When Mussolini was imprisoned in the Imperial Hotel in the Abruzzi Mountains by the Italian King in 1943, Hitler was enraged and got Otto Skorzeny and his SS Commandos to perform a daring daylight raid in Sept '43. 12 DFS-230 assault gliders took off for the attack but only 8 landed and used nose braking rockets to land within 40 ft. The 90 German troops within 12 minutes had rescued Mussolini w/o firing a single shot! He was to be taken by cable car back to the ground but Skorzeny opted for a risky Fi-156 Storch STOL ride instead. The overload Storch took off in short distance but then faced a 2150m plunge off the cliff. It dipped a bit but the pilot got her up and got Mussolini back to German territory where he went to Berlin. Skorzeny won the Iron Cross and proceeded to work in Ardennnes with commandos trained to deceive Allied troops by switching road signs, and using fake English-speaking MPs with captured US Jeeps and weapons to further complicate advances. Skorzeny was considered "the most dangerous man in Europe" during WW2.

Mussolini was later captured by partisans and shot to death with his mistress. Their bodies were hung up at a local gas station upside down and stabbed and bludgeoned for fun. Hitler saw the footage and probably made the decision to commit suicide rather than face capture by the Red Horde.