Army Group C
Karl Wolff, the Higher SS Police Chief for Italy had committed numerous war crimes during the struggle against the CLN guerrillas and with the defeat of the "Reich" a certainty by early 1945 was looking for immunity for himself and the other SS and Wehrmacht officers in Italy. Besides for war crimes committed against the Italian people during the anti-guerrilla war, Wolff had been deeply involved in the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" as he triumphantly wrote a letter to a friend in 1942 stating his: "special joy that now five thousand of the Chosen People are going to Treblinka every day". For his part, Dulles wanted to see an orderly surrender in Italy which would ensure the Allies rather than the Italian guerrillas, many of whom belonged to the Italian Communist Party, would take over northern Italy. Dulles rejected Wolff's demand that Army Group C be allowed to cross over to Austria to continue the war, insisting that the men of Army Group C surrender to the Allies, but also agreed that the men of Army Group C would surrender to the Allied armies rather than the guerrillas of CLN and be allowed to keep their weapons for an interim period after surrendering. The Wehrmacht leaders in Italy were only interested in Operation Sunrise as a means to move Army Group C into Austria and once they learned that was not possible, lost interest. Field marshal Albert Kesselring, the departing German commander in Italy, told the new commander Heinrich von Vietinghoff: "...that an end to the fighting will not be considered at all as long as the "Führer" is still alive". In practice, the negotiations in Switerland led no-where as General Vietinghoff was opposed to any "premature" surrender as he was keenly aware of the "Dolchstoßlegende" and he did not want to be blamed for any new "stab-in-the-back".