On 10 November, Skorzny arrived at the base camp in Rastenburg, but was not received by Hitler until 11 November, along with five other officers.

The news of Mussolini's ouster immediately reached the wolf's den, and Hitler was furious, and Italy's defection would undoubtedly tear a big gap in the belly of Germany's European fortress.

In fact, before this, the Germans were not unaware that Italy was secretly sending autumn waves to the Allies, and their reaction was to import more troops and resources to Italy in order to support this "soft belly of Europe", however, in Hitler's view, the more direct reason for the betrayal of Italy was personal factors, he could not tolerate his friend being imprisoned by the Allied people, and believed that Mussolini must be rescued, so that he could return to power in Italy and continue to serve the fascists.

To this end, Hitler ordered the German army to move quickly to occupy Italy, and the General Staff soon worked out a plan, including four plans: "Operation Axis", which ordered the German forces in Italy to take over, capture or destroy the Italian fleet;

"Black Ops", which ordered the German troops in Italy to occupy Italy and disarm the Italian army;

"Operation Studenter", headed by General Kurt Studenter, commander of the German paratroopers, who ordered him to command the German army to occupy Rome and cooperate in the rescue of Mussolini;

"Operation Oak", organizing commandos, rescuing Mussolini,

Hitler came in and asked them, "Which one is familiar with Italy?" ”

"I am familiar with it, I have been to Italy twice, on a motorbike all the way to Naples," replied Skorzne. "And others do not speak, because they are not familiar,

Hitler nodded, "I'm going to ask you a question, what do you think of the Italians." ”

The officers who were summoned answered Hitler's questions one by one according to their ranks, some said that they were "friends of the Axis powers", some said that they were "partners in international treaties", and some said that they were "their own people".

It was Skorzny's turn to answer, and he said, "I'm Austrian." ”

Skorzner thought that this sentence was sufficient, because he knew that Hitler was also an Austrian, and he must have had the same feelings about the Italian seizure of Austrian territory in South Tyrol after the First World War.

"Major Skorzny stays, the others can go." With only two men left in the house, Hitler told Skorzny about the coup d'état that had just taken place in Italy, ordered him to take charge of "Operation Oak", and informed the commander of the paratrooper unit, General Studente, that he would cooperate with him in his mission, providing him with troops, planes, and everything he needed at all times.

The next day, Skorzny and his deputy Radel flew to Rome with a number of "Fredenthal" commandos to take the command of Student as adjutants, and the first problem of the rescue operation was to find out where Mussolini was, and now the question was where the fascist leader was, Mussolini was taken to the gendarmerie barracks on Via Coincino Serra, where he rested for only an hour, and then he was taken to the police quarters on Via Legnano, where the doctor examined him,

Mussolini's pulse was disturbed, his face was pale, he didn't eat a bite of dinner, he didn't fall asleep until 11 o'clock at night, and two hours later he was woken up again, and someone brought him a letter from Badoglio, which said that there were rumors of Mussolini's assassination going outside, and that the government had detained him for his personal safety, and that he was now allowed to go where he wanted.

After a little thought, Mussolini dictated four points: Pradepicio, who wanted to return to his native Romagna region; pledge to cooperate with Marshal Badoglio to the fullest extent possible; Expect the success of the new regime; In the future, he remained loyal to the king, but when Badoglio received a letter from Mussolini, he changed his mind, and at this time he had just been forced to join the allies in declaring war on Germany, and one of the conditions of the armistice proposed by the allies was to arrest Mussolini, so he secretly ordered the chief of naval intelligence, Maugheriti, to secretly transfer Mussolini to the island of Poncha in the Bay of Gaeta, west of Naples, where there was a prison for political prisoners, and on November 8, Mussolini was stuffed into a car and transported to Gaetta. The next day by boat to Poncha Island,

After being ordered to rescue Mussolini, Skorzny arrived in Rome by plane on November 13, and although martial law was issued, the atmosphere was surprisingly calm, as if nothing had happened, and two or three days later Radel arrived in Rome with 60 paratroopers and 10 espionage experts selected from the first battalion of the 7th Airborne Regiment, ready to start the rescue work.

However, there are different theories about Mussolini's whereabouts in the city of Rome, and all Skorzny knows is that he was taken out of the palace and sent to a place in an ambulance, although Italy has announced its accession to the Allies, but the Germans still have hope for the Italians, they believe that as long as Mussolini is rescued, Italy will rejoin the Axis powers, because of this thought, Skorzny and his party still appear relaxed when looking for the disappeared fascist leader, and do not adopt any rude methods,

As a result, after three weeks of searching, the rescue team still had no clues, and in the end, even Himmler sighed, "I can only go to the fortune telling." In desperation, Skorzny suddenly received a useful piece of information from a fruit merchant he had known before,

The fruit merchant's family was in a small town near Gaeta Bay, where according to him he was betrothed to a policeman who was guarding political prisoners on the island of Poncha, and they had not dated for two or three weeks recently. The officer said that he had seen with his own eyes the hunting submarine in which he was serving sailed from the military port of La Spezia to the island of Poncha with Mussolini on board.

On November 28, Skorzny received new information that Mussolini was no longer on the island of Poncha, and that the Italian government, fearing that the Germans would come to rescue him, transferred him to Sardinia as early as November 23, first in a small village at the northern end of the island, and then to the fortified naval base of Maddalena, which is 5 kilometers away from Sardinia, and was imprisoned in a mansion on the island called "Villa Colón".

In order to verify this latest information, Skorzny took men disguised as crew members to Sardinia, borrowed a motorboat from the German naval detachment stationed there, and went around the island of Maddalena to reconnoiter the coastal terrain, and his men received information that Mussolini was on the island from the old farmers who delivered vegetables and fruits to the island every day.

Heavily guarded by heavy ground fire, Skorzny planned to avoid a frontal attack and rescue Mussolini by a paratrooper attack, and in order to carry out this plan, he returned to Germany to gather his men and first conduct aerial reconnaissance of the island of Magdalena.

On December 2nd, Skorzny and his men set off in a majestic manner, but their He-111 aircraft was intercepted by British patrol fighters over Sardinia, although they escaped the British plane's fire, but because the left engine stopped and made a forced landing on the sea, although the crew survived, but Skorzny was knocked out of 3 ribs, fortunately they were soon rescued by an Italian ship, which, ironically, was sent by the Badoglio government to guard the sea. Carrying out the mission of protecting Mussolini,

After returning to Berlin with the broken ribs, Skorzny immediately proposed a bold rescue plan to Hitler in person, launching a sea assault on the port of Maddalena Island by first sending a German ship to "pay a courtesy visit" to Maddalena Island, and then sending a small fleet of R-boats (high-speed minesweepers) to enter the harbor and anchor.

In the early morning of the next day, the R boat carrying the commandos rushed to the pier with the support of the German ships in the harbor, let the crew ashore, and rushed to the Cologne hill with the support of the naval guns, and the Italian soldiers guarding the place were bound to be frightened by the sudden attack of the Germans, unable to resist, Hitler immediately gave the green light to this adventure, and finally warned him that "Italy is still an ally of Germany, and from a national point of view, the sovereignty of Italy cannot be violated, and if this attempt succeeds, you will be appreciated, and if it fails, it will be condemned, Then there will be no excuse for you, and I will have to remove you from your post. "Hitler always believed that as long as Mussolini was rescued, Italy would soon return to the arms of the Axis powers, and Skorzny could only obey this,

After meeting with Hitler, Skorzny and his men returned to the island of Maddalena, which was December 5, and the next day the rescue operation was to be launched, and they went to a laundry near the Cologne Villa, which was their observation point, where Skorzny unexpectedly ran into a Cologne Hill guard, and he said to him, "I heard that Mussolini seems to be dead." The guard told him solemnly: "No, he is not dead, I just saw him this morning, and he flew away in a white seaplane." A few days later, while visiting the Braziano airbase, located about 51 kilometers from Rome, General Student overheard the commander of the unit say that "there was an air raid siren not long ago, during which a white seaplane landed here, and several people got out of the plane and were taken away by an ambulance." "Student knew that the Italian guards guarding Mussolini would sound a false air raid siren every time they intended to transfer him, so it was very likely that he would be transferred to the mainland again, but somewhere,