Free the ghost!

The kidnapping of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who was interned after his deposition in the Hotel Campo Imperatore on the inaccessible Gran Sasso mountain massif at an altitude of 2,200 metres above sea level, is considered one of the most adventurous episodes of the Second World War. To the Italians this place seemed absolutely impregnable, but the Germans managed to organize a logistically very demanding and complicated operation, ...in which startled Italian police and soldiers just watched, as German gliders full of German paratroopers land in front of the hotel, who took over the hotel in no time, put Mussolini on a plane and flew him away.

This famous military operation had a clear protagonist in the eyes of the public from the beginning: was Otto Skorzeny, a member of the elite SS, a specialist in special tasks. which was referred to as „ the most dangerous man in the world“. Italian historian Marco Patricelli, based on a careful study of archival materials, military reports, unpublished diaries, memoirs and personal encounters with many witnesses of the so-called „ Operation Oak“ concluded that Skorzeny was above all a master of propaganda and self-presentation and that he had wrongly taken credit for Mussolini's kidnapping. He thus assigned himself the role of hero, which fully suited Hitler's idea that this action would be presented to the world as a demonstration of the unlimited capabilities of German soldiers. What really happened, however, is no less incredible – only Skorzeny's role in the whole story is completely different. The operation, which is still lectured about today at all military academies around the world, was jointly prepared by General Kurt Student and the commanding officer of the paratroopers, Major Harald Mors, who planned all the details and commanded the entire operation on the spot.

Marco Patricelli presents the reader with a gripping story that interweaves political intrigue, espionage and military operations to reconstruct, hour by hour, the events that took place on 12 September at Gran Sasso.