Mission for Mussolini (2006)

"In October 1944, Luigi Romersa, a young Italian journalist, was sent to Germany by Mussolini to gather information on Hitler’s secret weapons. During that very spring, at Klessheim Castle near Salzburg, Hitler had tried to reassure Mussolini on the final outcome of the war. He had confided to him that he possessed a bomb that would “upset the world”, and a number of other secret weapons that would soon be ready for use.

Mussolini, who had felt partly lonely and partly reassured by Hitler’s words, decided that he wanted to know more about these new and revolutionary weapons. He summoned Luigi Romersa, a young reporter at Corriere della Sera and a staunch supporter of the regime, who not only had been a war correspondent but was also a pilot. Mussolini gave him two letters: one for Goebbels, the other for Hitler, and sent him on a mission to discover some facts. Romersa travelled by car to Berlin where he met Goebbels. The Minister for Propaganda read Mussolini’s letter and phoned Hitler’s HQ at Rastenburg: a flight was arranged to take Romersa to East Prussia where he met Hitler in person. At Rastenburg, the young journalist gave Mussolini’s second letter to the Führer. From that moment on, all doors were open to him.

Luigi Romersa was the only foreigner who was granted access into German secret military bases and into the factories where a new generation of weapons was coming into being. He witnessed various tests and also visited Peenemünde, the impenetrabile rocket launchpad where a pool of scientists led by young Wernher von Braun worked relentlessly. The young journalist saw how a series of V2 rocket were assembled and launched. Il Duce’s envoy gained the trust and the respect of the German scientists and of the military officers he met. He took detailed notes, photographed everything he saw and started to meet Wernher von Braun regularly.

Of all the weapons of new design, the most important was no doubt the A-bomb, or “disgregating bomb”, as it was called at the time. Romersa witnessed an experiment which took place on Rügen Island in the Baltic Sea. On October 12, 1944, he was one of the few that saw the massive destructive power of the new bomb. Accordino to Romersa’s notes, the Germans had not yet managed to build a detonator, a key element for the functioning, and they worked frantically to solve this problem.

Romersa’s mission later continued between Austria and Germany. He collected drawings, photos and notes on everything he saw. In Bremen he met Captain Schriever, nicknamed “The Martian”, creator of a “flying saucer” able to reach the speed of 2000 km/h. The inventor showed his drawings to Romersa and discussed the pros and cons of the new machine with him. On returning to Italy, Romersa presented a 40-page-report to Il Duce. When Mussolini asked him for a personal opinion on what he’d seen, Romersa replied that it was too late: the German special weapons project was too much behind schedule to influence the course of the war in any way. The scientists should have needed 6 or 7 more weeks. Il Duce replied that he considered a victory to be still feasible. A few weeks later he was dead, while the Germans were fighting the Allies on Italian territory.

Luigi Romersa is still alive and has been working on his memories. The account of his mission for Mussolini takes us into the heart of the secret German war machine and at the same time gives a straight and intimate portrait of Mussolini just days prior to his end. The key episodes of the mission come back to life through reconstructions and “enactments”. Moreover, the filmmakers relied on a wide quantity of material from the Istituto Luce Archive as well as on original photos from Romersa’s vast and almost unknown own collection, while animations and computer graphics show the major innovations of the German war machine."

Directed by Vania Del Borgo Produced by Marco Visalberghi & Vania Del Borgo for DocLab srl

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Runtime:...............44mn 18s
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