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The view that German and Allied forces fought a senseless campaign for haly during the Second World War prevails in many histories of that conflict. They present the battle for Italy as a bitterly-contested. prolonged fight up the peninsula. wasting Allied men and resources. Evidence contradicting this judgment shows that Italy's political, economic, geographic, and military assets between the years 1943 and 1945 made it a prize worth winning. Allied leaders never grasped this fact nor made an effective effort to deny Germany this valuable asset. The German defense ofItaly secured the loyalty of Axis allies in Eastern Europe and permitted the establishment of a Fascist Italian puppet state under Benito Mussolini. 11 Moreover, Germany reaped an enormous harvest of agricultural and economic products in Italy. German estimates that Italy contributed between fifteen and twenty-five percent of total output in late 1944 show that it was truly a prize worth winning. Th