MUSSOLINI AT LIBERTY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24052, 14 September 1943, Page 5

MUSSOLINI AT LIBERTY

GERMAN CLAIM PUPPET GOVERNMENT MAY BE FORMED (Rec. 9.40 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 13. Mussolini is at liberty, according to a communique from Hitler’s headquarters. The Official German News Agency issued the communique yesterday. It says: “German parachutists, men of the Security Service and armed S.S. men, to-day performed an operation for the liberation of Signor Mussolini, who has been imprisoned by a clique of traitors. The coup succeeded, and II Duce is at liberty. “The handing over of II Duce to the British and Americans, which was agreed to by the Badoglio Government, has thus been frustrated.” The British United Press says: “Hitler may now be expected to form a puppet Fascist government headed by Mussolini and designed to attract as much Italian support as possible, backed up by German guns and bayonets. It will be easy for Mussolini to claim that he was unconstitutionally put out of the way, that the Badoglio Government has no standing, and that King Victor Emmanuel is virtually a captive. “There may be an attempt on Mussolini’s part to establish a new Italian army to fight by the side of the Germans, who have already claimed that some Italian units have come to them.” “Hitler may make propaganda capital from Mussolini and place him at the head of a puppet government, but it is unlikely that such a government will muster more Italian supporters with Mussolini than without,” says Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent. “It would not kindle any desire among the war-weary Italians to restart from the point where they were thankful to leave off.” The “Daily Mail” says that an Italian official who was closely concerned with the events leading up to the Italian capitulation and who recently arrived in Allied territory, described Mussolini as “a spent force, prematurely aged, and a pathetic, humbled, fearful figure.” This official said that Mussolini after his arrest was imprisoned on an island in the Pontine group, near Rome.