The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Seven

Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/G
"Germany in Retreat"

Just two months after the Axis surrender in North Africa, the Allies invaded the large Italian island of Sicily. Italian resistance was sporadic, at best, and essentially collapsed, but German forces on the island cost the Allies heavy causalities, before successfully evacuating to the Italian mainland. During the fighting for Sicily, Mussolini was deposed and then arrested. He eventually was held in a ski resort hotel on a mountain, Gran Sasso, in central Italy. Hitler ordered a special operation to rescue Il Duce ("the leader"), and in September German paratroopers and commandos landed by gliders near the resort and freed Mussolini.*

The new Italian government assured the Germans they would remain true to the alliance with Germany, but the Germans correctly suspected otherwise, and the Italians were in negotiations to surrender to the Allies. The Allies invaded parts of southern Italy in early September, and the Italian surrender was announced. Hitler already had military units in Italy, and he sent more troops to disarm the Italian military and to establish a front against an Allied advance northward. It was an agonizingly slow and bloody process for the Allies to capture Rome, and the German holding action was highly effective.

In Greece and Yugoslavia, strong resistance forces, many with communist affiliations, had developed against the Axis occupation, causing the Germans and Italians to use scarce troops and resources to try to truly secure these areas; something they were unsuccessful in doing.** The threat of Allied invasion, especially of Greece, also kept Axis forces tied down. When Italy surrendered, German forces ruthlessly disarmed and took custody of Italian troops, and many Italians were killed. Some Italians, however, remained committed to the German side for the rest of the war, while others joined the resistance movements.

In western Europe, the Germans continued to fortify the coastal areas against an expected Allied invasion. When 1943 passed without an invasion, the Germans believed 1944 would be the decisive year. Bunkers, coastal obstacles, barbed wire and massive reinforced concrete artillery emplacements lined the areas deemed most likely for the Allied invasion force. The guessing game continued for the Germans, as they tried to learn the exact location where Allied troops would try to come ashore and gain a foothold.

In Russia, after the disaster at Stalingrad, the German forces regained their balance, and Hitler decided to attack. While most of his military advisers opposed the new offensive, Hitler went ahead with the assault anyway. The German forces, especially armor, had made a remarkable recovery, and the Germans threw their forces against the Soviets near the city of Kursk. When the heaviest combat operations had ended in the spring of 1943, a large "bulge" remained in the Soviet lines. The German plan called for attacking at the base of this bulge on both sides (pinching it off), thus cutting off substantial Soviet forces. The Soviets were ready, and the clash of major forces took place in early July 1943. The German offensive failed, and the Soviets launched their own offensive against the now weakened German front. The German "home front" was shaken by the mounting casualties and defeats.

* The German military did some extraordinary things during the war; but they were serving such an evil nutcase.

** Bulgaria, part of the Axis alliance, also supplied troops to help garrison the area, as did Croatia, which had its own army and fascist militia in the aftermath of Yugoslavia's defeat in 1941.

WORD HISTORY:
Room-This noun goes back to Indo European "reu/rew/row," with the basic notion of "open space." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "ruman," with essentially the same meaning, "open space, space." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "rum," with a long "u" sound, with the same meaning. Later it became "roum," before the modern spelling. During the late 1300s it developed the sense "cargo space inside of a ship," which then expanded in the 1400s to "individual spaces inside of a house or building," which from then on became the predominant meaning in English. The verb form, meaning "to occupy a place for residency" or "to share a living space with someone," didn't come along until about the early 1800s. English still retains the "space" meaning when we say "make room for;" that is, "clear space for." Common in the other Germanic languages, although most retain the "space" notion as the primary meaning: German has "Raum," which tends to be used more for "space," as well as "room" (German "Weltraum" means "outer space"). It also can mean "vicinity" or "region," as in "im Raum Berlins," "in the Berlin region, in the Berlin vicinity." Hitler's term, "Lebensraum," meant "living space," or "living room," but not "living room" in the English language sense of "one of the main rooms in a dwelling, often used for entertainment, including for guests." Low German Saxon has "Ruum," Frisian has what now "seems" to be the rarely used "Rüm," Dutch has "ruim," Danish and Swedish have "rum," Norwegian has "rom," and Icelandic has "rúm."