Sisters In Resistance: How A German Spy, A Banker's Wife, and Mussolini's Daughter Outwitted the Nazis, Mazzeo - B

             "This is a story of how people who, finding themselves on the wrong path in the middle of their life's journey, discover the courage to change and to wrestle with the darkness and the reckoning that follows." At the core of the story is the efforts three woman made to protect the diaries of Galeazzo Ciano, married to the Duce's daughter Edda, and Foreign Minister. Ciano's diaries were used as proof at Nuremberg and remain an important first person account of the intentions of the leaders of the Reich. 

             Ciano was an aristocratic playboy appointed to his position in 1936. He wanted no part of the German alliance, and was opposed to the war. He kept Mussolini neutral until May, 1940. In early 1943, aware that Ciano had reached out tothe Americans, Mussolini fired him. In 1937, Ciano had begun a diary which he kept up until that point. Being a man who talked too much, he had not kept his diary secret. Both Hitler and Mussolini knew of its existence and knew that both men and their parties would be exposed and embarrassed by it.

            In July, the king removed Mussolini from office. The new PM, Pietro Badoglio, despised Ciano and stopped him from leaving Italy. Edda Ciano asked the Germans for help and they offered to fly the family to Spain and on to S. America. Before leaving Rome, Edda hid the diaries knowing full well that both dictators wanted them and that they might be a future bargaining chip. The Germans  put the Ciano family on a plane and flew them to Munich. Soon thereafter, Italy changed sides, and Hitler put Mussolini  in charge of a puppet state in the north of Italy. He sent Ciano back to Italy and Mussolini imprisoned him. Hilde Beetz, Ciano's interpreter, confidant and occasional lover negotiated a deal with her superiors in the German security forces. In exchange for those portions of the diaries incriminating Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, Ciano would be released from jail. Ciano delivered the diaries and was double-crossed by the Germans. 

           Hilde then assisted Edda in her escape from the SS, and friends helped Edda cross the Swiss border. She was free and had most of the remaining diaries with her. She wrote to Hitler and her father demanding the release of Ciano, or she would publish the diaries. The response was immediate. Ciano was convicted of treason and forthwith executed. The Gestapo, to the extent it could act surreptitiously, scoured Switzerland for Edda and the diaries. The Swiss had Edda stashed away first in a convent, and next in an insane asylum. As 1944 advanced, the diaries caught the attention of the US War Dept. and Allen Dulles, the OSS man in Switzerland. They assumed the diaries could be helpful for the planned Nuremberg trials. Frances de Chollet, American wife of a Swiss banker, was tasked with befriending Edda, who was unsure of how to make the diaries public. It took months to convince her, but Dulles did, and the OSS photographed 1,000 pages at de Chollet's residence in January, 1945. That summer, Dulles hand the translated version to Justice Jackson at Nuremberg. There was damning evidence against von Ribbentrop and Kaltenbrunner. Edda returned to Italy, where she was tried for her support of the regime and sentenced to two years of house arrest. Frances de Chollet returned to private life. When the Americans came to arrest Hilde Beetz as a Nazi and a spy, she surprised them. While translating the diaries that the Germans had, she had made copies and offered them to the US. She was soon working for the CIA. Rumors continued to fly after the war about 'missing' pieces of the Ciano diaries. This has been enlightening. Thanks to Kathy Blair for the recommendation.