World War II: Benito Mussolini is rescued from house arrest by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny.

During World War II, the Gran Sasso raid on 12 September 1943 was a successful operation by German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos to help the deposed Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini escape from custody in the Gran Sasso d'Italia massif. The airborne operation was personally ordered by Adolf Hitler, approved by General Kurt Student and planned and executed by Major Harald Mors.

Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny was an Austrian-born German SS-Standartenführer in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including the removal from power of Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy and the Gran Sasso raid that rescued Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny led Operation Greif in which German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines wearing their enemies' uniforms. As a result, he was charged in 1947 at the Dachau Military Tribunal with breaching the 1907 Hague Convention, but was acquitted.