{"id":5772995,"date":"2026-07-16T16:46:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T14:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/gran-sasso-raid-fieseler-storch-mussolini-1943\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T16:08:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T14:08:26","slug":"gran-sasso-raid-fieseler-storch-mussolini-1943","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/gran-sasso-raid-fieseler-storch-mussolini-1943\/","title":{"rendered":"Segelflugzeuge, ein Diktator und ein unm\u00f6glicher Start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the afternoon of 12 September 1943, a string of flimsy plywood gliders scraped down onto a boulder-strewn plateau high in the Italian Apennines, right outside a mountaintop ski hotel. Out of them poured German paratroopers and SS commandos. Within a few minutes, and with barely a shot fired in anger, they had done what they came to do: they had Benito Mussolini.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is remembered as one of the great commando raids of the Second World War. But the truly hair-raising part was not storming the hotel \u2014 the Germans already controlled the mountain, and the Italian guards had little appetite for a fight. The hard part was what came next: getting a soft, sick, deposed dictator <em>off<\/em> a 2,100-metre peak that had no road out and no runway. The answer was one tiny aeroplane and a takeoff that had no business working.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; padding: 20px; border-radius: 8px; margin: 24px 0;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 10px; font-weight: bold; font-size: 18px;\">Kurzinfo<\/p>\r\n<ul style=\"margin: 0; padding-left: 20px; line-height: 1.8;\">\r\n<li><strong>Betrieb:<\/strong> Unternehmen Eiche (\u201cOperation Oak\u201d), 12 September 1943<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>Objective:<\/strong> free Benito Mussolini from the Hotel Campo Imperatore, a ski hotel at about 2,100 m on the Gran Sasso massif<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>Ordered by:<\/strong> Hitler; approved by Gen. Kurt Student; planned and led by Maj. Harald Mors<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>Assault force:<\/strong> around 100 Fallschirmj\u00e4ger and SS troops in 10 DFS 230 gliders, towed aloft by Henschel Hs 126s<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>Getaway aircraft:<\/strong> a single Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, flown by Gen. Student\u2019s personal pilot, Heinrich Gerlach<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>The flying feat:<\/strong> the overloaded Storch got airborne by rolling off the edge of the plateau and diving into the valley to gain speed<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>Verluste:<\/strong> two Italians killed; there was almost no fighting \u2014 Mussolini himself urged the guards not to shoot<\/li>\r\n<li><strong>Die Wendung:<\/strong> Nazi propaganda handed nearly all the credit to SS officer Otto Skorzeny<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">How a Dictator Ended Up on a Mountaintop<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the summer of 1943, Mussolini\u2019s war had collapsed around him. The Allies were in Sicily, Rome was being bombed, and on 25 July his own Grand Council voted him out. The King had him arrested and spirited from hiding place to hiding place \u2014 a Rome barracks, the island of Ponza, a villa on La Maddalena \u2014 before finally lodging him at the Hotel Campo Imperatore, a modern ski resort perched on the Gran Sasso d\u2019Italia and reachable only by cable car. On paper it was the perfect prison.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hitler was not willing to leave his fellow dictator to be handed over to the Allies. He secretly ordered General Kurt Student, the father of Germany\u2019s airborne forces, to get him back. German intelligence pieced together where Mussolini was being held \u2014 partly through intercepted messages, partly through a German doctor who talked his way up to the hotel on the pretext of scouting it for a clinic. The prize was located. Now someone had to reach it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img data-opt-id=479706541  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/gran-sasso-mussolini-fallschirmjager-1943.jpg\" alt=\"Mussolini leaves the Hotel Campo Imperatore with German paratroopers, 12 September 1943\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">Mussolini (centre) is escorted from the Hotel Campo Imperatore by German Fallschirmj\u00e4ger on 12 September 1943. The Germans made sure the moment was photographed and filmed. Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-567-1503A-07 \/ CC BY-SA 3.0<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Ten Gliders and a Borrowed General<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Parachuting onto a rocky plateau at that altitude was judged too risky, so Student and Major Harald Mors settled on gliders. Just after midday, Henschel Hs 126 tugs hauled ten DFS 230 assault gliders into the air from an airfield near Rome, each carrying nine soldiers and a pilot. Mors himself led an armoured column up the mountain roads to seize the cable-car station below. To keep the Italian guards from opening fire, the raiders even brought along a captured Italian general, Fernando Soleti, in the hope that his men would not shoot at an officer they recognised.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The landing was chaos \u2014 one glider came in too steep and wrecked \u2014 but it hardly mattered. Mussolini reportedly leaned from his window and begged that no blood be spilled; General Soleti shouted at the Carabinieri to hold their fire; and the garrison, like so many Italian units that confused fortnight, simply had no wish to die for the Germans. The whole assault was over in minutes. Only two Italians were killed in the entire operation. Then a barrel-chested SS officer named Otto Skorzeny bounded up to Mussolini and delivered a line he would dine out on for the rest of his life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #d32f2f; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cDuce, the F\u00fchrer has sent me. You are free!\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Otto Skorzeny<\/strong> \u2014 SS commando, by his own later account<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img data-opt-id=1815582585  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/dfs-230-assault-glider.jpg\" alt=\"A DFS 230 assault glider\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">A DFS 230 assault glider, the type flown into Gran Sasso. Ten of them delivered the raiding force onto the plateau. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CXj4GAkf_cU\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The Part Nobody Could Fake: Getting Him Down<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Seizing Mussolini was one thing. Extracting him was the problem the whole plan hinged on \u2014 and this is where the raid becomes an aviation story. The escape aircraft was a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, flown up by Student\u2019s personal pilot, Heinrich Gerlach. The Storch was a genuine short-field marvel, all high wing, huge flaps and leading-edge slats, able to land and take off in almost absurdly little space. On a good day, lightly loaded, it could unstick in a few dozen metres.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was not a good day. Gerlach\u2019s Storch was built to carry a pilot and one passenger. Now it had to lift the pilot, the considerable bulk of Mussolini, <em>Und<\/em> Skorzeny, who insisted on climbing aboard rather than be left behind by the propaganda cameras \u2014 all from a short, rock-littered strip more than two kilometres up, where the thin mountain air robs wings and engine of much of their bite. Gerlach protested the extra passenger and was overruled.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What followed is the stuff of aviation legend. The overloaded Storch bounced and lurched across the boulders, soldiers hanging onto the wings until the last second to steady it, one wheel reportedly slamming into a rock. Rather than fight for height he did not have, Gerlach did the only thing that could work: he ran the little aeroplane straight off the lip of the plateau and let it fall into the valley, trading altitude for the airspeed the wing needed to finally, grudgingly, start flying. It worked. The Storch clawed its way level and turned for Rome with the most wanted man in Italy wedged inside.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #1565c0; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cA daring attack, completely beyond all foresight, prevented this from happening.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Winston Churchill<\/strong> \u2014 British Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, September 1943<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Va0qYmy9_bU\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The Legend, and the Letdown<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From the plateau, Mussolini was flown to Rome, then on by Heinkel He 111 to Vienna and eventually to Hitler in East Prussia. The Nazi propaganda machine went into overdrive: the picture magazine <em>Signal<\/em> and a torrent of newsreels turned the raid into a glittering triumph and made Skorzeny its swashbuckling star, showering him with promotion and a Knight\u2019s Cross. In truth the operation had been planned and commanded by Mors and Student, the landing led by a lieutenant named von Berlepsch, and the single most dangerous job of the day flown by Gerlach. Student\u2019s paratroopers were furious to watch the SS take the credit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the man at the centre of it all? Mussolini was a shadow, ill and broken, of little use to anyone. Hitler had to bully him into heading a puppet state in northern Italy, the Sal\u00f2 Republic, which lasted only as long as the German army propping it up. In April 1945 he was caught by partisans and shot. The rescue that dazzled the world had, in the end, only prolonged one sad and brutal footnote of the war. What endures instead is the flying: ten gliders on a mountaintop, and a little Storch that got off a peak by throwing itself off a cliff.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/igWnCcmCMS4\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Sources: \u00d3scar Gonz\u00e1lez L\u00f3pez, <\/em>Freeing Mussolini: Dismantling the Skorzeny Myth<em>; Der Spiegel; Hansard (House of Commons); Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f0f4ff; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 16px 20px; margin: 32px 0 8px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 8px; font-weight: 600; color: #333;\">\u00c4hnliche Beitr\u00e4ge<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/operation-credible-sport-ymc-130-stadium-rescue\/\">Operation Credible Sport: 30 Rockets on a C-130<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/operation-black-buck-the-vulcans-8000-mile-bomb-run\/\">Operation Black Buck: Der 8.000-Meilen-Bombenflug der Vulcan<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the afternoon of 12 September 1943, a string of flimsy plywood gliders scraped down onto a boulder-strewn plateau high in the Italian Apennines, right outside a mountaintop ski hotel. Out of them poured German paratroopers and SS commandos. Within a few minutes, and with barely a shot fired in anger, they had done what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":5772272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5772995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gran Sasso Raid: The Storch That Freed Mussolini<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In 1943 German commandos snatched Mussolini from a mountaintop hotel and flew him out in a tiny Fieseler Storch, the daring Gran Sasso raid.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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