Disloyal as he had been to some of his closest associates, a number of whom he had had murdered, such as Roehm and Strasser, Hitler maintained a strange and unusual loyalty to his ridiculous Italian partner that did not weaken, that indeed was strengthened when adversity and then disaster overtook the strutting, sawdust Roman Caesar. It is one of the interesting paradoxes of this narrative. At any rate, for what it was worth—and few Germans besides Hitler, especially among the generals, thought it was worth very much—Italy’s entrance into the war had now at last been solemnly promised.
