Post by Diarist on Feb 13, 2016 17:43:40 GMT 1
Mussolini had met with Dino Grandi late yesterday evening and was predictably opposed to a German annexation of Austria. The next morning however, after the Yugoslavian entry into the war and angry about the League of Nations sanctions applied against his country for aggression against Ethiopia, he summoned the German Ambassador in Rome, Ulrich von Hassell, and told him that he wanted to see an Austro-German agreement "which would in practice bring Austria into Germany's wake, so that she could pursue no other foreign policy than one parallel with Germany. If Austria, as a formally independent state, were thus in practice to become a German satellite, he would have no objection". By recognizing Austria was within the German sphere of influence, Mussolini would remove the principal problem in Italo-German relations which had been quite bad since mid-1933, and especially since the July Putsch of 1934, so Mussolini's remarks to Hassell indicating that he wanted a rapprochement with Germany are extremely significant to Germany. Hassel also promised to convey this to the German Foreign Secretary Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath in Vienna.