the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

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Sid Guttridge
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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#16

Post by Sid Guttridge » 20 Jul 2019, 07:40

Hi DrG,

In your link you say that the Mussolini documents were taken to Como to be photographed and only later were most of them lost.

Do we know what happened to the photographs, which presumably included the missing documents?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#17

Post by DavidFrankenberg » 20 Jul 2019, 14:40

DrG wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 00:43
DavidFrankenberg, I fear there are some misconceptions and plain mistakes in your account.

While we cannot know exactly what Mussolini thought (also given that his diaries have disappeared), there is no evidence and reason to believe that he thought he would have been defeated in the vote of the Grand Council or, at least, that he desired this outcome. His depression came later, when he was under arrest during Badoglio's "45 days".

The decision to start negotiations with the Allies was taken on 31 July 1943, after the report by gen. Marras (a telephone call made in strict Sardinian dialect, in order to confuse German phone tapping), military attaché in Berlin, about his meeting, along with the diplomat Michele Lanza, with Hitler, gen. Jodl, Hewel and gen. Schmundt in Rastenburg on 30 July. During the meeting, Marras showed Mussolini's letter to Badoglio of 26 July, which I have already mentioned in this thread, and reported to Hitler king Victor Emmanuel III's request to meet him, in order to define the true military and political situation of the Axis and clarify the command chain in Italy (where the Germans were operating in an independent way and had clearly decided to leave Sicily).
When Marras's report made clear that Hitler did not want to meet the Italian king and instead he was sure of an Italian defection, the Italian government took the definitive choice to seek and armistice, which was signed in Cassibile on 3 September and proclaimed on 8 September.
Mussolini was depressed for a long time. Before the WWII he was already depressed. Especially by the rapid ascent of a certain man called Hitler. Hitler worried him a lot.
When he saw the allies in Sicily, the end was pretty obvious and fast for him. He just hoped to survive the war and being not too much persecuted : alive and free.
When he was "freed"/kidnapped by Skorzenny, he was stunned but not happy. Just look at the photos : the Germans are very happy, Mussolini is not. Why ? Because his detention in the hands of the Germans would mean a prolonged war for him, a war he didnt want at all. His kidnapping by Hitler was just a way for Hitler to say "you would not get away like that, you will die with me".

Concerning the Ciano's diary, nobody actually read the original ? everybody just copy the american copies of it ?


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DrG
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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#18

Post by DrG » 20 Jul 2019, 15:21

Sid Guttridge wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 07:40
In your link you say that the Mussolini documents were taken to Como to be photographed and only later were most of them lost.
Do we know what happened to the photographs, which presumably included the missing documents?
The copies were made by members of the Italian Communist Party. Their official journal, "L'Unità", published a handful of documents in the following weeks, but then the promised series of articles about this topic was discontinued and never resumed. The copies have never been retraced, even in the archive of the former Communist Party, and therefore are presumed lost, just like their originals.

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DrG
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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#19

Post by DrG » 20 Jul 2019, 15:36

DavidFalkenberg, you have some misconceptions about Mussolini's mood before 25 July 1943, but I fear I won't make you change your mind.
DavidFrankenberg wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 14:40
Concerning the Ciano's diary, nobody actually read the original ? everybody just copy the american copies of it ?
Lucio Ceva tells in footnote 8 of page 267 of "Guerra Mondiale. Strategia e industria bellica", Franco Angeli, 2000, that only a handful of scholars have managed to see photographs of the Diaries (it's unclear if these photos were of the complete Diaries or only of some pages) made in Switzerland in January 1945, and nobody the originals. The published texts are based upon the typewritten transcripts, and include several typos. Moreover, the transcripts don't let the reader to understand if some passages have been altered or rewritten, like, it seems, the pages about the days 26-28 October 1940.

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#20

Post by DavidFrankenberg » 20 Jul 2019, 15:43

DrG wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 15:36
DavidFalkenberg, you have some misconceptions about Mussolini's mood before 25 July 1943, but I fear I won't make you change your mind.
DavidFrankenberg wrote:
20 Jul 2019, 14:40
Concerning the Ciano's diary, nobody actually read the original ? everybody just copy the american copies of it ?
Lucio Ceva tells in footnote 8 of page 267 of "Guerra Mondiale. Strategia e industria bellica", Franco Angeli, 2000, that only a handful of scholars have managed to see photographs of the Diaries (it's unclear if these photos were of the complete Diaries or only of some pages) made in Switzerland in January 1945, and nobody the originals. The published texts are based upon the typewritten transcripts, and include several typos. Moreover, the transcripts don't let the reader to understand if some passages have been altered or rewritten, like, it seems, the pages about the days 26-28 October 1940.
Edda is supposed to have sold it to the US ? And then the US made photos and typos of it ?
Then all the published editions are based on the US typos ?
Where the US are supposed to keep the original diaries ?

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DrG
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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#21

Post by DrG » 20 Jul 2019, 16:14

The matter of Ciano's Diaries is extremely complex. I have used Ceva, who by the way doesn't provide any further information about your questions, because he was an extremely serious scholar and, despite his family's history (they were noted antifascists), he wasn't politically biased (ok, a bit, but nothing serious or dishonest) or moved by political aims. Yet, his book was published 19 years ago and probably he hadn't full access to this very intricate story.

Moreover, Renzo De Felice's (the most important Italian academic historian of Fascism) foreword to the "standard" Italian edition of the diaries, published by Rizzoli in 1980, states that (my notes are in brackets): "Given that we have not been able to get access to the handwritten originals, this edition has been made for the first part - the years 1937-38 - on the basis of the Cappelli edition [of August 1948], integrated by the excerpts made public by [Carlo] Ciucci [in 1953], and for the second - the years 1939-43 - on the last Rizzoli edition (the fifth, of 1971), integrated and corrected on the basis of the Swiss edition [published by Le Baconnière in 1946]. [original footnote: "The passages of the Diary reintegrated on the basis of the Swiss edition have been retranslated from French to Italian."] Despite these limits, therefore, it can be regarded as a true new Italian edition of the Diary, at least with regards to the parts known till today. Because, in fact, it cannot be excluded at all that the notes of 1936 and of the first seven months of 1937 may be discovered in the German and American archives, even though in the translation made by the Germans; just like it cannot be excluded at all that also the already known text cannot be improved further when it will be possible to work on the surviving original agendas and on the photocopies of the other ones."
As far as I know, De Felice's hopes about new documentary findings or access have not been fulfilled.

This CIA report by Howard McGaw Smyth, an author who was kept in high esteem by Ceva, written in 1969 and published online only in 2007, may be of your interest: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for- ... p_0001.htm.

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#22

Post by DavidFrankenberg » 21 Jul 2019, 03:59

Thank you for the link. I already read it some years ago but lost it.

Indeed, the diary is said to have been composed of 8 books.
But Howard McGaw Smyth thought there were only 7.

Edda kept them and went in Switzerland with them.

In april 1944, following McGaw Smyth, she is supposed to have given the books to Don Pacino "who placed them in a strong box at the Credit Suisse bank of Bern under his name and that of Emilia Conte Marchi, a pseudonym chosen by Edda".

But in another account of the events, Renata Broggini claimed to have accompanied Edda in Aigle, a swiss city near France, where they opened a safe in order to put the diary in.
Miss Broggini said she has read the diaries at the time and that it was handwritten.
She also said that Edda didnt know how and when the US made copies of it.

Broggini's account http://www.reteparri.it/wp-content/uplo ... 205_19.pdf

McGawSmyth cites a lot Wilhelm Höttl, chief of SS in Verona who supervised Frau Beetz.
Here is the book Höttl wrote after the war, called The secret front : https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom ... 1_0011.pdf

More on Frau Beetz https://books.google.fr/books?id=XCtxJ8 ... &q&f=false

Ciano diplomatic papers edited by Muggeridge 1948 https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dl ... 45/page/n7

An interesting paper on CIA and ancient intelligent nazi officers.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom ... R_0004.pdf

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#23

Post by DrG » 21 Jul 2019, 17:47

DavidFrankenberg wrote:
21 Jul 2019, 03:59
Indeed, the diary is said to have been composed of 8 books.
But Howard McGaw Smyth thought there were only 7.
Thank you for your additional links. With regards to the number of agendas, it seems that McGaw Smyth has been the only one who doesn't believe in the presence of one for 1936. By the way, I don't agree with his interpretation of Ciano's words on 23 August 1937: one can write on an agenda in irregular ways and times, but this makes it a "diary" anyway, although unsystematic.

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#24

Post by DavidFrankenberg » 22 Jul 2019, 04:44

Did you get the Pucci reports ?
Smyth refers to it, but i cant find them.

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#25

Post by DrG » 22 Jul 2019, 15:01

No, I haven't them.

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#26

Post by DavidFrankenberg » 22 Jul 2019, 20:38

I am seeking it on cia website but could not find it. :cry:


Whatever, check this : https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/201 ... zzo-ciano/
Ultimately she [Frau Beetz] revealed their location to the American Counterintelligence Corps when they collected her.

Following the war, Raymond Sontag, one of the American editors of the German War Documents Project, asked to borrow the supporting documents from the Department of Defense.

He had the documents microfilmed, and that microfilmed copy of the German translation of Ciano’s original Italian documentation wound up at the National Archives.
So what posess today sthe US are the translations in german made by Frau Beetz of Ciano ?

Did Frau Beetz have copy of the italian version ?

She kept both original version plus her translation in german ?

How did she make copy ???
She was supposed to act underground.

I am asking one thing : what if her copies were those who HArster made during the night 5-6th january and that he kept in his safe ?

We know Harster was dismissed after the fiasco of "Operation Conte". What the copies he possessed in his safe became ?

I suggest Frau Beetz stole it from Harster or maybe Harster just gave her ? or wanted to destroy it and gave it to Beetz who kept it ?

So many questions ! :milsmile:

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#27

Post by DavidFrankenberg » 23 Jul 2019, 01:38

More news :

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov. ... r/h/C38286
CIANO PAPERS
The diplomatic papers of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister from 1936 to 1943, include the so-called 'Lisbon Papers', 'Rosegarden Papers' and his diaries and the papers of Graziani. These include memoranda of Ciano's conversations with foreign statesmen and diplomats, and a collection of letters and telegrams exchanged by Hitler and Mussolini (Hitler's letters in Italian translation, the original German texts being in Mussolini's papers).

There is considerable overlap between the Lisbon Papers and the Rosegarden Papers, but the collections are not identical. A further set of (slightly different) German translations were found at the German Reich Security Headquarters in 1946 (GFM 36/640-641)
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov. ... s/r/C38286
Lisbon Papers
The 'Lisbon papers' are copies of Ciano's Cabinet papers from 1937-1943 which were sent to the Italian Legation at Lisbon for safekeeping in July 1943 at the time of Mussolini's deposition. The papers were handed over to the US authorities in 1946, microfilmed in Washington and returned to Italy in the same year.

The texts include memoranda of Ciano's conversations with foreign statesmen and diplomats, and a collection of letters and telegrams exchanged by Hitler and Mussolini (Hitler's letters in Italian translation, the original German texts being in Mussolini's papers).
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov. ... /h/C101856
'Rosegarden papers' (German transcriptions)
The 'Rosegarden Papers' are German translations of Ciano's official papers from the period October 1938-January 1943, which were set aside by Ciano as supporting documents for his diaries. The translations were made when the Germans took over the documents following Ciano's downfall in 1943. The name derives from the only surviving set which was secretly buried in a rose garden, and subsequently retrieved and microfilmed by the Americans.

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#28

Post by DavidFrankenberg » 25 Jul 2019, 04:07

About the Lisbon Papers, what Smyth said :
Beyond all shadow of a doubt, these Italian texts came from the collection of documents known as the Lisbon Papers. These had been sent out of Rome by plane by the Foreign Minister Raffaele Guariglia and hidden in the safe of the Italian Legation in Lisbon in the summer of 1943. In 1946 these papers were demanded by the United States Government under terms of the Armistice. They were delivered to Washington and microfilmed, and the originals were restored to the Italian Government in May 1946. (140c) Only the Italian Government itself would have been able to arrange this publication. These original Italian texts confirm overwhelmingly the authenticity of the "Ciano Papers: Rose Garden."

(140c) = see note 79a = 79a = In the microfilm collection at the National Archives called the Lisbon Papers, Microcopy T-816.
Here is why Smyth thought that there was only 7 books and not 8 books of Ciano's diray, Smyth note 78 :
Susmel makes no mention in this connection (pp. 369-370) of the diaries before 1939. He states, however, that after the recovery of the materials at Ramiola, Frau Beetz and Segna went on to Como and there picked up the three booklets of the diary, that is for 1936, 1937, and 1938.

I find no mention anywhere in Edda Ciano's correspondence with Allen Dulles of a diary for 1936. Edda Ciano in that correspondence frequently referred to the two notebooks for 1937 and 1938 respectively, and stated consistently that she had left them at Ramiola.

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Re: the mvsn and the 25th July 1943

#29

Post by DavidFrankenberg » 25 Jul 2019, 04:15

I answer to myself :
DavidFrankenberg wrote:
22 Jul 2019, 20:38
So what posess today sthe US are the translations in german made by Frau Beetz of Ciano ?
Yes, the US got the copies of Ciano' supporting documents, ig converstions Ribbentrop and the file 'Germania'.
The rosegarden paper.
I dont know if it is the original italian or the translated version or both.
Regarding the US microfilms of Ciano's diary itself, Allen Dulles is supposed to acquire it in the year 44 thanks to Edda.
I am asking one thing : what if her copies were those who HArster made during the night 5-6th january and that he kept in his safe ?

We know Harster was dismissed after the fiasco of "Operation Conte". What the copies he possessed in his safe became ?
Should be interesting to search for the Harster's copies. Smyth doesnt ask himself about the fate of these copies.

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