The capture of Bolzano did not take much time for the Germans, and it was the 106th Infantry Regiment of the 15th Infantry Division of the Seventh Army of the German Army that was responsible for suppressing the task. It was a three-battalion standard infantry regiment, commanded by the newly appointed Lieutenant Colonel Harkeland Dow, who was only thirty-two years old at the time, but was already a recipient of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves.

Prior to his promotion, he commanded an infantry battalion in the 236th Infantry Regiment of the 69th Infantry Division, participated in the offensive and defensive operations on the Western Front in London, and showed excellent command skills in the battle, which was highly praised by General Guderian after the war.

It has become a well-known secret in the Wehrmacht that the Führer likes to promote officers as young as he is, and the fact that junior officers have room for promotion is also a great incentive to the morale of the rank-and-file troops.

The older generation of officers was not worried about this, the army has always been a place of seniority, and their authority will not be shaken by this, on the contrary, in the eyes of these old Junckers, this is obviously a good thing, and the increase in the number of senior commanders means that the strength of the Wehrmacht is also growing accordingly.

Judging by the feedback from the forward scouts, Hackland Dauer judged that the Italians had no idea that the border had been lost, and that there was no sign of Italian military activity outside Bolzano, and that the city was now completely open to the Germans.

The infantry commander made a bold decision, instead of deploying his troops on the outskirts of the city, as originally planned, he took the military column directly to occupy the suburban station, and then used the station as a base to storm along the city streets from east to west, trying to quickly occupy the entire city before the Italians reacted.

Hackland Doer's adventure was a huge success, and when the city changed hands, most of the locals were still asleep. Only during the capture of the police station during the whole process, a few minutes of firefighting ensued, killing several brave Italian officers and capturing the remaining officers on duty. For the rest of the day, the Germans were busy sealing government offices and stockpiles, and driving some of the Italians back to their homes who had run out into the streets to see the excitement.

The mayor and police chief of Bolzano were dragged out of their warm bed by German soldiers and stuffed into military vehicles to the German headquarters, where they tried to figure out where the German GIs came from and why they had not received any news before.

At this moment, a column full of German soldiers and equipment roared through the Bolzano station with a loud whistle towards the next Italian city. In the next twenty-four hours, a large number of freight trains will arrive in the city, and the High Command plans to set up a large logistics center in Bolzano to supply all the German occupation forces in the Alpine region.

Another point of interest to the German High Command was that Bolzano had a well-equipped airfield and a squadron of Italian fighters.

Italy is a big aviation country in Europe, in the early stage of the development of aviation technology, Italian aircraft designers have been at the forefront of the world, Italy designed and manufactured aircraft, once famous for its fashionable style and excellent flight quality.

Flying was an aristocratic sport in Italy at that time, and the nobles of the families who pursued fashion and chivalry did not hesitate to spend a lot of money in the aircraft industry, in order to build the fastest, tallest, farthest, and most beautiful planes, so that they could show their profound roots in front of the vulgar European relatives.

At that time, the Italians' biggest rivals were England and France, but the Italians were often able to rely on their superb machining skills and genius imagination to gain the upper hand in one aeronautical race after another.

Sadly, all of this came to an abrupt end with the global economic crisis, in which the Italian aristocracy lost so much that it could no longer afford such a costly and unjustified extravagance. The stagnation of Italian aviation technology, followed by the rise of the Fascist Party, and the departure of a large number of talented designers who were not accustomed to Mussolini's dictatorship, have never been able to find the spirituality of the past.

The topic is a little too far away, so let's turn back to the Italian airport in Bolzano. Stationed here was the 362nd Flying Squadron, which was part of the 52nd Italian Flying Wing. This unit, known as the squadron, was actually very short of staff, and there were only five planes parked in the hangar at this time, and all of them were old models like the Fiat CR32.

This 1933 biplane fighter, with a .bis 12-cylinder water-cooled engine, reached a top speed of 360 kilometers per hour, and was equipped with two 12.7 mm caliber machine guns.

Today, seven years later, the performance of this aircraft is not even third-rate, but the Italian Air Force is still equipped with almost 300 such fighters, accounting for a quarter of the total number of Italian fighters at that time.

The 362nd Flying Squadron took part in the previous operation against France, but fortunately did not suffer any losses, and certainly did not receive any results. When the war became stalemate, in order to save valuable fuel and spare parts, this squadron, which was useless for combat, was withdrawn from the front line, and the Romans threw them to Bolzano, a city surrounded by mountains, to maintain their presence as a symbolic armed force.

When the German infantry entered the airfield, all five planes were parked in the hangar. The airfield was guarded by an anti-aircraft machine gun platoon armed with six large-caliber anti-aircraft machine guns, but because the incident happened so suddenly, with only three sleepy-eyed sentries on duty in the battle position, the German infantry disarmed them without much effort and then barricaded the remaining soldiers in their barracks.

The pilots of the 362nd Squadron showed extraordinary courage, they were awakened in their sleep by the noise in the barracks, when they realized what had happened, the pilots did not even have time to change their uniforms, and launched a counterattack against the attacking Germans only in their pajamas, although they finally had to surrender to the Germans because the bullets in their pistols ran out, but they did show the backbone of the Italian officers in front of the Germans and maintained the honor of the 362nd Flying Squadron.

In particular, not a single person from either side died in the battle at the airport, only an Italian lieutenant had the sole of his foot cut by a shattered windowpane.

The importance of Bolzano airport was not gradually demonstrated until the end of the war, the Italian Air Force set up a navigation station and radio communication station in this airport, and a row of steel antennas with a height of 30 meters was erected in the corner of the airport. Here, the Germans not only captured a number of extremely important navigation materials, but also obtained the ciphers and keys currently used by the Italian Air Force and Army.

At six o'clock in the morning of the 21st, the German occupation of Bolzano was finally completed, half an hour before sunrise, and at this time, the 222nd Infantry Regiment under the 75th Infantry Division had completely captured the next city, Trento.

The column immediately behind the 222nd Regiment was loaded with the 9th Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, which belonged to the 9th Armored Division. Lieutenant General Hubiki and his division headquarters, attached motorcycle platoon, and cartographic detachment.

The 9th Panzer Division was the first German assault force in this operation, and according to the plan, it would launch an assault formation at Trento, and then rush south along the Adige River out of the Alps to the ancient Italian city of Verona.

According to the German High Command's schedule, this goal had to be achieved within 36 hours, and for the 9th Panzer Division, which was experienced in combat, it would be a test of the piloting skills and combat ability of the officers and men.

The 1st Battalion of the 33rd Armored Regiment, which arrived later, needed another hour to complete the unloading, and before that, the heavy armored reconnaissance company of the 9th Reconnaissance Battalion had already been fully deployed, and they took a signal detachment to launch a reconnaissance operation to the south one step ahead of schedule.

After a busy day and night, the German soldiers were still in high spirits, looking forward to encountering the enemy and eager to establish their merits in battle.

The eastern sky is already showing a hint of fish's belly, and the dawn of October 21 is approaching, and the Apennine Peninsula is ushering in a new day, and at the same time a new page in the history of Italy.

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