New side update, as usual approved and revised by Sorairo:
Philipp of Hesse-Nassau - by Giorgio Bianchi
“… As diplomatic relations between Germany and Italy progressively deteriorated in 1943, the position of Philipp of Hesse-Nassau, governor of said province, and his wife Mafalda of Savoia, started to become untenable in the eyes of the Nazi government. Philipp was the inspiration for Prince Philip’s name and was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria of England. Despite being a supporter of Nazism since 1930, and acting as agent in the Italian court and as a direct intermediate between Hitler and Mussolini, even enlisting for the SS early on, he started to be suspected by the same Fuhrer of being a double agent for Italy, ‘corrupted’ by his wife. It didn’t help him the fact of being the nephew of Wilhelm II, something that Hitler really despised: he was aware that his rise to the chancellorship was allowed by Hindenburg, who was a supporter of the monarchic restoration, Despite actions to prevent this possibility, the Fuhrer was still suspicious of the German nobility.
Things for the German nobles started to become direr in 1943, when a decree limited their actions in the administration and the military, in an obvious attempt to keep them ostracized or worse prevent their staging a coup. Despite Wilhelm II having died in 1941, the Hohenzollern were still here, the son of Kaiser Wilhelm taking the leadership of the family. As his relationship with Hitler became very cold, still he decided to keep his distance from the murmurs of dissent towards the Fuhrer, some starting to look at him as a possible alternative to save Germany from what was starting to become a disaster.
Of course, German spies kept a constant vigilance on Wilhelm. But Hitler started to grow more obsessed towards Philip of Hesse. In his mind he started to think, the more he associated Mussolini and Fascism with the international Jewish Conspiracy, that the Duce wanted to install Jew friendly monarchies across Europe, including Germany. After all, didn’t the Tsar of Bulgaria married a Savoia? Or the King of Italy trying to put nephews on the vacant thrones of Hungary and above all Spain, and apparently Franco weighed the option too, or so he heard? Worse, Mussolini being agreeable to allowing Otto of Hapsburg to become King of Hungary, or worse still Emperor of Austria again? And those puny Alpine mountaineers didn’t put a horse of Troy with Philip and Mafalda in Germany?
Philip and Mafalda started to become aware of the growing hostility of Hitler towards them, between invitations to official ceremonies sudden stopping, increased limitation of their roles and movements, and so on. In the spring of 1943, fearing for their life and their children’s, the couple started to discuss their flight to Italy, in a way to not cause scandal or suspicion. Luckily for Mafalda, the occasion for her and their children to flee Germany happened in the late summer, when she accepted an invitation from her sister Giovanna of Bulgaria to visit her. It happened that Boris III was recovering from an illness (which many, especially post war, believed to be an attempt of assassination from German agents in order to favour a change of government sufficient for Bulgaria to join sides with the Reich) and the Queen gladly accepted the assistance of Mafalda, who brought her child to visit their cousins and spend a warm summer in Bulgaria.
Philipp and Mafalda planned that she would move in late September to Italy from Bulgaria to visit her parents and spend the rest of the year there, with Philip joining them for the Christmas celebrations and eventually return in Germany at the start of 1944. But in truth both were determined to remain in Italy, Philip would have resigned from his roles and practically live in exile on the peninsula, out of Hitler’s reach.
But while Mafalda and her children soon reached Rome and Vittorio Emanuele III in private pressed Mussolini to resist Hitler in case the German would summon his daughter and son-in-law to return to Germany, things in that cold Fall of 1943 caused the whole plan to fail. When Germany declared war on Italy, Philipp tried to escape and reach Switzerland, only to be caught and arrested almost immediately. Labelled as a traitor by Nazi propaganda, he was sent in the camp of Flossenburg. In the time he was prisoner, he wrote a diary in the hope to be reached by Mafalda and their sons, and later published by them. Philip wrote of his conditions, of the abuses done by his guards, of the hope to see his family soon or later.
Unfortunately for him, at the start of January the enraged Hitler – due to the defeat of Trieste and the failure of Operation Visigoth - ordered his death. Brought in Berlin to face a kangaroo trial, he was condemned to death for treason and being a member of the international Jew conspiracy. Witnesses stated he faced the trial with courage and determination, probably resigned to his fate, replying without fear or anger towards his persecutors. He died on the morning of 23th January 1944. His body was burned and the ashes dispersed. When news of his death reached Italy, messages of sympathy arrived all across the Kingdom in direction of the widow and House Savoia. King George VI in England expressed her own condolences as well the various royal houses in exile in England. Mussolini remembered Philipp as a good person and a new martyr of the folly of Hitler; soon after returning from the Lisbon Conference, he joined the funeral ceremony organized in the Lateran in his honour. Pius XII would attend the mass in person.
While Italy swore vengeance, German propaganda celebrated the death of a traitor. But behind the curtain, the German nobility was outraged and fearful towards Hitler. They couldn’t, nor wouldn’t, forget.”