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On April 21, Wolff was still uncertain as to his future standing when Rahn requested that he participate in a conference that, at Rahn’s instigation, was to take place on the morning of April 22, at the headquarters of the Army Group in Recoardo. Wolff hesitated to accept. He said that there had to be one of Kaltenbrunner’s spies among the conspirators. Before the spy was found, Wolff, who had just been absolved of all crimes, did not want to jeopardize his reacquired state of grace with the Führer. Rahn, however, pressured him; without the trappings of power or the participation of the Highest SS and Police Führer, the surrender could not take place. If Wolff didn’t go along with it, the others would also pull out for personal security reasons. Finally, Wolff agreed to take part in the conference at the Army Group the next morning.

The commander began by describing how badly the front had been broken and how quickly the enemy was advancing. He had therefore requested to Führer headquarters by radio that they be allowed to undertake an orderly retreat, but as always, he had been instructed to defend every inch of ground, down to the last man. “Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers,” said Vietinghoff, “are waiting for the words from me that will save their lives. Time is running out…” All those present agreed; General Hans Röttinger, Luftwaffe General Max von Pohl, the gauleiter of Tyrol Franz Hofer, and SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff
and his staff. He reported that Hitler had ordered him to pursue the contacts with Dulles. This gave them all an alibi to take further trips to Switzerland. Wolff was requested to please bring the plan that he had started to a conclusion.

As they began discussing details, however, their show of unity began to crack. Vietinghoff once again requested an “honorable” surrender that, Wolff felt, would not be acceptable to the Allies; however he sensed that it would be a mistake to oppose the general. Hofer demanded that South Tyrol be separated from Italy and united to Northern Tyrol as part of a resurgent Austria. He wanted this to be guaranteed in the surrender documents. No one among the participants had yet understood that this time the defeated party would be unable to set conditions and that even the promises made by the victors could change later on. It wasn’t until early morning that they agreed that Wolff would travel to Switzerland immediately, this time with two plenipotentiary negotiators. Vietinghoff appointed Lieutenant Colonel Hans-Lothar von Schweinitz. Obersturmbannführer Eugen Wenner, one of Wolff’s adjutants, would act as the plenipotentiary for the SS and the Police. It was also decided that the headquarters of the Army Group would be transferred to Bozen because the enemy had already reached the outskirts of Milan. Lake Garda was also threatened at that point. Rahn and Wolff had to find new locations. Vietinghoff had to leave the move to his staff, while Wolff, Wenner and Schweinitz left for the Swiss border, during the early morning hours of April 23. Parilli once again was also part of the group.

Using a password they informed the Swiss border patrol that the Swiss Secret Service had authorized their entrance. Parilli called Waibel to inform him that the delegation was prepared to sign the surrender at Allied headquarters in Caserta, “That was, mildly stated, a hellish situation,” Dulles remembered later. Now, he first told Waibel that he was no longer allowed to speak to the Germans, that he was convinced that his superiors would not have decided on this ban had they known “that the negotiators were already on their way.” Waibel had to jump in and help out. He offered accommodations for the Germans in a secluded house above Lake Vierwaldstätter, near Lucerne, to wait for a decision from Washington. When it finally came, it was far from clear: Dulles should not negotiate, but let private Swiss citizens Waibel and Husmann do so, with Dulles passing along their reports to his superior’s office. Roosevelt’s successor, Harry S. Truman, still inexperienced in international affairs, was hoping in this manner to avoid accusations from Stalin.

Waibel and Husmann, as usual, took the Germans under their wing at the border. Wolff found out that Washington had first become suspicious since his trip to Berlin; he was to remain in Lucerne until the situation had become clear. Dulles was not allowed to meet with Wolff, but he did require first hand information and therefore sent his colleague Gero von Gaevernitz to the Hotel Schweizerhof in Lucerne. He let Wolff know that the Allies were suspicious that his visit with Hitler could mean that the German dictator was indeed behind the offer to surrender after all. All Wolff could do was wait.

On April 24, a radio signal from Himmler reached him in a roundabout way: “It matters now more than ever that the Italian front should hold… Not even the slightest hint of negotiations can be allowed at this time.” As Wolff’s escort read the text, he said to them, “What Himmler is saying now is meaningless!” On the other hand, Dulles made no moves. He didn’t want to ruin his own career with this complicated matter. So the whole thing could have ended then and there had Waibel not been constantly keeping up the pressure. On the telephone, he told Dulles: “We will look ridiculous if we don’t straighten this thing out. Here we have the German negotiators ready to offer an unconditional surrender, and the Allies don’t even want to receive them. Do you want to end the war by having them kill everyone?”

The next day when the situation still appeared unchanged, Wolff lost his patience. He was required very urgently in Italy, he said. Schweinitz and Wenner had the authority to sign and it was not necessary for him to remain in Switzerland. The precarious situation at the front was his pretext, but he actually had to go to Milan. Dollmann had negotiated an armistice with the partisans through the mediation of Cardinal Schuster, agreeing that Wolff would appear at a final meeting during the next few days. But that was just a ruse by Wolff to keep the partisans quiet until he and the Allies had reached an agreement. Now time was running short. Once the rebellion broke out in all of northern Italy, it was not just the Wehrmacht that would be in great danger. It was feared that the communists would eventually take power from the Balkans to the Spanish border. And since the Duce threatened to return to his Socialist past, one no longer could even exclude that he had joined up with the left-wing partisans.

Cardinal Schuster summoned several leaders of the partisans to his office on April 25, leaving it open for both Wolff and Mussolini whether they agreed to negotiate with them or not. The SS general did not appear.
The partisans were demanding the unconditional capitulation of Mussolini’s few divisions and of the Fascist party militia, which was far stronger in numbers, but whose units existed mostly on paper. Mussolini appeared ready to accept, if certain guarantees were offered. However, Marshal Graziani objected that this could not happen without the Germans’ agreement. He and Mussolini were then told that the SS had no such scruples, because they had been negotiating an armistice with the partisans for days.

Mussolini screamed in outrage, “The Germans did this behind my back. This time, we will be able to say that Germany betrayed Italy!” He compared the situation to the First World War alliance. At the beginning Italy was allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the
Triple Alliance
, but the kingdom of Italy at first remained neutral at the outbreak of the war and then joined the English, French, and Russians. In this respect, coming from Mussolini, betrayal was a harsh word to use against an ally who only appeared to be doing something (as a ploy) that Mussolini was about to do himself. At any rate, this was how he managed a melodramatic exit from the palace. He no longer felt that he could switch sides. Since Milan was now practically controlled by the partisans, he and his entourage got into their cars. They drove to Como. There, they spent the night, only a few short kilometers from Wolff.

On April 25, Wolff returned to Italy shortly before midnight by train through the Swiss border station at Chiasso. Very close to the border at Cernobbio, a few kilometers before Como on the western bank of Lake Como, the SS had an office at Villa Locatelli, the home of a millionaire cheese manufacturer. Wolff decided to sleep there. But early that morning another guest came to the same house: Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, who had separated himself from Mussolini in Como and was now seeking the protection of the SS. The plenipotentiary who was to go to Caserta was also supposed to sign the surrender of the Italian divisions, which had not yet been authorized. Wolff first attempted to quiet the Marshal, who was furious because of the unauthorized decision to negotiate, but then succeeded in having him sign a paper giving Wolff authority to negotiate for the Italians.

He could have sent the document to Gaevernitz, but since he wanted to continue his trip, a strong and well-equipped partisan unit was blocking him. It had taken positions around the entire estate. An attempt to escape would have been suicide. The telephone, however, was working.
Standartenführer Rauff
*
was asked for support over the phone, but he could only send a few men. They arrived in two armored scout cars and an 8/8 gun. During the attempt to break the encirclement, the artillery and the vehicles were damaged.

Again, it was Waibel who handled the situation. He was moved not only by the disadvantages that would come to Switzerland because of the continued fighting in Italy, but also by the responsibility he felt towards the Germans, since he was instrumental in starting the negotiations. He told Gaevernitz, that if Wolff became a victim of the partisans, the surrender would fail. They decided to use a man who resided in Lugano, working as a U.S. agent, by the name of Scotti, who occasionally supplied the partisans with dollars to acquire weapons on the black market.

From Lugano, Waibel called the Villa Locatelli. The line was still operating. He told Wolff that the U.S. agent would try to get through with two cars that night. The undertaking was successful; the partisans were persuaded by their “friend Scott” to lift the siege. At about 2:00 a.m. on April 27, Wolff reached the train station restaurant in Chiasso. There Gaevernitz and Waibel were waiting for him. Wolff said, “I will never forget what you have done for me.” In the afternoon, he began the journey to headquarters, which, in the meantime, had moved to Bozen. The partisans blocked the fastest way; Waibel had to smuggle him through towards the north of Switzerland to the border station at Arth-Goldau. Near Feldkirch he could cross to Vorarlberg. After a long detour across the Arlberg and Reschen Passes, he reached Bozen at midnight on April 27. He knew by then that the two negotiators were flying to Allied headquarters in Caserta to sign the surrender. Stalin had no further objections; he sent several of his own military as observers.

Wolff immediately called a conference at the offices of the Gauleiter in Bozen. Those present were Vietinghoff, Röttinger, Rahn, and Hofer, among others. The building was on a steep cliff, where Hofer had carved out air raid tunnels. Since he felt that he was hosting the conference he demanded to sit at the head of the negotiating table. When Wolff reported that the German negotiators had signed unconditionally in Caserta, Hofer
interrupted him to ask whether his political demands had been negotiated. Wolff replied that in view of the desperate military situation, anything of that nature was no longer possible. The gauleiter then demanded that he be regarded as the highest authority for all decisions in South Tyrol, whether political or military. Vietinghoff, Rahn, and Wolff disagreed. After many hours of debate, they separated, completely at odds with one another.

Because he did not have the power to enforce his claim, Hofer called Field Marshal Kesselring, the Commander-in-Chief in the West. His headquarters were already far to the east—the Americans having pushed him back to Pullach near Munich. Kesselring knew that Wolff had negotiated with Dulles, when the SS general had visited him a month ago. Dollmann had in the meantime also traveled to Bavaria to inform him expressly. During these talks, however, an unconditional surrender had not yet been mentioned. As former liaison officer between Kesselring and Wolff, Dollmann knew what he could expect of the Commander-in-Chief. He was, Kesselring wrote later, at that point, still opposed to it because he wanted to gain more time for German troops in the east to save themselves from being taken prisoner by the Soviets.

When Hofer called Kesselring for help, they both knew that Hitler would very shortly give the general the supreme command of all German units in the southern Germany. This would also place Vietinghoff’s army group under his command. He already took advantage of these rights to get involved in what was going on in Italy. He went to see Hofer in Innsbruck. As General Röttinger was being summoned there, he used the pretext of urgent military business and sent Oberst Josef Moll as his representative. Kesselring interrogated him and threatened him with a court-martial for treason—in other words, a death sentence. Moll, however, was not intimidated that easily. If such a procedure were necessary, he said in Hofer’s presence, then the gauleiter must be condemned as well. At the beginning of April at a meeting of the Army Group, Hofer had said that Hitler had gone mad, and that he would not blindly go to his death by following the orders of the Führer headquarters. Moll was sent back to Bozen after midnight.

Between the Brenner Pass and Innsbruck he encountered the car of his supreme commander. Vietinghoff was also summoned for an interrogation. Moll warned him, but the senior general would not stay behind. He was held in Innsbruck from the early morning of April 29 until midday the following day. He returned to Bozen on the afternoon of April
30, in the company of General Friedrich Schulz and Lieutenant General Fritz Wentzell; respectively, the new Supreme Commander of the Army and his Chief of Staff. The dismissed Generals Vietinghoff and Röttinger were ordered to make their way to Lake Karer where a court-martial would issue a sentence. Röttinger was allowed to remain in office in Bozen for twenty-four hours so he could give instructions to his successor.

Kesselring could do nothing against Wolff; the SS general did not report to him. So Kesselring left it to the discretion of SS Obergruppenführer and Chief of the Security Police Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who had gone to Innsbruck to avoid the issue, to arrange that his orders would be carried out. The SS special units of Skorzeny and Begus were safely in South Tyrol, and they would accept any assignment that would keep them as far away from the war as possible; Kaltenbrunner could therefore use them in a coup against his archenemy Wolff.