What If: The Gran Sasso Raid failed?

wwalter

On September 12, 1943 a group of German paratroopers rescued Benito Mussolini from the ski resort where he was being held captive. The raid involved commandos infiltrating the resort by hang glider, and taking the guards unawares. Mussolini subsequently returned to power in Italy as the “Duce of the Nation” of the Italian Social Republic, which would fight against the Allies on Germany’s behalf until the very end of the War.

What if the raid had failed, and Mussolini had either remained in captivity or been killed in the raid? Could this have allowed the Western Allies to drive through the “soft underbelly of the Axis” into either France or Austria? Or would the Germans have managed to halt the Allies at some point south of the Alps even without the assistance of Mussolini’s puppet regime?
 

Cook

Banned
After he was liberated, Mussolini was bundled into a Storch light aircraft and Skorzeny insisted on climbing in behind him; seriously overloading the aircraft. It very nearly crashed on takeoff.
:)

Mussolini was no longer relevant to the war; Italy had capitulated and Germany had occupied most of the Italian peninsular.
 
Cook's right. Either way, Italy surrenders in '43, Germany loses in '45. Mussolini had practically no role for the Axis after he left Italy.
 

wwalter

I agree that Germany and Italy are already finished by September of '43, could they are defeated change? An uninspiring collaborationist regime á la Pierre Laval’s in France would have to have had some effect on the German position in Italy. Even if the Mussolini’s contributed little the war effort against the Allies, so long as it contributed to maintaining some kind of order behind the lines aided the German war effort. If the Allies had managed to break through the Gothic Line earlier they could have liberated the western parts of Yugoslavia ahead of the Soviets.

Does Mussolini’s rescue determine that Italy will remain a stable front for the Germans, or could they have fought just as well if someone like Graziano was running Northern Italy on their behalf?
 

Cook

Banned
Mussolini’s Fascists committed a lot of terror in Northern Italy in the last eighteen months of the war but couldn’t prevent the sabotage of rail supply lines by Communist Partisans with British SOE assistance. I’m sure another Fascist willing to do the Nazi’s bidding could have been found. I doubt the Partisans could have done much more than they did.
 
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