Pino lella biography

---

Giuseppe „Pino“ Lella (* June 11926 in Milano) is an Italian motorist and contemporary witness of the final phase of World War II. He was the driver of General Hans Leyers and at the same time spy for the Alliance.

In April 1945, he delivered Leyers to the Fifth United States Army and then became the driver of Major Frank Knebel until the end of the war.^[1]

Life

Lella grew up in Milan and when the first bombs fell there in 1943, his parents sent him safely to the Alps for Father Re's summer school, where he learned to drive.^[2]

In June 1944, Lella turned 18, the age when Italians were drafted by the state into military service.

He had two options: he could join one of Mussolini's fascist armies and most likely land on the Russian front or be drafted by the German army. Since Lella's aunt and uncle had connections to the Todt Organization, the Armaments and Building Department of the Third Reich, he joined and became a member of the German Army for his own s