The danger, however, had not been completely averted with the interrogation in Berlin. On March 25, Kaltenbrunner took him by car to Burg Rudolfstein near Hof, where the SD had moved its headquarters because of an air raid. There he was confronted with Police General Wilhelm Harster and the statements he was making. Harster was brought in from Verona expressly for this interrogation session. Also, on the following day, Wolff was having conversations that sounded more akin to an interrogation. On the evening of March 26, the questioning ended with a warning to cease any further contacts with Dulles. Kaltenbrunner said that he could arrange for such connections at any time if they were required. Himmler, on the other hand, was looking for Wolff in Berlin and ordered him not to lose contact with the western Allies; however, he was not allowed to travel to Switzerland again without the specific authorization of the Reichsführer.
________________
*
Allen Dulles,
The Secret Surrender
(New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 103.
U
pon returning south, Wolff stopped to visit his family on Lake Wolfgang and apparently decided they should move to South Tyrol. He arrived on Lake Garda again on March 29, exhausted from the strains of a dangerous trip, where he had very little sleep and was in fear both of low-flying aircraft and of being accused of treachery or high treason. He hid in his house in Fasano for almost forty-eight hours. He didn’t do anything, and refused to receive anyone. Aside from that, Himmler called and said with cutting brevity that he had heard that Wolff was having his family come to South Tyrol. “That was a grave mistake. I took the liberty of correcting it. Your wife and your children are remaining at Lake Wolfgang. There, they are under my personal protection.” The family had become hostages.
It had been arranged with Dulles that Wolff would visit him on April 2, Easter Monday. The general decided, however, that it was better not to go anywhere. He continued working on Generaloberst Vietinghoff with the stamina and conversational talents of a well-versed advertising agent. After three long conversations, with the participation of Röttinger and Parilli in the end, he got the Supreme Commander of the Army Group to the point where he agreed, in principal, to surrender. Vietinghoff also
agreed that further bloodshed was pointless, but he had his own ideas about a surrender, demanding that weapons be handed over to the opponent with a military honors ceremony: the defeated were to stand at attention and receive the victors marching past. For a short time, in closed formations, the Germans would perform reconstruction work in Italy and, in the end, were allowed to carry their bayonets during an orderly return march home in a show of honorable defeat. Allied headquarters had no interest in such feudal traditions. Why such a fuss? Whoever surrendered unconditionally was not allowed to lay down any conditions. It was later possible for France to take large numbers of German soldiers from the Italian prison camps for forced labor in the mines. England also continued to need workers. In any case the Allies felt that it was too early to discuss these during negotiations.
They had other problems at that time: Stalin was thundering! The capitulation of the German Army Group in Italy did not fit into his concept of victory at all. He claimed that this allowed the Germans to transfer divisions from the south to the east, or, even worse, that anti-Communists in the western democracies could be holding the still intact German divisions in Italy to use in a united campaign against Bolshevism. What bothered him the most, however, he did not mention. Stalin had agreed with Yugoslav leader Tito (who was already in control of large parts of Yugoslavia) that the Red Army would move closer to him and then advance further west. Not only all of the Balkans, not only the Adriatic, but also all of Italy and the south of France would be bound together in a show of proletarian solidarity as soon as the Red Army overran the Po Valley in northern Italy establishing its rule. However, if the Germans opened the path to Venice and Trieste to the Western Powers without a fight, then the plan would fail. The Western Powers would not tolerate Communist partisans, but rather fight them, as had already happened in Greece once the Germans retreated.
The Vatican also had understandable reasons to voice its opposition to the expansion of heathens from the east. Whoever was betting on a western victory in those days, was actively seeking the participation of the Church. On March 1, Mussolini sent his son Vittorio to meet with Cardinal Schuster in Milan, who was in radio contact with the Vatican, now far removed from the front. Vittorio first returned with an oral response, followed by written suggestions, concerning the scope and the parties that should be involved in the negotiations. For weeks, the clever Dollmann had already been repeatedly visiting the palace of Cardinal Schuster with
suggestions for a reconciliation. The Prince of the Church was to negotiate an armistice between Wolff and the partisans. The SS general’s offer was, in effect, leave us alone and we will not harm you; we agree not to destroy Italian industry as we retreat. He had already promised the allied generals and Dulles the same, and in return was requesting that major offensives be delayed. Why should he not let a good deed be rewarded many times over?
Wolff didn’t know it, but a storm was building up among the allied leadership. Hitler could not have wished for anything better. Washington informed Stalin that his generals could of course take part in the capitulation in Italy, but they would have no say in the matter. After all, the Western Powers had not been involved when German soldiers surrendered in the east. Participation by Soviet officers in the preliminary talks in Switzerland would not be necessary because the Germans would only be given instructions. In response, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov of the Soviet Union stated that the United States was refusing to honor its contractual rights to its allies and therefore the negotiations with the Germans must be terminated at once.
Since the Americans simply ignored this demand, Molotov sent identical notes to Washington and London in which the Western Powers were blamed for negotiating with the enemy “behind the Soviet government’s back, which was carrying the entire burden of the war anyway.” President Roosevelt wanted to placate the infuriated Stalin by declaring that the entire dispute was a simple misunderstanding, but he insisted that talks on a partial surrender did not violate any agreement. Stalin answered on April 3 with a letter replete with accusations. He claimed that the Germans would “open up the front” to the Western Powers “and let them advance towards the east, because the English and the Americans had promised to guarantee mild armistice conditions.”
That was a blind shot; nothing anyone actually promised Wolff was to be fulfilled. Whether a German ended up in eastern or western captivity at the end of the war—he would be relieved of his possessions either way. Watches, rings and other personal items changed owners on many occasions. The fact that German soldiers preferred to surrender to the West originated in the reports about the atrocities committed by the Red Army. For example, they didn’t believe that during the invasion of the open city of Stuttgart, the French generals would allow their North African soldiers to rape thousands of women and girls, but this did in fact happen.
The exchange of letters between heads of state dragged on with accusations and counter-accusations for a few more days. At one point it was thought that the German request for an armistice was only a trick to split the Alliance—Wolff denied this, but he certainly would have liked to have seen it happen. The real point in the argument, namely, the race between red and white for Belgrade, Milan, Genoa, and Marseille was never mentioned. Obviously, none of those involved in the dispute wanted to vent their innermost thoughts.
This was the reason why, since the end of March, the talks with Wolff made no further progress. Roosevelt wrote to Stalin on April 12: “I thank you for your frank expression of the Soviet point of view regarding the incident in Bern, which seems to have run aground without any meaningful results.” Apparently, the cause of the conflict had dissolved into nothing.
This was one of Roosevelt’s last letters. He died on the same day. Wolff learned of this exchange of letters many years later. Only then did he realize how much discord his actions had created among the Allies. The alliance itself, however, was not threatened. Wolff kept justifying his moves then and later—during the last thirty days of the war, he thought only of his surrender, that every hour, people were dying pointlessly and that it was high time for him to get his head out of the noose. He sent Dulles a telegram of sympathy for the death of President Roosevelt, and mourned the demise of a man whom his supreme commander-in-chief Hitler had always slandered as a criminal and the archenemy of the German people. Years later, Wolff used Roosevelt’s death to enhance the value of his own participation in those momentous events. He asserted that the already sick and physically handicapped U.S. president became so upset about Stalin’s suspicions that he had a stroke—just as he was writing his answer to Moscow. However, this could hardly be correct. On April 12, 1945, the argument between the Allies about the surrender was already as good as over.
Still recovering from the shock of his impressions of the trip, Wolff remained quiet during the first few days of April. He didn’t want to endanger his family at any price. However, he would not give up his plan to end the war early, at least in the south. His emissary, Baron Parilli was commuting diligently between Lake Garda and Bern. On that occasion, a step was taken to improve communications between the deputies of the U.S. Secret Service and the Highest SS and Police Führer. Wolff and Dulles arranged for an Allied radio operator to be a guest of the SS. A twenty-six-year-old Czech, Vaceslav Hradecky, crossed the Swiss border, with
Waibel’s help, and went straight into the lion’s den. He was inconspicuous, as was fitting for a well-trained agent, spoke fluent German and in the worst case could be discovered because of the unbelievable amount of cigarettes he required. Wolff had accommodations set up for him in the attic of the Milan SD, where he could operate his transmitter and be assured that no one would unexpectedly intrude upon him. His existence was a life-and-death secret for Wolff and his accomplices; had Kaltenbrunner found out he would have seen to it that Wolff was sent to the gallows.
In the wild race among the Nazi bigwigs for future security and alibis for the unavoidable day of reckoning, they were all competing with one another. Wolff and his people were being watched from many sides, and anyone wanting to eliminate them needed only to report his suspicions to Himmler. There were increasing signs that Wolff’s talks in Switzerland did not only deal with the liberation of a comrade held as a POW but were a contact to the West. On April 13, the Reichsführer SS called his general from Berlin and instructed him to come to the capital immediately to give a report. Since Wolff did not want to pick a date for the trip, on the following day Himmler, in two more telephone conversations, changed his request to an order.
Wolff at first could offer good reasons requiring his presence in Italy. Several days before, the long awaited enemy offensive had begun and was now increasingly successful. German troops were evacuating their positions, and it became clear that even Wolff’s headquarters—as Highest SS and Police Führer and plenipotentiary General of the Wehrmacht—would have to be transferred to the north. Also, Mussolini had to be reined in once more. Through Cardinal Schuster in Milan and through the Vatican, he had secretly offered the Allies a separate peace. They had refused but he was now planning a heroic finale that would secure him a few lines in world history one way or another. With his three divisions, still part of the German defensive front at the time, and with the various units of the Fascist party militia, he wanted to create a redoubt in the Valtellina, an Alpine region near the Swiss border that was difficult to reach. There he wanted to set up resistance down to the last Italian. That could hardly have been Hitler’s wish, nor was it Wolff’s either, as he prepared for the surrender of all Axis armed forces in Italy.
Wolff could talk Mussolini out of this plan by offering him an alternative. The Head of the Italian Social Republic would give up his plans for nationalization—which bothered Hitler as well—and therefore secure
the goodwill of the heads of Italian industries in London and on Wall Street. Mussolini apparently found this idea fantastic, but Wolff on the other hand was still under the impression, however, that the Duce was only waiting for an opportunity to attempt another escape from the German cage. Therefore, Wolff asked Mussolini for his word of honor that he would not move from Lake Garda without informing his guard and protector. He received that word of honor, but it would not be kept. The Duce, as a former soldier in the 11th Bersaglieri Regiment, had never learned the meaning of a word of honor to someone like General Wolff.
Wolff’s objections to a trip to Berlin no longer convinced Himmler on April 15. On the phone, he curtly ordered his general to report to him the next day. Wolff could no longer delay the meeting. He had to decide. His situation resembled that of September 1931, although it was much more pressing, more dangerous with problems taking on a quite different dimension. Again, his own life and that of his family were in danger because of external circumstances, and again the only thing that could help him was if Germany was saved. Once again, he felt compelled to fight off what was troubling his homeland. That was the reason why he joined Hitler, Himmler, and the Party comrades back in 1931. Now, he had to abandon them. He had already taken the first steps and more were to follow if he survived the interrogation in Berlin. He would have to hide his cards once he got there. The oath of loyalty no longer forced him to be truthful. If Hitler and his Third Reich were caught in a vortex and were drowning in a worldwide catastrophe, that did not mean that the Obergruppenführer of the SS had to share their fate.