GERMAN PLANS FOR ITALY

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 98, 14 December 1943, Page 3

GERMAN PLANS FOR ITALY

"The Duce reported to the Fascist Council and supported Hitler's policy of .abandoning Italy from Messina to the Valley of the Po. The Council rejected the policy by a large majority vote. The disappearance of the Duce followed. Let there be no doubt about the shrewdness of Hitler's proposal. It was as wise militarily as it was wicked, morally. Behind the Po rises great mountain guardians of Hitler's own fortress. At their feet lie 29,000 square miles of land, irrigated by the 400 miles long river and made, by centuries of Italian toil and enterprise, the larder of the Italian people and the centre ,of their greatest industries. Low rainfall, river floods and engineering genius have made this one of the world's golden valleys and the source of electric power in a fuel-starved land. All Italy, except this golden valley, was to be scorched by the retreating Nazis. Food and stocks and, Italian manpower were to be concentrated here. Everything not consumed on this spot would have been carried, when the time came, to the Third Reich to sustain Germans against the assaults of the United Nations. Italy was to take the knock. Germany was to take the loot."— "Evening Standard," London.