7844-1966-6 .
- Helmut Wilhelmsmeyer: The War in Italy 1943–1945. Stocker, Graz 1995. ISBN 3-7020-0716-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Gregory Blaxland: Alexander's Generals: The Italian Campaign, 1944-45. W. Kimber, London 1979. p. 11. ISBN 0-7183-0386-5 .
- ^ Douglas Orgill: The Gothic Line (The Autumn Campaign in Italy 1944). Heinemann, London 1967. p. 5. ISBN 0-8217-1916-5 .
- ↑ ROME DECLARED OPEN CITY . In: Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld .: 1878-1954) . Rockhampton, Qld. August 16, 1943, p. 1 ( gov.au [accessed June 4, 2019]).
- ^ Robert Katz: The Battle for Rome. Simon & Schuster, 2003. ISBN 978-0-7432-1642-5 .
- ^ A b Mark W. Clark : Calculated Risk: The Story of the War in the Mediterranean. Harper & Brothers, New York 1950.
- ^ John Keegan : The Second World War. Penguin, 2005. ISBN 978-0-14-303573-2 .
- ^ Thomas R. Brooks: The War North of Rome (June 1944-May 1945). Da Capo Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-306-81256-9 .
- ↑ Rudolf Bohmler: Monte Cassino: A German View. Cassell, 1964.
- ^ Gregory Blaxland: Alexander's Generals: The Italian Campaign, 1944-45. W. Kimber, London 1979. p. 277. ISBN 0-7183-0386-5 .