Mussolini Flies & Dies With Hitler. What Would Göring and Italy Do ?

[Moss]

In this ATL, while I believe that Göring would definitely continue the war against Russia, he could still keep a “Peace With Stalin” option open by taking 3 immediate actions from a position of strength. These 3 actions would benefit the German war effort and, at the same time, be a silent signal to Stalin that, just perhaps, a deal could be made with Göring.

(1) Immediately revoke the Commissar Order that Hitler had issued June 6, 1941, which called for the immediate execution of captured, or even suspected, Soviet political commissars assigned to Russian Army units. Hitler himself, in OTL, cancelled the Commissar Order on May 6, 1942:

(2) Stop starving captured Russian soldiers which angered the Russian people and also increased their will to fight the Germans. Göring could have done this many months before 1942.
.
(3) Remember that Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, also would have died in the plane crash along with Hitler, Mussolini and Himmler. Hitler and Ribbentrop had been responsible for the Non-Aggression Pact with Stalin. These betrayers, as Stalin would have regarded them, were now out of the picture.

Göring was the new leader, maybe someone Stalin could consider dealing with. Perhaps, especially if Göring appoints someone who might be very acceptable to Stalin as the new German Foreign Minister. This someone could be Count von der Schlenburg.

Count von der Schulenburg had been the German ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1934 until 1941 when the Germans invaded Russia. He was totally against a war with Russia and had been proud of the improved German-Russian relations from 1939 to 1941 which happened on his watch. Indeed, he had been “kept in the dark about Germany’s planned invasion of the Soviet Union” as Wikipedia states :

The reason I think a “Schulenburg Gambit” might work as a signal to Stalin is because Stalin used a similar method of signaling to Hitler when he replaced his own Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov with Molotov in May 1939, shortly before Hitler and Stalin concluded the German-Russian Non-Aggression Pact in August 1939.

Stalin would recognize the signal. Whether he would act upon it or not, is a different question.

I see no reason why Goring would undo the commisar order, they'd probably just deny it ever existed and was the actions of some low levels gone rogue.

Starvation will continue wether Goring wants it to or not. This is because there simply is not enough food to go around in blockaded Europe in war time. Maybe years later after recovery from the devastation the eastern territories of Ukraine could produce enough food, but definately not while the war is still going on.

Stalin may be willing to make a deal, and Its certainly a possibility. However Im not sure he would trust Goring more. Goring was an aristocratic, imperialstic, capitalist of the Kaiserreich, and thats how he would be viewed in Moscow. Hitler was a prolaterian man of the people. So its not as cut and dry as you may think,

 

[Post]

I'm not super well versed, but I'm fairly certain the idea of "ignore Kiev, go for Moscow and the war is over", it probably results in Army Group Centre getting cut off an annihilated. Leaving hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops on the flanks and just marching to a giant urban centre that wont fall in just days, would end in catastrophe for the Germans. Moscow is huge and the Germans are going to get bogged down for weeks if not months trying to surround and take it.

Yes, reaching Moscow does not mean you've captured it. And since the infantry has to walk, they can't keep up with the Panzers.* This means it's all nice and dandy that the Panzers reach Moscow in august or september, but the infantry needs to catch up and actually take the city. That's going to take months and is not done before winter.
In the meantime you've got a million enemy soldiers sitting around Kiev and threatening you lines of communication. It could be a disaster worse than Stalingrad.

Cue in the discussions this ATL on Ah.com "what if Hitler hadn't died and taken Kiev, surely it would have won the war."

*they were already behind

 

[Garrison]

Franco was determined to do what he felt was in his personal best interest. If it becomes clear that the axis are winning then he will go whichever way the wind is blowing.

But even when it seemed the Axis was on the brink of overwhelming victory in the summer of 1940 and 41 Franco declined and Germany certainly isn't going to be any better off strategically with Hitler dead. Sealion is still impossible and sitting on Western Europe and depending on the largesse of Stalin is a recipe for slow collapse. Some other Italian leader might be more reasonable, might, but it would take a decade or more to fix the issues facing the Italian armed forces. The smart play for the Italians is to get out of the war, especially as Goering might be less inclined to bail them out than Hitler.

 

[ravenscroft]

The Germans would never relinquish control over France. That was their historical enemy and could not be allowed to threaten the Reich again. As much as the allies felt Germany needed to be permenantly de fanged, the Reich felt France needed to be defeated once and for all. It would entirely compromise their security, and let England back on the continent that was now mostly theirs. I'm sorry but this is not happening.

That was my point - even if Hitler is gone, the Germans will be reluctant to make the sort of concessions the UK will demand.

John

 

[Hastings]

• Moscow would be a terrible idea. They realistically won’t actually take the city even if they partially encircle it. Then they are a bit more overstretched with an unsecured right flank come winter…You are asking to lose Army Group Center.
• A Brest-Livosk-style peace is the correct thing to do even without hindsight. The logistical tether near Leningrad and Moscow had been warned pre-war by German logisticians. Rapidly becoming clear USSR regeneration capacity was underestimated…Even Hitler was starting to become a bit despondent pre-Kiev.
• This is unlikely to result in a peace with the UK for time reasons. The POD is only 3 months to Pearl Harbor. UK is not going to be alone (Roosevelt was looking for trouble and a lot of Americans believed Germans had to be involved in some way with Pearl Harbor).

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

I see no reason why Goring would undo the commissar order, they'd probably just deny it ever existed and was the actions of some low levels gone rogue.

Hitler himself cancelled the Commissar Order in OTL , as pointed out in my post 14 above (with the help of Wikipedia). Why couldn’t Göring do the same thing for the same reasons ?

“According to the order, all those prisoners who could be identified as "thoroughly bolshevised or as active representatives of the Bolshevist ideology" should also be killed….

…When the Commissar Order became known among the Red Army, it provoked stronger resistance to German forces. This unwanted effect was cited in German appeals to Hitler (e.g. by Claus von Stauffenberg), who finally cancelled the Commissar Order after one year, on 6 May 1942.

And what the German Army was doing, under Hitler’s Commissar Order, had been quickly made abundantly clear to the Russian soldiers and the Russian people whether or not they knew it was an official German policy or not.

“As early as July 1941, atrocities against Soviet prisoners of war were integrated into Soviet propaganda. Information about the Commissar Order, described as mandating the killing of all officers or prisoners captured, was disseminated to Red Army soldiers. Accurate information about the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war reached Red Army soldiers by a number of means, and was an effective deterrent against defection—although many disbelieved the official propaganda.“

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Starvation will continue whether Goring wants it to or not. This is because there simply is not enough food to go around in blockaded Europe in war time. Maybe years later after recovery from the devastation the eastern territories of Ukraine could produce enough food, but definitely not while the war is still going on.

I wouldn’t acquit the Germans so easily. Maybe first class meals wouldn’t have been on tap for the Soviet POWS but certainly they did not have to be deliberately starved as was often the case. And the Germans could have provided, shall we say, better housing and protection from diseases. (Especially if Germany might want to negotiate some kind of peace deal with Russia in the future by not deliberately killing millions of Russians they held captive.)

“Although Germany largely upheld its obligations under the Geneva Convention with prisoners of war of other nationalities, military planners decided to breach it with the Soviet prisoners. By the end of 1941, millions of Soviet soldiers had been captured, mostly in large-scale encirclement operations during the German Army's rapid advance. Two-thirds of them died from starvation, exposure, and disease by early 1942—ranking as one of the highest death rates from mass atrocity in history.

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Stalin may be willing to make a deal, and it’s certainly a possibility. However I’m not sure he would trust Goring more. Goring was an aristocratic, imperialistic, capitalist of the Kaiserreich, and that’s how he would be viewed in Moscow. Hitler was a proletarian man of the people. So it’s not as cut and dry as you may think.

I don’t think it’s cut and dry at all. You cannot pick and choose and select your enemies when you negotiate with them. Lenin didn’t care too much for Kaiser Wilhelm II either in World War I when he surrendered, under extreme duress huge chunks of the Russian Empire to the Germans….

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

On post 14, I'm struggling to see Stalin being all that keen on an easy deal with Germany after so much death and destruction in the first 2 and a bit months of Barbarossa.
Indeed, a new boss (who doesn't have the image of military genius that Hitler had) might not have the baggage as a betrayer, but if they are seen to be ordinary rather than a successful war leader then Stalin should see his chances of military success as much improved.

For my part, my post 14 is merely alternative history spectulation of what could have happened. But nowhere did I suggest any indication of “Stalin being all that keen on an easy deal with Germany”. Certainly not “easy”.

Stalin’s Russia in August/September 1941, like Lenin’s Russia before him in February 1918, was in a life and death situation, both times with German armies deep within Russia and continually advancing. Lenin agreed to the Carthaginian peace treaty of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in order to hopefully fight another day. It proved to be the salvation of Soviet Union.

“Lenin told the Central Committee that "you must sign this shameful peace in order to save the world revolution". If they did not agree, he would resign.”

Stalin was a very canny leader who, no doubt, would keep all his options open. After all, barely two years before in 1939 he had astounded and surprised the entire world by signing a Non-Aggression Treaty with Nazi Germany, a nation which had continually poured abuse upon the Soviet Union.

 

[Alex1guy]

Hitler was the centre of the German government and leaves a significant vacuum. The most interesting thing here will be how Goering cements his own power in Berlin. He'd have the legitimacy initially of being Hitlers designated successor but he was not well liked and he is in a nest of some of the nastiest, most ambitious nutters imaginable. He was an expert at riding Hitler's coat tails and now he has to fend for himself. Lets be honest, he was a bad war leader, the Battle of Britain proved this, and he had this hanging over him like a spectre. He managed to stay in Hitler's good graces, but without Hitler to protect him, I feel like the knives are going to be out.

Hitler would now enter near mythological status as a martyr, and when the war starts going badly (and it will) Goering is going to be fighting for his life because he's going to get all the blame IF he manages to cling to power. I agree Goering might listen to his generals requests for retreat but only if he can plant the blame on someone other than himself.

When the Soviets turn the war around and march to Berlin, I don't imagine him dying in a bunker, he was a coward, he seems more like a try to flee to the alps or Spain kinda guy. After the war he tried to paint himself as some victim of circumstance, but that naturally fell on deaf ears.

I'm assuming the details of how Hitler and Mussolini died would be suppressed because that is just straight up embarrassing. One flew the other into a mountain? How do you spin that without presenting Mussolini as a total idiot. How does that affect the relationship between Rome and Berlin, both of which are probably dealing with quite a bit of chaos.

 

[Flash-Gordon]

Italo Balbo?

 

[Alex1guy]

Italo Balbo?

Well he just died in a plane crash a year earlier. This is not a good look for Italian aviation.

Edit: Actually he was shot down by Italian AA guns... Maybe Grandi or Ciano takes power in Italy? Maybe the King? Does Italy try to bail out altogether? Anyone familiar with Italian politics at the time?

 

[CaptainCalvert]

• Moscow would be a terrible idea. They realistically won’t actually take the city even if they partially encircle it. Then they are a bit more overstretched with an unsecured right flank come winter…You are asking to lose Army Group Center.
• A Brest-Livosk-style peace is the correct thing to do even without hindsight. The logistical tether near Leningrad and Moscow had been warned pre-war by German logisticians. Rapidly becoming clear USSR regeneration capacity was underestimated…Even Hitler was starting to become a bit despondent pre-Kiev.
• This is unlikely to result in a peace with the UK for time reasons. The POD is only 3 months to Pearl Harbor. UK is not going to be alone (Roosevelt was looking for trouble and a lot of Americans believed Germans had to be involved in some way with Pearl Harbor).

I think I'd have to say that a Brest Litovsk deal might not appeal to Stalin quite as much as to Germany.
For a start, Germany just breached a treaty [1], invaded soviet Poland, invaded the soviet union, killed, captured and murdered a few million soviets, so goodwill and trust are in short supply. Secondly, Hitler ( seen as a military genius at the time) and a dictator, and Mussolini, the closest ally and also a dictator, are both dead.
This means loss of their (supposedly) best general, and chaos and confusion in the leadership of the two main opponents. I'm betting that Stalin can make some shrewd guesses on how quickly and smoothly the handover of power might run. At a minimum, the leadership crisis will buy him time to reorganise, and at best there is a permanent decrease in the quality of strategic direction.
None of this is bad news for Stalin, so why - when he didn't ask for terms OTL in worse circumstances - would he accept unfavourable terms now?

[1] even before Stalin was ready to breach it!

 

[Moss]

But even when it seemed the Axis was on the brink of overwhelming victory in the summer of 1940 and 41 Franco declined and Germany certainly isn't going to be any better off strategically with Hitler dead. Sealion is still impossible and sitting on Western Europe and depending on the largesse of Stalin is a recipe for slow collapse. Some other Italian leader might be more reasonable, might, but it would take a decade or more to fix the issues facing the Italian armed forces. The smart play for the Italians is to get out of the war, especially as Goering might be less inclined to bail them out than Hitler.

If the Italians bail thats probably only a benefit to Germany. England cannot do Normandy alone, the Reich now owns eastern europe, and doesn't have to worry about continuously bailing out her weaker partner. Heck that italy might even be able to help evade the blockade. I suppose my next question is what can England do? Seriously, Russia is out, the USA is out, the italians are out, what can they do other than a reverse BoB thats going to end in disaster.

 

[Moss]

Hitler himself cancelled the Commissar Order in OTL , as pointed out in my post 14 above (with the help of Wikipedia). Why couldn’t Göring do the same thing for the same reasons ?

And what the German Army was doing, under Hitler’s Commissar Order, had been quickly made abundantly clear to the Russian soldiers and the Russian people whether or not they knew it was an official German policy or not.

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I wouldn’t acquit the Germans so easily. Maybe first class meals wouldn’t have been on tap for the Soviet POWS but certainly they did not have to be deliberately starved as was often the case. And the Germans could have provided, shall we say, better housing and protection from diseases. (Especially if Germany might want to negotiate some kind of peace deal with Russia in the future by not deliberately killing millions of Russians they held captive.)


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I don’t think it’s cut and dry at all. You cannot pick and choose and select your enemies when you negotiate with them. Lenin didn’t care too much for Kaiser Wilhelm II either in World War I when he surrendered, under extreme duress huge chunks of the Russian Empire to the Germans….

IDK Stalin didn't want the POW's back. He declared them traitors for not fighting to the death,and many of the returning soliders, even the ones triumphant in Berlin were treated as outsiders and enemies. Therefore I'm not sure the POW issue will be a sticking point.

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

Hitler was the centre of the German government and leaves a significant vacuum. The most interesting thing here will be how Goering cements his own power in Berlin. He'd have the legitimacy initially of being Hitlers designated successor but he was not well liked and he is in a nest of some of the nastiest, most ambitious nutters imaginable. He was an expert at riding Hitler's coat tails and now he has to fend for himself. Lets be honest, he was a bad war leader, the Battle of Britain proved this, and he had this hanging over him like a spectre. He managed to stay in Hitler's good graces, but without Hitler to protect him, I feel like the knives are going to be out.

Göring was one of those “nastiest, most ambitious nutters imaginable” as you, Alex1guy, put it. And, according to acclaimed German historian Joachim C. Fest’s book”The Face of the Third Reich”, he was also popular and had been essential to Hitler’s becoming Chancellor on January 30, 1933 in the first place :

[Page 116] “…especially as it was Göring who decisively smoothed the path for the triumph of January 30. It was no coincidence that it was he who on January 29 brought Hitler the news that agreement on the new cabinet had been reached. Hitler owed not only a decisive step on his path to Hindenburg but also his contacts, in particular with conservative circles, to Göring, who, to anyone who was deeply class-conscious, differed so pleasantly in his origins and ‘way of life’, and as an officer and a bearer of the ‘Pour le Mérite’ [AKA the “Blue Max” which Göring won in World War I as an ace pilot with 22 victories], from the other ‘non-entities’ of the National Socialist leadership.

…While outwardly Göring continued to use his stout joviality to increase his popularity, he showed from day to day the most brutal energy in seizing power, blustering, terrorizing, crushing opposition, and creating order in accordance with his own ideas. His was the task of ruthlessly applying force…

[Page 112] “He was popular mainly because he was the only leading figure in the Third Reich who had qualities with which the masses readily identified. He was manly, without seeming sombre or arrogant; intelligent and yet patently honest and without sophistry; and the inhumane traits of his personality lay concealed behind a moody jollity.

His bluff equilibrium bore no trace of the complexities of a damaged personality structure of the sort that has rightly been seen behind the caustic temperament of Goebbels, the narrow-minded fanaticism of Himmler, or the sourness of Hess, Rosenberg or Ribbentrop…. He combined the romantic aura of the much-decorated fighter pilot with the rough unaffected intimacy of the boon companion, at one and the same time hero and hail-fellow-well-met.”

At the time of this ATL plane crash in August 1941, Göring had not yet lost his status nor sunk into drugs as he was to do later in the war. And don’t forget, at the Nuremberg Trials, a now drug-free, rather fit Göring was almost his old self in terms of tenacity and sparring with the Allied lawyers. Suddenly thrust into power by Hitler’s death in August 1941, I’ve no doubt that Göring could have also risen to that occasion as well. Check out his words from Fest’s book “The Face of the Third Reich” :

[Pages 124 – 125] “In a speech which in its way is a contribution to the psychology of totalitarian governments, [Göring] explained to one of the Nuremberg defence lawyers:

“If you really want to do something new, the good won’t help you with it. They are self-satisfied, lazy, they have their God and their own pigheadedness ---- you can’t do it with them. ‘Let me have men about me that are fat.’ An anointed king can say that, but not a leader who has made himself. Let me have men about me that are arrant knaves. The wicked, who have something on their conscience, are obliging, quick to hear threats, because they know how it’s done, and for booty. You can offer them things, because they will take them. Because they have no hesitations. You can hang them if they get out of step. Let me have men about me that are utter villains --- provided that I have the power, absolute power over life and death. The sole and single leader, whom no one can interfere with. What do you know of the possibilities in evil ! Why do you write books and make philosophy when you only know about virtue and how to acquire it, whereas the world is fundamentally moved by something quite different ?”

Ruthless much ?

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

I'm assuming the details of how Hitler and Mussolini died would be suppressed because that is just straight up embarrassing. One flew the other into a mountain? How do you spin that without presenting Mussolini as a total idiot. How does that affect the relationship between Rome and Berlin, both of which are probably dealing with quite a bit of chaos.

Don’t forget or underestimate Doctor Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s Propaganda Minister extraordinaire. He was quite adept at spinning stories that were “just straight up embarrassing” to fit the moment.

For instance, in May 1941, when high-ranking Nazi “Deputy Führer” Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland on a surprising flight to try to get Britain and Germany to stop fighting, Hitler and the entire German leadership were shocked and quite embarrassed. Goebbels quickly flooded the German media (and the world) with the official line that Hess had been suffering from mental disorders for some time and nothing he said could be believed. (Actually this was probably close to the truth although everyone marvelled about how a crazy Hess could fly an airplane, undetected by either Germany or Britain, from Augsburg in southern Bavaria, Germany to near Strathaven in South Lanarkshire, in south central Scotland.)

The difference with the OTL Hess flight and this ATL Hitler-Mussolini plane crash was that Hess was alive, had survived and was in the hands of the British, Germany’s enemy, who could spin their own story. On the other hand, there would probably be no survivors (or at least anyone left alive to counter whatever official line Goebbels would take). If there were no survivors, no one would have known what had actually had happened. No one would have suspected that Mussolini had been flying the plane.

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

IDK Stalin didn't want the POW's back. He declared them traitors for not fighting to the death,and many of the returning soliders, even the ones triumphant in Berlin were treated as outsiders and enemies. Therefore I'm not sure the POW issue will be a sticking point.

Moss, you are very correct about Stalin’s attitude towards the POWs. I think the issue of ending the deliberate mistreatment of the Russian POWs by the Germans would have been more directed towards Russian public opinion rather than toward Stalin himself. Time-Life Books, in their series on World War II in their volume entitled “Russia Besieged” expresses Stalin’s attitude on page 72:

“Soviet soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans were declared traitors by the Russians; even if they escaped and made it back to their own lines they were liable to be imprisoned or shot. Families of Russian prisoners of war had their food rations taken away, which often meant starvation.”

My thinking here is that what Göring would be doing would get back to the Russian people and increase their dissatisfaction with Stalin. This, in turn, might put more pressure on Stalin to cut a deal, if indeed Göring opted to try that path.

 

[Rattenfänger von Memphis]

Maybe Grandi or Ciano takes power in Italy? Maybe the King? Does Italy try to bail out altogether? Anyone familiar with Italian politics at the time?

My bet would be on Dino Grandi. He was a high-ranking Fascist, the King of Italy liked him, he was influential in the Fascist party and known to the Italian people. In OTL he was against the 1938 Italian racial laws Mussolini enacted against the Jews, as well as Italy entering the war in the first place. And he masterminded the OTL ouster of Mussolini in July 1943.

In this ATL, I think there were three things that Grandi, or another Italian leader, could attempt to do.

(1) Rescind the 1938 racial laws against the Jews and not allow anti-Jewish measures in Italy or Italian occupied territory. At this stage in the war, Italy had control of Italy, Albania, the Dodecanese Islands, at least half of Libya, most of Greece (the brown section of the map), part of Crete, Montenegro, Kosovo and much of Yugoslavia’s Dalmatian coast. This would save a lot of lives and differentiate Italy from Germany in the eyes of the Allies.

(2) Do what Franco did later in the war with Spain’s Blue Division: These Spanish volunteers in the fight against Communist Russia were slowly and almost imperceptibly withdrawn from the Russian front in stages. A new Italian leader could also try to emulate Franco’s honeyed words towards Germany. Franco survived the war as we all know.

(3) Avoid, if at all possible, declaring war against the United States. In OTL both Germany and Italy declared war against the United States on December 11, 1941, 4 days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Again this would be a favorable differentiation between Italy and Germany in the eyes of the Allies. If it could be done.

Now I realize that Italy was actually in the war, at Germany’s side, whereas Spain was not at war and was a benevolent neutral towards Germany so this might not work for a new Italian leader. But Italy could certainly emulate Hungary.

Hungary, like Italy, bordered Germany. Hungary, like Italy, was in the war and was allied with Germany with both Italian and Hungarian troops fighting in Russia. But, unlike Italy, Hungary was landlocked and completely surrounded by Germany and German-occupied territory.

Even so, Hungary’s leader, Miklós_Horthy successfully resisted Germany in several instances as Wikipedia points out:

The first massacre of Jewish people from Hungarian territory took place in August 1941, when government officials ordered the deportation of Jews without Hungarian citizenship (principally refugees from other Nazi-occupied countries) to Ukraine. Roughly 18,000–20,000 of these deportees were slaughtered by Friedrich Jeckeln and his SS troops; only 2,000–3,000 survived. These killings are known as the Kamianets-Podilskyi Massacre. This event, in which the slaughter of Jews for the first time numbered in the tens of thousands, is considered to be among the first large-scale massacre of the Holocaust. Because of the objections of Hungary's leadership, the deportations were halted.

By early 1942, Horthy was already seeking to put some distance between himself and Hitler's regime. That March, he dismissed the pro-German prime minister László Bárdossy and replaced him with Miklós Kállay, a moderate whom Horthy expected to loosen Hungary's ties to Germany. Kállay successfully sabotaged economic cooperation with Nazi Germany, protected refugees and prisoners, resisted Nazi pressure regarding Jews, established contact with the Allies, and negotiated conditions under which Hungary would switch sides against Germany. However, the Allies were not close enough.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica’s article “Hungary” also shows what Hungary’s independent streak was able to accomplish under very trying, wartime conditions.

“[Horthy] and the veteran minister of the interior, Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer, gave the Jews a measure of real protection almost unparalleled on the continent and allowed the press and parties of the left much freedom. Under their protection an Independence front began to take shape. Its members were the Social Democrats (with the crypto-Communists in the background); the Smallholders’ party, which professed strongly democratic ideals; “progressive intellectuals”, who either remained unorganized or (since the leader of the Liberal party, K. Rassay, refused his co-operation) attached themselves to the Smallholders’ party; a small group of intellectuals who formed a National Peasant party; and some Legitimists…

… Kállay sent several emissaries to make secret contact with the Allies in August[1943]; one of these actually agreed with the British ambassador at Ankara, Turkey, on an instrument of unconditional surrender, to take effect when the Allied troops reached Hungary.”

Of course, in OTL Germany wound up invading Hungary in March 1944, just the Germans had managed to nab about 2/3 of Italy when Italy switched over to the Allies. But, the point is, Italy was much stronger than Hungary and was much more favorably placed geographically than Hungary was and could have probably accomplished some of what a much weaker Hungary had done.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

If the Italians bail thats probably only a benefit to Germany. England cannot do Normandy alone, the Reich now owns eastern europe, and doesn't have to worry about continuously bailing out her weaker partner. Heck that italy might even be able to help evade the blockade. I suppose my next question is what can England do? Seriously, Russia is out, the USA is out, the italians are out, what can they do other than a reverse BoB thats going to end in disaster.

Italy simply going neutral leaves a few interesting loose ends.
They essentially cede all of their east African empire to the British.
Libya is full of German Afrika Korps who now don't have a navy or shipping to supply them. Do the Italians disarm and intern them [1] or simply stop supplying them? March them to the Tunisian border and suggest they try their luck with the French? put them on Italian troop ships and hope the Brits don't send the subs out before they can find a friendly port? Allow air transports to transport them away (again where to)?
Then there's Greece, Yugoslavia and the Aegean islands - are these left liberated or with only a small German garrison?
All quite fun really.


[1] You'd normally think "AK would kick their arses", but here they are in contact with the British, so it would be Italy on one side and Commonwealth on the other. Rommel was good but not superhuman.

 

[Moss]

Italy simply going neutral leaves a few interesting loose ends.
They essentially cede all of their east African empire to the British.
Libya is full of German Afrika Korps who now don't have a navy or shipping to supply them. Do the Italians disarm and intern them [1] or simply stop supplying them? March them to the Tunisian border and suggest they try their luck with the French? put them on Italian troop ships and hope the Brits don't send the subs out before they can find a friendly port? Allow air transports to transport them away (again where to)?
Then there's Greece, Yugoslavia and the Aegean islands - are these left liberated or with only a small German garrison?
All quite fun really.


[1] You'd normally think "AK would kick their arses", but here they are in contact with the British, so it would be Italy on one side and Commonwealth on the other. Rommel was good but not superhuman.

I was only responding to a poster who suggested itay might bail. I think your right about all those troubles that would inevitably arise. Thats why I would lean against Italy bowing out of the war. If they did leave, it would probably be better for them and for Germany, but at this point I think their in to deep to cut and run.

 

[Alex1guy]

Don’t forget or underestimate Doctor Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s Propaganda Minister extraordinaire. He was quite adept at spinning stories that were “just straight up embarrassing” to fit the moment.

For instance, in May 1941, when high-ranking Nazi “Deputy Führer” Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland on a surprising flight to try to get Britain and Germany to stop fighting, Hitler and the entire German leadership were shocked and quite embarrassed. Goebbels quickly flooded the German media (and the world) with the official line that Hess had been suffering from mental disorders for some time and nothing he said could be believed. (Actually this was probably close to the truth although everyone marvelled about how a crazy Hess could fly an airplane, undetected by either Germany or Britain, from Augsburg in southern Bavaria, Germany to near Strathaven in South Lanarkshire, in south central Scotland.)

The difference with the OTL Hess flight and this ATL Hitler-Mussolini plane crash was that Hess was alive, had survived and was in the hands of the British, Germany’s enemy, who could spin their own story. On the other hand, there would probably be no survivors (or at least anyone left alive to counter whatever official line Goebbels would take). If there were no survivors, no one would have known what had actually had happened. No one would have suspected that Mussolini had been flying the plane.

I mean that's my point they'd have to spin it. However you raise a really good point, they probably wouldn't really know what happened unless Mussolini radioed it in before crashing.