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67-621: Operation Sunrise may refer to: Operation Sunrise (World War II) , a series of secret negotiations in March 1945 in Switzerland between elements of the Nazi German SS and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services under Allen Dulles Operation Sunrise (Nyasaland) , mass detentions which marked the first stage in a State of Emergency declared on March 3, 1959 Operation Sunrise (Vietnam War) ,

134-807: A 1962 test of the Strategic Hamlet Program Operation Sunrise (Albania) , part of the 1997 rebellion in Albania Operation Sunrise, a 2006 approach to the hyperinflation of banknotes of Zimbabwe Siege of Lal Masjid , code-named Operation Sunrise , a confrontation in July 2007 between Islamic fundamentalist militants and the government of Pakistan Operation Sunrise, 2019, a joint army operation by India and Myanmar targeting insurgency in North East India Topics referred to by

201-486: A bang. Those who have thought he was foreseeing the Cold War and those who thought he was helping to cause it were both wrong. He was just being Allen Dulles." Armistice of Cassibile Invasion of Italy Winter Line Gothic Line 1945 Spring Offensive The Armistice of Cassibile ( Italian : Armistizio di Cassibile ) was an armistice that was signed on 3 September 1943 between Italy and

268-734: A friend in 1942 stating his "special joy that now five thousand of the Chosen People are going to Treblinka every day". For his part, Dulles wanted to see an orderly surrender in Italy, which would ensure the Allies, rather than the Italian guerrillas, many of whom belonged to the Italian Communist Party, would control northern Italy. Dulles rejected Wolff's demand that Army Group C be allowed to cross over to Austria to continue

335-576: A return to the pre-war order would mean a return to Fascism, leading to anti-Fascist Italians to argue that what was needed was a break with the past. Since the fall of 1944, the Red Army had been advancing up the Danube river valley and on 26 December 1944 the Battle of Budapest began, which ended with Budapest surrendering on 13 February 1945. After the fall of Budapest, the Red Army advance continued up

402-632: A secret plan to invade the Soviet Union which Winston Churchill advocated during this period. Wolff was later proven to be complicit in the murder of 300,000 Jews. On 26 April, the SS general was captured by Italian partisans , but was rescued by Dulles' Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Swiss intelligence. Despite Wolff's promises to Dulles in Bern made in March, Vietinghoff stalled for as long as possible about surrendering, only permitting Wolff to sign

469-549: A verbal agreement to protect SS General Wolff from prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials as they worked out details of surrender. Although Switzerland was neutral during World War II, the Swiss intelligence officer Max Waibel and the school director Max Husmann arranged for the meetings. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was following the discussion closely, and said he believed that "misunderstandings" with

536-634: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Operation Sunrise (World War II) During the Second World War , Allen Dulles was in charge of the Office of Strategic Services station attached to the American embassy in Bern from November 1942 onward, which he used as a base for launching intelligence operations. Dulles had a diplomatic cover, but he made little secret of his real work, and it

603-507: The Allies during World War II . It was made public five days later. It was signed on September 3rd by Major-General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies and Brigade-General Giuseppe Castellano for Italy. The armistice's signing took place at a summit in an Allied military camp at Cassibile , Sicily , which had recently been occupied by the Allies . The armistice was approved by both Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Pietro Badoglio , who

670-474: The Alps , officially to help defend Italy from Allied landings but really to control the country. Three Italian generals (including Brigade General Giuseppe Castellano ) were separately sent to Lisbon to contact Allied diplomats. However, to open the proceedings, the Allies had to determine who was the most authoritative envoy, and the three generals had started to quarrel about who had the highest authority. In

737-518: The Strait of Messina and began landing in the southernmost tip of Calabria during Operation Baytown . The day after the armistice had been made public, 9 September, the Allies made landings at Salerno and at Taranto . The Allies failed to take full advantage of the Italian armistice and were quickly checked by German troops. In terrain that favoured defence, the Allied forces took 20 months to reach

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804-502: The heel of Italy , to sail for Malta . At 02:30, on 9 September, the three battleships Roma , Vittorio Veneto , and Italia "shoved off from La Spezia escorted by three light cruisers and eight destroyers". When German troops, who had stormed into the town to prevent the ships from sailing, became enraged by the ships' escape, "they rounded up and summarily shot several Italian captains who, unable to get their vessels underway, had scuttled them". That afternoon, German bombers attacked

871-572: The royal family and Badoglio, fled Rome on the early morning of the 9th and took shelter in Brindisi , in southern Italy. Their initial intention was to move army headquarters out of Rome with the King and the Prime Minister, but few staff officers reached Brindisi. Meanwhile, the Italian troops, without instructions, collapsed and were soon overwhelmed. Some small units decided to stay loyal to

938-520: The "Instrument of Surrender of Italy.", which General Campbell had presented to another Italian general, Zanussi in Lisbon. Zanussi, who had also been in Cassibile since 31 August, for unclear reasons had not informed Castellano about them. Nevertheless, Bedell Smith explained to Castellano that the other conditions would have taken effect only if Italy had not taken on a fighting role in the war alongside

1005-578: The 50th Infantry Division Regina on the island of Kos , who were shot in early October 1943 after the Germans captured the island. Only on the islands of Leros and Samos , with British reinforcements, would the resistance last until November 1943, and in Corsica , Italian troops forced the German troops to leave the island. In other cases, individual Italian units, mostly more minor, remained loyal to

1072-671: The Allied request for a meeting to be held in Sicily , which had been suggested by the British Ambassador to the Vatican . To ease communication between the Allies and the Italian government, a captured British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent, Dick Mallaby , was released from Verona Prison and secretly moved to the Quirinale . It was vital for the Germans to remain ignorant of any suggestion of Italian surrender, and

1139-717: The Allies on 3 September 1943. The subsequent German occupation of northern Italy in September 1943 led to a guerrilla war being waged by Italian insurgent bands loyal to the National Liberation Committee (CLN) against the Germans and the forces of Fascist "Salò Republic" . The majority of the Italian people considered the CLN rather than the rump government in Rome headed by the extremely unpopular King Victor Emmanuel III to be their legitimate government, much to

1206-599: The Allies. On the afternoon of the same day, Badoglio had a briefing with the senior commanders of the Regia Marina (Italy's Royal Navy) and the Regia Aeronautica (Italy's Royal Air Force), with the War Ministers and with the King's representatives. However, he omitted any mention of the signing of the armistice and referred only to ongoing negotiations. The day the armistice entered into force

1273-539: The Allies. A bombing mission on Rome by 500 airplanes was stopped at the last moment and had been Eisenhower's inducement to accelerate the procedure of the armistice. Harold Macmillan , the British government's representative minister at the Allied Staff, informed Winston Churchill that the armistice had been signed "without amendments of any kind". That evening Castellano met with Allied officers to discuss what

1340-517: The Axis powers. Many of the units formed the nucleus of the armed forces of the puppet Italian Social Republic . Both the Regio Esercito (Italian Royal Army) and the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Royal Air Force) virtually disintegrated with the announcement of the armistice on 8 September. The Allies coveted the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy), with its 206 ships in total, including

1407-569: The CIA. The Army and Navy were both opposed to its existence (in fact, the OSS was disbanded in October 1945). The OSS chief, William Donovan , was lobbying very strongly for the OSS to be continued after the war, and as such OSS operatives were under strong pressure to achieve successes that might justify continuing the agency. Dulles for his part having accomplished very little during his three years in Bern

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1474-635: The Council, held on 25 July 1943, a majority vote adopted the "order of the day", and Mussolini was then summoned to meet the King and dismissed as prime minister. Upon leaving the meeting, Mussolini was arrested by carabinieri and spirited off to the island of Ponza . Badoglio became President of the Council of Ministers or the Prime Minister of Italy . However, Grandi had been told that another general of more significant personal and professional qualities ( Marshal Enrico Caviglia ) would have taken

1541-531: The Danube river valley towards Vienna. The German forces in northern Italy were holding out against an Allied offensive in the Po river valley, waging a fierce defensive campaign, but an Allied bombing campaign had reduced their supplies coming down from the Brenner Pass to the minimum, making the German situation in Italy highly precarious. The initial purpose behind the talks in Switzerland, as proposed by Wolff,

1608-655: The Fascist Directorate and Minister of Culture, and Galeazzo Ciano (the 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari), the second most powerful man in the Fascist Party and Mussolini's son-in-law. The conspirators devised an "Order of the Day" for the next meeting of the Grand Council of Fascism ( Gran Consiglio del Fascismo ), which contained a proposal to restore direct control of politics to the King. After

1675-464: The German ally. From 8 to 12 September, the German forces occupied all of the Italian territory that was still not under Allied control, except Sardinia and part of Apulia , without meeting organized resistance. In Rome, an Italian governor, with the support of an Italian infantry division, nominally ruled the city until 23 September, but in practice, the city was under German control from 11 September. On 3 September, British and Canadian troops crossed

1742-639: The German general, provided that representatives of Soviet Military Command could also take part in them. However, on 16 March the Soviet side was informed that its representatives would not be allowed to take part in negotiations with Wolff. Meanwhile, on 15 and 19 March, Wolff discussed details of how an actual surrender would proceed with American general Lyman Lemnitzer and British general Terence Airey . Roosevelt denied that there were any negotiations for surrender taking place in Switzerland. Dulles, however appears to have made, apparently at his own discretion,

1809-485: The German occupation in the north had caused the Italian Communist Party , traditionally popular with the working classes in the industrial cities of northern Italy, to surge in appeal as many people in northern Italy wanted to see an utopian "people's republic" to be modelled after the Soviet Union (which was viewed in certain quarters in Italy as a land of freedom and equality) after the war. In Italy,

1876-459: The Germans in Switzerland, and made sure that a Soviet general was represented at the talks in Caserta , Italy that finalized the surrender of the entire force. Nonetheless, fallout from the incident seems to have discouraged full Soviet participation in the founding United Nations conference later that month. Wolff and his forces were being considered to help implement Operation Unthinkable ,

1943-697: The Germans, who established a puppet state , the Italian Social Republic led by Mussolini. The king, the Italian government and most of the Navy fled to southern Italy under the protection of the Allies. An Italian resistance movement emerged in German-occupied Italy. After the surrender of the Axis powers in North Africa on 13 May 1943, the Allies bombed Rome on 16 May, invaded Sicily on 10 July and prepared to land on

2010-673: The Germans. Victory in Europe Day occurred on 8 May. In 1979, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith , who had known Dulles when Dulles served as the CIA director in the 1950s, wrote that over the course of 1960–1961 Dulles showed himself "a master of disastrous ineptitude. In those months he sent Gary Powers over the Paris Summit , helped overthrow the neutralist government of Souvanna Phouma in Laos (which later had to be restored) and

2077-491: The Italian Government should do. General Harold Alexander presided over the meeting with Smith, Lowell Ward Rooks , and John K. Cannon (commander 12th Air Force USAAF), Brigadier General Patrick W. Timberlake (of Mediterranean Air Command), Strong, and General Lyman Lemnitzer (Deputy Chief of Staff, 15th Army Group ). Only after the signing had taken place was Castellano passed the long terms contained in

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2144-479: The Italian mainland . In the spring of 1943, preoccupied with the disastrous situation of the Italian military during the war, the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini , removed several figures from the government whom he considered to be more loyal to Victor Emmanuel III than to the Fascist regime. To help the execution of his plan, the King asked for the assistance of Dino Grandi (1st Count of Mordano), one of

2211-543: The SOE was the most secure method under the circumstances. Badoglio still considered it possible to gain favourable conditions in exchange for the surrender. He ordered Castellano to insist that any surrender of Italy be conditioned on a landing of Allied troops on the Italian mainland. The Allies held only Sicily and some minor islands. On 31 August, Brigade General Castellano reached Termini Imerese , in Sicily, by plane and

2278-475: The Soviet Union, negotiations between representatives of the German Military Command on one side and representatives of American and British Command on the other side are conducted. The Soviet government considers this absolutely inadmissible." This led to Roosevelt 's letter to Stalin on 25 March and Stalin's reply on 29 March. President Harry Truman officially closed down talks with

2345-534: The Soviets were resolved with Roosevelt's death on 12 April. Churchill cynically referred to the negotiations as Operation Crossword , apparently because he found them puzzling. In spite of warnings from other officials that he was violating the Casablanca agreement that called for all dealings with Axis members to be on terms of unconditional surrender , Dulles worked supportively with Wolff, determined to end

2412-486: The acceptance of the Allied conditions. He had no written authorization from Badoglio, the head of the Italian government, who wanted to dissociate himself as much as possible from the forthcoming defeat of his country. The signing ceremony began at 14:00 on 3 September. Castellano and Bedell Smith signed the accepted text on behalf of Badoglio and General Eisenhower, respectively. The armistice includes that all Italian land, air, and naval forces must cease hostilities against

2479-534: The actions were to be conducted contemporaneously with the signing, not to precede it, as the Italians had wanted. The following day, Castellano was received by Badoglio and his entourage. Italy's Foreign Minister, Raffaele Guariglia , declared that the Allied conditions were to be accepted. Other generals, such as Giacomo Carboni , maintained that the Army Corps deployed around Rome was insufficient to protect

2546-486: The armistice was announced by Allied radio on the afternoon of 8 September, German forces immediately attacked Italian forces by executing Operation Achse . Most of the Regio Esercito (Italian Royal Army) had not been informed about the armistice, and no clear orders had been issued about the line of conduct to be taken in the face of the German armed forces. Some Italian divisions that should have defended Rome were still in transit from southern France. The king, along with

2613-479: The battleships Roma , Vittorio Veneto , and Italia (known as Littorio until July 1943). There was a danger that some of the Navy might fight on, be scuttled, or (most concerningly for the Allies) end up in German hands. As such, the truce called for Italian warships on Italy's west coast, mostly at La Spezia and Genoa , to sail for North Africa and to pass Corsica and Sardinia and for those at Taranto , in

2680-482: The city because of the lack of fuel and ammunition and that the armistice had to be postponed. Badoglio did not pronounce himself in the meeting. In the afternoon, he appeared before the King, who decided to accept the armistice conditions. A confirmation telegram was sent to the Allies. The message, however, was intercepted by the Wehrmacht , the German armed forces, which had long since begun to suspect that Italy

2747-426: The city. Badoglio told the delegation that his army was not ready to support the landing and that most airports in the area were under German control. He asked for a deferral of the armistice of a few days. When General Eisenhower learned that, the landing in Rome of American troops was cancelled, but the day of the armistice was confirmed since other troops were already en route by sea to land in southern Italy. When

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2814-441: The discomfort of the American and even more so the British government, who preferred to deal with the Rome government. On the night of 8–9 September 1943 when Operation Axis, the German occupation of Italy was launched, the king, instead of trying to rally his people, had issued only vague and contradictory orders in an unsigned document written in pencil and instead fled Rome under the cover of night. The king's lack of leadership on

2881-638: The end, Castellano was admitted to speak with the Allies at the British Embassy to set the conditions for the armistice of Italy . Among the representatives of the Allies were the British Ambassador to Portugal , Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell , and two senior officers sent by Dwight Eisenhower : major-general Walter Bedell Smith (US Army, Eisenhower's chief of staff) and brigadier Kenneth Strong (British Army, Eisenhower's assistant chief of staff for intelligence). On 27 August, General Castellano returned to Italy and, three days later, briefed Badoglio about

2948-676: The following plan: Army Group C goes into Germany, while Allied Forces Commander Harold Alexander advances in the direction of the South of France. Wolff believed at first that the Anglo-American acceptance of his plan just might break up the "Big Three" alliance of the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States. Karl Wolff , the Higher SS Police Chief for Italy, had committed numerous war crimes during

3015-595: The instrument of surrender on 29 April 1945. The actual surrender in Italy was signed on 29 April 1945 agreeing to a cessation of hostilities on 2 May. Wolff justified his actions to Berlin officials by explaining that the agreement had pre-empted "a Communist uprising" in northern Italy. Wolff and his officers were not interned at this time, but instead celebrated the resolution at Gestapo headquarters in Bolzano for several days with Allied commanders. The Americans had to periodically repel partisans who attempted to seize

3082-412: The large naval base of Taranto, it watched a flotilla of Italian ships sailing out of Taranto Harbour towards their surrender at Malta. An agreement between the Allies and the Italians in late September provided for some of the Navy to be kept in commission; however, the battleships were to be reduced to care and maintenance and effectively disarmed. Italian mercantile marine vessels were to operate under

3149-626: The leading members of the Fascist hierarchy who, in his younger years, had been considered the sole credible alternative to Mussolini as leader of the National Fascist Party . The King was also motivated by the suspicion that the Count of Mordano's ideas about Fascism might be changed abruptly. Various ambassadors, including Pietro Badoglio himself, proposed the vague possibility of succeeding Mussolini as dictator. The secret rebels later involved Giuseppe Bottai , another high member of

3216-507: The night of 8–9 September had greatly aided the German occupation as the majority of Italian officers had no idea of what they were supposed to do, and fatally discredited the House of Savoy. The monarchy was especially unpopular in the north of Italy, where people felt that it was Victor Emmanuel who by his incompetence and cowardice was responsible for them having to endure an occupation by Nazi Germany. The collapse of living standards caused by

3283-526: The northern borders of Italy. Some of the Italian troops based outside Italy, in the occupied Balkans and Greek islands , held out some weeks after the armistice. Still, without any determined support from the Allies, all had been overwhelmed by the Germans by the end of September 1943. On the island of Cephalonia , the Italian Acqui Division was massacred after it had resisted German forces. A similar fate awaited 103 Italian officers of

3350-455: The position. On July 27, the new First Badoglio government began to undertook measures by banning all Fascist organizations throughout Italy as well as disbanding the National Fascist Party and it's other elements associated with it. The appointment of Badoglio did not change the position of Italy as Germany's ally in the war. However, many channels sought a peace treaty with the Allies. Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler sent several divisions south of

3417-527: The same general conditions as the Allies. In all cases, the Italian vessels would retain their Italian crews and fly Italian flags. The Armistice of Cassibile signed at Sicily was considered the 'shorter' version of the whole armistice. On 29 September, the longer version of the armistice was signed at Malta between Italy and the Allies. It was signed by Badoglio and Eisenhower aboard the British battleship HMS Nelson . The agreement included that Benito Mussolini and his Fascist officials must be handed over to

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3484-431: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Operation Sunrise . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Sunrise&oldid=1137751278 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

3551-483: The ships sailing without air cover off Sardinia and launching guided bombs . Several ships suffered damage, and Roma sank with the loss of nearly 1,400 men. Most of the remaining ships made it safely to North Africa "while three destroyers and a cruiser which had stopped to rescue survivors, docked in Menorca ". The Navy's turnover proceeded more smoothly in other areas of Italy. When an Allied naval force headed for

3618-466: The struggle against the CLN guerrillas. With the defeat of Germany a certainty by early 1945, Wolff was looking for immunity for himself and the other SS and Wehrmacht officers in Italy. Aside from the war crimes committed against the Italian people during the anti-guerrilla war, Wolff had been deeply involved in the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", as he triumphantly wrote in a letter to

3685-407: The war before the "communists" reached Trieste . The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote: "The whole 'Sunrise' episode reflects very badly on the judgement of Allen Dulles who allowed himself to get carried away—and over JCS orders—by prospects of a great coup". On 22 March Molotov, in his letter to the American ambassador, wrote that for two weeks, in Bern, behind the back of

3752-482: The war, insisting that the men of Army Group C surrender to the Allies, but also agreed that the men of Army Group C would surrender to the Allied armies rather than the guerrillas of CLN and be allowed to keep their weapons for an interim period after surrendering. The Wehrmacht leaders in Italy were only interested in Operation Sunrise as a means to move Army Group C into Austria, and once they learned that

3819-546: Was desperate for any sort of success that would allow him to end the war on a high note and justify the continued existence of the OSS. In July 1943, following the Allied invasion of Sicily , Mussolini was arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III , provoking a civil war . Italy's military outside of the Italian peninsula collapsed, its occupied and annexed territories falling under German control . Italy capitulated to

3886-619: Was keenly aware of the Dolchstoßlegende and did not want to be blamed for any new "stab-in-the-back". On 12 March the U.S. ambassador in the USSR , W. Averell Harriman , notified Vyacheslav Molotov of the possibility of Wolff's arrival in Lugano to conduct negotiations on the German army's surrender in Italy. On the same day, Molotov replied that the Soviet government would not object to talks between American and British officers and

3953-453: Was linked to a planned landing in central Italy and was left to the Allies' discretion. Castellano still understood that the date was intended to be 12 September, and Badoglio started to move troops to Rome. On 7 September, a small Allied delegation reached Rome to inform Badoglio that the next day would have been the day of the armistice. He was also informed about the pending arrival of the American 82nd Airborne Division into airports around

4020-400: Was not possible, they lost interest. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the departing German commander in Italy, told the new commander Heinrich von Vietinghoff : "...that an end to the fighting will not be considered at all as long as the Führer is still alive". In reality, the negotiations in Switzerland led nowhere because General Vietinghoff was opposed to any "premature" surrender, as he

4087-423: Was not to have Army Group C surrender to the Allies, but rather to surrender northern Italy to the Allies in order to allow the 800,000 men of Army Group C to withdraw over the Brenner Pass to defend Vienna against the Red Army. On 23 February 1945, Dulles accepted Wolff's offer to explore terms of a local surrender. In an 8 March meeting in Lucerne organized by Swiss intelligence officer Max Waibel , Wolff offered

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4154-435: Was seeking a separate armistice. The Germans contacted Badoglio, who repeatedly confirmed the unwavering loyalty of Italy to its German ally. The Germans doubted his reassurances, and the Wehrmacht started to devise an effective plan, Operation Achse , to take control of Italy as soon as the Italian government had switched allegiance to the Allies. On 2 September, Castellano set off again to Cassibile with an order to confirm

4221-436: Was serving as Prime Minister of Italy at the time. The signing of the armistice was kept secret on that day, and was announced to the media on September 8th. Nazi Germany responded by attacking Italian forces in Italy , southern France and the Balkans , and freeing Benito Mussolini on 12 September. The Italian forces were forcefully disbanded in the north and centre of the country, with most of Italy being occupied by

4288-431: Was the man in charge of the organization that was responsible for perhaps the greatest foul-up in our history, the Bay of Pigs ...These were not the achievements of a shrewd or even a halfway intelligent administrator. Nor was shrewdness the quality remarked upon by those of us without organizational loyalty who knew him in those years. While such judgments should be offered (and received) with caution, by some, certainly, he

4355-442: Was thought amiable, agreeable but mentally very, very dim. Perhaps in the most charitable view, he had passed his best by the time of his great fiascos...beyond doubt that he had not only passed his best but that his best had never been. Never, not even in the Bay of Pigs, was his capacity for detached misjudgment more disastrous than in his management of Operation Sunrise, as the Wolff negotiations were called...He wanted to go out with

4422-427: Was transferred to Cassibile , a town near Syracuse . It soon became evident that the two sides in the negotiations had adopted somewhat distant positions. Castellano pressed the request for the Italian territory to be defended from the inevitable reaction of the German Wehrmacht against Italy after the signing. In return, he received only vague promises, including launching a parachute division over Rome . Moreover,

4489-417: Was widely known due to The New York Times short story published on 17 September 1942 stating that he was "being replaced as committee treasurer because of his war work with government Office of Strategic Services". The Office of Strategic Services was a newly founded agency, and it was not clear if it would be allowed to continue beyond the Second World War as the CIG (Central Intelligence Group), then later

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