http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1943/jul1943/f26jul43.htm
Italian marshal leads new government
Monday, July 26, 1943 www.onwar.com
Marshal Badoglio heads new Italian government [photo at link]
In Rome... Marshal Badoglio forms a new government and declares martial law. He public claims loyalty to the Axis alliance with Germany.
In the Solomon Islands... US forces continue to make slow progress with heavy air and artillery support. Tanks and flame throwers are also used.
Hitler quickly realized the overthrow of Mussolini and replacement by Badoglio meant Italy was going to exit the war. The article that discussed an Italian withdrawal all the way up the boot of Italy to the Appenines makes it pretty clear that in reality, the Italians intend to at the very least quit the war, and probably switch sides. By the way, the Allies will not reach that position in the Appenines until the fall of 1944.
I also like Baldwin’s piece on propaganda. He makes the point that the Germans are publishing our propaganda for us with all the death notices. One underlying statement in all of them is the phrase, in one form or another, “fell in the East,” or “im Osten gefallen.” It’s the epitaph for over a million Germans who were simply never heard from again and whose bodies were never recovered. Every German family will be touched by these words. The real impact of these words isn’t going to be felt for a while yet.
Sometime around 1955, when the inital struggle to survive day to day is over, the partition and occupation of Germany appears permanent, and the POWs return from Soviet captivity, the West German people will begin to process what all of it meant. The words “im osten gefallen” will fuel one of the two main angst-ridden questions the average German will have to deal with: “Was all our suffering and sacrfice only in the service of evil?” It will be reflected in German literature and theater as the theme of “lost honor.” All soldiers want to believe that they did their duty and served honorably. But after being confronted with the atrocities of their regime, and that they were complicit in them, how do they reconcile that with the sacrifices they made and the comrades they lost?
This will be a pervasive theme in West Germany at least from 1955 to 1980. The East Germans, under Soviet sock-puppet leaders, will not have the opportunity to engage in the same sort of soul-searching. Instead, their Soviet masters will just treat them like the bad dog who pooped on the rug.